Incarcerated Parents

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Introduction How are children being influenced when a parent or parents are not present? That is one of the greatest challenges that our children face today. We often think of divorce, military service, job relocation or the parent that has abandoned their children. There is a population of children whose lives have been impacted because their parents are imprisoned. The choices of the parents and the criminal justice system have caused families to be divided. The results of the break up the family structure, has had a staggering effect on children as well as our culture, social economics, community, educational system and the prison system. When the criminal justice system sentences a person, in most cases thinking of the family…show more content…
The larger loss is relationship with the family member. The loss, of connection for some with the extended family members if they are placed in foster care can be devastating. Children can feel abandon and lost. One of the figures given in the article Children’s Contact with their Incarcerated Parents, that in 2007, 1.7 million children had a parent in state or federal prison in the United States, an increase of 80% since 1991. It is estimated that possible millions of additional children have a parent in jail. The actual number of affected children is unknown because this information is not systematically collected by jails, corrections departments, schools, child welfare or other systems. It has been documented that children who have a father incarcerated tend to act out more with their behavior, but when a mother is incarcerated, the children act inward. The mothers tend to be the nurturer, the emotional glue for the child…show more content…
Arditti article Saturday Morning at the Jail, it is stated “that more than one million nonviolent prisoners are incarcerated in the United States and that 87% of the federal prisoners 53% off state prisoners and 74% of jail inmates were imprisoned for offenses that involved neither harm nor threat of harm to a victim. The large percentage of parents convicted of drug trafficking are receiving lengthy sentences, more than 12 years in state prisons and 10 years in federal prisons. A key contributor to the spiraling conviction and imprisonment rates includes the increased power prosecutors hold through plea bargaining and conspiracy laws especially at the federal level “(Arditti & McClintock,
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