According to a new analysis by the Prison Policy Initiative, the childhood trauma that results from a parent’s incarceration can echo throughout a child’s life, increasing their odds of getting involved in the criminal justice system themselves or being lost to foster or institutional care, the New Jersey Monitor reports. Mothers are disproportionately impacted, the group found, partly because women are more likely to lead a single-parent household and be living with their children before their imprisonment.
The report recommends that prisons make visitation for families easier and ensure parents are incarcerated close to home. In New Jersey, Gov. Phil Murphy signed a 2020 law intended to help incarcerated parents maintain stronger ties with their families and protect pregnant inmates. It requires corrections officials to place incarcerated parents in prisons close to home and provide parenting classes and trauma-informed care for inmates. Researchers found that almost half of people incarcerated in state prisons have children, and about 19 percent of those 1.25 million children are 4 or younger.
from The Crime Report https://ift.tt/sDxbTu1
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