Parents Behind Bars: What Happens to Their Children?

Children do not often figure in discussions of incarceration, but new research finds more than 5 million U.S. children have had at least one parent in prison at one time or another—about 3 times higher than earlier estimates that included only children with a parent currently incarcerated. This report uses the National Survey of Children’s Health to examine both the prevalence of parental incarceration and child outcomes associated with it.