Roundtable: To Love Through The Bars: The Resources to Best Support Children of Incarcerated Parents

Session Submission Type: Roundtable Session

Abstract/Description

The United States has a reputation for being an industrialized country with the highest rate of incarceration in the world. Within the last few years, conversations and movements towards reform and re-examining the role of prisons within society have brought to the forefront the plight of incarcerated individuals and their families. According to the American Psychological Association as of 2019, there were 2.7 million children under the age of 18in the United States with an incarcerated parent and approximately 10 million children that had a parent incarcerated at some point in their lives. That makes 1 in 28 American children (3.6%) with an incarcerated parent (Resilience Beyond Incarceration). With each consecutive year, these numbers trend upwards as families continue to be forcibly separated due to mass incarceration. I plan to focus on the resources and policies that could best support this population of children with incarcerated parents.

Sub Unit

• Area XV. Roundtable Sessions