ANNUAL DAMAGE TO KIDS? TWENTY CITIES AND COUNTING

Fort Wayne–Pop: 250,000

According to a 2015 Child Trends report (“Parents Behind Bars: What Happens to Their Children”), 1 in 14 American children (about 7%) has experienced the absence of at least one parent because of a prison sentence. That’s up from the last estimate in 2007, which put the percentage at 2%. The 2007 percentage comes to about 1.7 million children. According to Child Trends, that percentage might now approach 5 million. That’s nearly three times larger than what experts recorded just eight years ago.

To help get a practical of idea of what this figure means, take a mid-sized Indiana city, such as Fort Wayne. Currently, that city has a population of about a quarter million people. Now do some math. The 5 million children who currently have lost a parent to prison would fill 20 cities the size of Fort Wayne. No adults, mind you, just children. To peg the rate of growth from just eight years ago, the 2007 estimate would fill between six to seven cities. By the end of 2015, the number of children who had seen a parent behind prison bars added the equivalent of thirteen more mid-sized cities—an annual total of twenty municipalities.

As things stand, that number will continue to grow. That’s twenty cities and counting. No one can favor that kind of “urban growth” or call it healthy for families. Research has already documented the lasting damage to children caused by the loss of a parent to prison.  In an article published by Education Week (“Children of Inmates Seen at Risk”: 2/25/15), reporter Sarah Sparks summarizes the research findings on the negative effects.  These include:

·      Behavioral problems,

·      Language and speech delays,

·      Physical and psychological illness,

·      Lower academic achievement,

·      Lower high school graduation rates,

·     Lower college entrance and graduation rates, and

·      Greater likelihood of incarceration in later life.

Damaging American children in this way is both unacceptable and unsustainable.  It might even be called child abuse.  Justifiably, the courts often send adults guilty of that crime to prison.  What happens to a society that treats children as collateral damage in its efforts to control of crime?  Ironically, that remains uncertain.  But without a solution, America will eventually find out–as the collateral damage matures to adulthood.

SOURCES:

http://www.childtrends.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/2015-42ParentsBehindBars.pdf

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2015/02/25/parents-incarceration-takes-toll-on-children-studies.html

A Conversation with Shirley Cooper: A Community Re-Entry Journey

Shirley Cooper, Board Member of Bridges Community Services in Muncie, Indiana, describes her journey of re-entry after 20 years serving in Indiana’s state prisons. She discusses her struggle to find employment and housing–a struggle that led her to become a community advocate and to join the executive board of Bridges Community Services, a social service organization that addresses homelessness, housing, and poverty in the Muncie community.