Abstract

Experiencing the incarceration of a family member is now a common experience for some groups in the United States. Estimates vary widely (and all of them are undercounts) but the best available suggest that about 1.9 million children have a parent currently incarcerated and anywhere from 5 to 8 million experienced the incarceration of a residential parent during childhood. Family incarceration experiences are also stunningly racially disparate; a recent estimate found that 44% of Black women and 32% of Black men had a family member incarcerated while only 12% of white women and 6% of white men reported the same. Finally, many more men are incarcerated relative to women, but the number of children with incarcerated mothers has increased substantially and the co-occurrence of father and mother incarceration is an important but relatively unexplored research area.