{"id":65972,"date":"2015-02-25T16:45:28","date_gmt":"2015-02-25T21:45:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/?p=65972"},"modified":"2019-11-06T16:47:32","modified_gmt":"2019-11-06T21:47:32","slug":"children-of-the-prison-boom","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2015\/02\/25\/children-of-the-prison-boom\/","title":{"rendered":"Children of the Prison Boom"},"content":{"rendered":"

The United States imprisons more people<\/a> than any other country. This is true whether\u00a0you measure by percentage of the population or\u00a0by sheer, raw\u00a0numbers. If the phrase mass incarceration<\/em> applies anywhere, it applies in the good ol’ U. S. of A.<\/p>\n

It wasn’t always this way. Rates of incarceration began rising as a result of President Reagan’s “war on drugs” in the ’80s (marijuana<\/a>, for example), whereby the number of people imprisoned for non-violent crimes began climbing at an alarming rate. Today, about one-in-31 adults are in prison.\u00a0his is a human rights crisis for the people that are incarcerated, but its impact also echoes through the job sector, communities, families, and the hearts of children. One-in-28 school-age children — 2.7 million<\/a> — have a parent in prison.<\/p>\n

\"2<\/a><\/p>\n

In a new book,\u00a0Children of the Prison Boom,<\/em><\/a>\u00a0sociologists Christopher Wildeman and Sara Wakefield describe the impact of parental imprisonment on children: an increase in poverty, homelessness, depression, anxiety, learning disorders, behavioral problems, and interpersonal aggression. Some argue that taking parents who have committed a crime out of the family might be good for children, but the data is in. It’s not.<\/p>\n

Parental incarceration is now included in research on Adverse Childhood Experiences<\/a> and it’s particular contours<\/a> include shame and stigma alongside the trauma. It has become such a large problem that Sesame Street<\/em> is incorporating in their Little Children, Big Challenges series and has a webpage<\/a> devoted to the issue. Try not to cry as a cast member sings “you’re not alone” and children talk about what it feels like to have a parent in prison:<\/p>\n