Reflections on Mother's Day: Two Reports on How Children Are Negatively Impacted When a Parent is Incarcerated

Date:  05-03-2016 Little thought is given to the children left behind when parents are locked up

From Child Trends More than 5 million U.S. children have had a parent in jail or prison. This is a traumatic experience, on par with experiencing abuse or witnessing domestic violence, that can have lasting negative impacts on children's lives. A new report from The Annie E. Casey Foundation details the number of children who've experienced parental incarceration, by state, and recommends actions to help them. Child Trends, which provided some data for the report, also recently published its own examination of this issue, including of the wide disparities that exist among groups of children in terms of prevalence.