Poverty Fact Sheet: Life Beyond Bars: Children with an Incarcerated Parent

In 2010, 2.7 million children in the United States had a parent in jail or prison. This fact sheet from the Institute for Research on Poverty highlights the various impacts that incarceration of a parent can have on a child. Some of these effects include the loss of daily contact, changes in family structure, negative family dynamics, emotional instability, poverty, and social behaviors and stigma. The author offers several policy options that could help mitigate these impacts.