Children Often Better Off With Criminal Parents Imprisoned

Children Often Better Off With Criminal Parents Imprisoned
AP Photo/Gregory Bull

A common, and emotionally potent, criticism of incarceration in the United States is that it harms children by taking parents and siblings—mostly fathers and brothers, since men account for more than 90 percent of prisoners—out of their homes, depriving families of caregivers, role models, and breadwinners. “More than 2.3 million people are incarcerated in the United States,” writes Black Lives Matter cofounder Alicia Garza, in an essay published by the Brennan Center for Justice. “That’s 2.3 million families that have been torn apart.” In that same Brennan Center compendium, Van Jones, cofounder of the #Cut50 initiative to reduce the incarcerated population by half, makes similar claims. In addition to “perpetuating the ugly legacy of racism,” argues Jones, imprisonment is “tearing families apart.”

Many Democratic Party presidential candidates echo these arguments. In her criminal-justice reform plan, Senator Elizabeth Warren laments that “one in ten Black children has an incarcerated parent.” Joe Biden suggests allowing “nonviolent offenders who are primary care providers for their children to serve their sentences through in-home monitoring.” These proposals are intended to address the problem that “children with incarcerated parents tend to do worse in school, experience anxiety and depression, and develop behavioral issues,” as Bernie Sanders puts it.

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