Nearly Six Million Kids Are Impacted by Parental Incarceration

Close to six mil­lion kids in Amer­i­ca have expe­ri­enced los­ing a par­ent to prison or jail at some point in their lives.

Chil­dren liv­ing in the South and South­west are more like­ly to have expe­ri­enced parental incar­cer­a­tion com­pared to their peers in oth­er parts of coun­try. In Arkansas — which has the high­est pro­por­tion of chil­dren affect­ed — close to one in five kids have lost a par­ent to incar­cer­a­tion. Ken­tucky (15%) and Louisiana (14%), Ari­zona (13%) and Ten­nessee (13%) fol­low close­ly behind.

The incar­cer­a­tion of a par­ent can be dev­as­tat­ing to a family’s sta­bil­i­ty and have as much impact on a child’s well-being as abuse or domes­tic vio­lence. Because of this, states must invest resources to sup­port fam­i­ly mem­bers left behind.

Read A Shared Sen­tence to learn more about the toll of parental incarceration.

Access fam­i­ly and com­mu­ni­ty data on the KIDS COUNT Data Center:

• Chil­dren who had a par­ent who was ever incarcerated