Notable Sentencing Project fact sheet on "Parents in Prison"

The Sentencing project today released this short fact sheet titled simply "Parents in Prison" that provides key facts on parents in prison and policies that impede their ability to care for their children when released. Here is how it starts:

Half of imprisoned people in the United States are parents of minor children who are under age 18: 47% in state prisons and 57% in federal prisons.  Most imprisoned parents of minor children are fathers (626,800 fathers, compared to 57,700 mothers).  But a higher proportion of imprisoned women (58%) than imprisoned men (47%) have minor children.  Between 1991 and 2016, the latest year for which national data is available, the number of fathers in prison increased 48% and the number of mothers increased 96%.  This brief examines trends in parental incarceration, strains on families, missed opportunities for interventions, as well as recent reforms.