Formerly Incarcerated Parents
An estimated 10 million American kids will have a parent in the criminal justice system at some point during their childhood, and that almost 20 percent of all those in foster care have parents who are incarcerated. Annually, close to 7.5 million men and women who are released from incarceration return to their communities and attempt to reintegrate back into family and community life.
Two of our Making Connections cities, Milwaukee and Providence, are home to more than 40 percent of the prisoners released within their states. Baltimore, one of Casey’s Civic Sites, is home to 47 percent of those released in Maryland.
The influence of incarceration on family stability, child development, and employment and income is hard to ignore. It too often puts affected families at particular risk of never escaping the effects of poverty and isolation. Their growing number makes it clear that any strategy to strengthen families in their communities, if it is to be successful, must pay particular attention to parent incarceration and the re-entry of formerly incarcerated parents into society.
Casey Funding in Action
- We build our knowledge of the challenges of reentry and how to accomplish system and policy changes through investments like the Florida Task Force on Re-Entry, made up of state officials, members of the private sector, the faith community and community-based practitioners, created through an executive order by Governor Jeb Bush.
- We support the nationally recognized Big Brothers / Big Sisters Amachi Faith Based Mentoring Project that provides mentoring services to the children of current and formerly incarcerated parents in our Making Connections sites and elsewhere.
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