By Leah Wang, Wendy Sawyer, Tiana Herring, and Emily Widra   

We know how many people are in state prisons, but what do we really know about who they are or how they ended up there? Over 1 million people are confined in state prisons nationwide, primarily serving sentences of anywhere from a year to life. But the walls and restrictions that keep these individuals out of public life also keep them out of the public eye: most of what we know about people in prison comes from the prison system itself. But our analysis of a unique, large-scale survey of incarcerated people provides a richer picture of just who is locked up in state prisons. From the survey data, we gain a deeper understanding of how mass incarceration has been used to warehouse people with marginalized identities and those struggling with poverty, substance use disorders, and housing insecurity, among other serious problems. Incarcerated people are a diverse cross-section of society whose disadvantages and unmet needs often begin early in life, and persist throughout their often lifelong involvement with the criminal legal system. This report is divided into sections: Demographics: Race, ethnicity, age, gender identity, and sexual orientation Employment and housing: Incarcerated people were on unstable footing long before prison Arrested early and often: Age at first arrest, youth confinement, and prior incarceration Disadvantage dating back to childhood: Family, housing, poverty, and education in youth Drug use: An extremely common factor leading up to incarceration.

Northampton, MA: Prison Policy Initiative, 2022. 28p.

By Laura M. Maruschak, Jennifer Bronson, and Mariel Alper

This brief presents findings based on data collected in the 2016 Survey of Prison Inmates, a survey conducted through face-to-face interviews with a national sample of state and federal prisoners across a variety of topics, such as their demographic characteristics, socio-economic background, health, and involvement with the criminal justice system. This brief provides demographic information about prisoners who have at least one minor child and the number of minor children reported by parents in prison.

Highlights

• An estimated 684,500 state and federal prisoners were parents of at least one minor child in 2016—nearly half of state prisoners (47%) and more than half of federal prisoners (58%).

• State and federal prisoners reported having an estimated 1,473,700 minor children in 2016.

• Among minor children of parents in state prison, 1% were younger than age 1, about 18% were ages 1 to 4, and 48% were age 10 or older.

• The average age of a minor child among parents in federal prison was 10 years old.

Washington DC: U.S. Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs Bureau of Justice Statistics , 2021. 8p.

By Ann M. Nurse

Crime and young fatherhood have generally been viewed as separate social problems. Increasingly, researchers are finding that these problems are closely related and highly concentrated in low-income communities. Fatherhood Arrested is an in-depth study of these issues and the difficulties of parenting while in prison and on parole. By taking us inside the prison system, Nurse shows how its structure actively shapes an inmate's relationship with his children. For example, visitation is sometimes restricted to blood relatives and wives. Because relationships between unmarried men and the mothers of their children are often strained, some mothers are unwilling to allow their children to go to the prison with the inmate's family. Or the father may be allowed to receive visits from only one "girlfriend," which forces a man with multiple relationships, or with children by different women, to make impossible choices. Special attention is paid to the gendered nature of prison, its patriarchal and punitive structure, and its high-stress environment. The book then follows newly paroled men as they are released and return to their children. The author spent four years doing research at the California Youth Authority, during which time she surveyed 258 paroled fathers. The group included young white, black, and Latino men, ages sixteen to twenty-five. She conducted in-depth interviews with men selected from this group, participated in forty parenting class sessions, and observed visiting hours at three different institutions. The data provide fascinating information about the characteristics of the men, their attitudes toward fatherhood, and the ways they are involved with their children. The diversity of the fathers allows for an analysis of racial and ethnic variation in their attitudes and involvement. The study concludes with a series of policy suggestions, especially important in light of the large number of fathers now living under the care and control of the juvenile justice system.

Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, 2002. 176p.