Is There Hope for the Children of Imprisoned Parents? Part 1 of 2

We recently argued to a federal judge that he should not just lock our client up and throw away the keys forever because, among other reasons, our client had seven children that would be left without a father. To our astonishment, the prosecutor stood up and told the court that society would be served even better if my client were locked up for a very long time because, at the rate he was going, our client by and through his actions was raising his children to be future repeat offenders. Our client’s family and others noticeably gasped, as one of those children to which she pointed was only six months old and being cradled by his mother. How dare she say something like that about a six-month old child? Not only could her comment be construed as racist and based on the assumption that, because our client was a minority, his family members were surely criminals, but also simply cruel to call an innocent and helpless six-month child a future criminal. That day in court we surely had a whole lot to say to the judge as to how such a statement was completely wrong and deserved no consideration as to a fair sentence for our client. But back at the office, we could not get the prosecutor’s comment out of our heads. Was she right? Are our client’s children, because of his behavior and past and future incarceration, likely to become repeat offenders?

The emotions a child feels when losing a parent to imprisonment is similar in many respects to those emotions felt when a child’s parent dies. Think about it, one day dad is here and the next day he is gone. Many parents will not tell their children what is going on with a criminal case in an effort to shield that child from knowing anything until the end of a criminal case when the punishment is set in stone. While an understandable approach, it essentially doesn’t allow a child to prepare for what is inevitable in many cases – dad is here one day and off to prison the next. In some cases, parents never tell their children the truth about the missing parent’s whereabouts. This is done in an effort to prevent the child from being embarrassed or feeling shame about dad. The problem is that the child is left without any satisfactory explanation as to what happened to dad – similar to when a parent dies and the question of why did this happen to me.

The reality is that too many children suffer from the emotional fall-out of losing a parent to prison. According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice, fifty-three percent of the roughly 1.5 million people held in U.S. prisons are the parents of one or more minor children. That leaves more than 1.7 million minor children with a parent in prison. African American children are seven times more likely to have a parent in prison than white children, and Latino children two and a half times more likely. The approximate risk of parental imprisonment for white children by the age of 14 is one in 25, while for black children it is one in four. A link to this research can be found on our website blog.

Research and solid statistics are lacking regarding whether a child is more likely to become a criminal solely based on the fact they are the child of a parent in prison. However, if you analyze the common risk factors that arise for a child experiencing the trauma of losing a parent to prison, a case can be made that the answer is in fact, “yes.” According to Justice Strategies, a nonpartisan, nonprofit research organization, when a child’s life is turned upside down by the loss of a parent, the resulting risk factors and associated behaviors – which tend to be common in the personal history and characteristics of adult criminals – can include: instability at home; loss of parental support; increased poverty; risk of getting involved with drugs to earn money or to escape reality; low self-esteem due to societal shame; becoming adults too soon in life; and, an increased likelihood of school failure, unemployment, and mental health problems. A link to this research can be found on our website blog.

Common sense dictates that a child who possesses a combination of these risk factors and behaviors, at the every least, stands a greater chance of making poor choices not accepted by society, one of which may be resorting to criminal activity.

Part 2 of this article will be posted in my next blog. The second part will focus on: who is to blame … the parent in prison or the system; what can be done to help children of imprisoned parents beat the odds; was the prosecutor right?