How the Families Act Would Make a Difference for Youth with Incarcerated Parents

The impact of parental incarceration on children is often overlooked in public discussions, yet it has profound consequences. An estimated 5 million young people in the United States today have had an incarcerated parent at some point. The trauma, stigma, and financial hardship associated with this experience create challenges that can hinder a child’s emotional development, academic progress, and overall well-being. And these challenges are far more likely to befall some youth than others. African-American children are six times more likely than white children to have an incarcerated parent. One in four African-American students has a parent who has been incarcerated, and one in ten currently has a parent in prison. 

In her powerful commentary, Isabel Coronado sheds light on the systemic challenges faced by children of incarcerated parents—challenges no child should have to endure. Many programs across the country, such as the U.S. Dream Academy, have stepped up to provide support to these vulnerable youth by offering essential services such as mentorship, counseling, and educational assistance. Organizations like these provide crucial support to children; however, these organizations face their own challenges, including limited resources, a lack of coordinated support, and a policy landscape that does not fully address the needs of families affected by incarceration. The Families Act, which is part of a broader movement for criminal justice reform, aims to change that. In this commentary, we’ll describe the bill and the many ways it would bring hope and well-being to these families. It represents real hope for many young people, and would help prevent them being thrown back on their own.

The Families Act would create targeted, dynamic support in the places it’s needed most.

The Families Act is designed to provide targeted federal funding to support families affected by incarceration, with a core objective of breaking the cycle of intergenerational involvement with the criminal justice system. By supporting organizations that share these goals and providing them with technical assistance, it aims to offer families, especially children, the support they need to thrive despite parental absence by focusing on family reunification, expanded visitation rights, and greater access to social services. It also supports programs that keep parents with their children while providing access to essential services, such as drug treatment, job training, and counseling, thereby offering meaningful alternatives to incarceration and promoting family stability.

There is precedent for this kind of investment at the federal level, though it has diminished in recent years. Congress included $3,500,000 in the fiscal year (FY) 2021 federal budget for a program to assist with the creation and support of family-based alternative sentencing pilot programs for parents and primary caregivers who have been convicted of nonviolent offenses. These programs continued to be funded at the same level in FY 2022. But in FY 2023 and 2024, these programs were funded at reduced levels, reflecting ongoing fiscal constraints. The Families Act would help fill this gap and more.

We urge lawmakers to reintroduce and support the Families Act to expand these vital programs, and ensure that programs offering alternatives to incarceration can sustain and expand their vital work. These critical initiatives allow parents to remain with their dependent children while receiving essential services, such as drug treatment, job training, and counseling. By enabling these alternatives, the Families Act not only helps address the root causes of criminal behavior but also fosters family stability, and promotes long-term community well-being. Increased funding will enable these programs to reach more families and continue to be a cornerstone of our justice reform efforts.

The Families Act intervenes by supporting community-based preventative measures that enable parents to stay engaged with their children while addressing their rehabilitation needs.

The Families Act intervenes by supporting community-based preventative measures that enable parents to stay engaged with their children while addressing their rehabilitation needs. Such alternatives prioritize keeping families together, reducing the trauma children experience when separated from a parent. In Washington State, the Family and Offender Sentencing Alternative program (FOSA) has pioneered this approach by allowing eligible parents to serve their sentence in a community setting, often while undergoing treatment, job training, or education programs. Programs like FOSA highlight the potential for community-based alternatives to reduce recidivism. 

For the many organizations working with youth who have incarcerated parents, the Families Act represents both a lifeline and a critical opportunity to expand their impact. These organizations, which have long struggled with tight budgets and piecemeal funding, would be able to access federal support that allows them to reach more families and offer more robust services. With increased resources and technical assistance, they could hire more counselors, expand programming, and provide long-term support to children who are navigating the complexities of their circumstances largely alone.

Derrell’s Experience: Finding Community and My Own Strength

Growing up as a young person affected by parental incarceration, I often felt an overwhelming sense of shame surrounding my situation. It was overwhelming to witness my grandmother, a remarkable woman, taking on the immense responsibility of raising nine grandchildren in a setting that didn’t exemplify the traditional family structure. With limited resources and no financial cushion, she provided us with only the essentials—enough to ensure we had food on the table and a roof over our heads, but little more. At school, I navigated my day-to-day life as if I were wearing a mask, hiding the reality of my home situation. It felt isolating, as if I were the only child grappling with the emotional turmoil of having a parent incarcerated. I often looked around at my classmates, convinced that no one else shared my struggles. It wasn’t until I participated in an after-school program that was founded to meet the needs of children with an incarcerated parent that I discovered the truth. 

Through open and honest conversations with my peers in the program, I realized I was not alone in my experiences. Many of them faced similar challenges and understood the complex emotions that came with having a loved one in prison. The U.S. Dream Academy, which offered this after-school program, became a safe haven for us, a place where we could remove our masks and simply be ourselves. In that nurturing environment, we were encouraged to explore our passions, develop our talents, we received a mentor and tutoring. The support we received not only helped us confront our realities, but also inspired us to dream big and pursue our aspirations, reminding us that a brighter future was within our reach.

Diane’s Experience: Fighting for Families Like Hers

I come from a family that was fighting our way out of poverty throughout my childhood while my parents worked multiple low-wage jobs as they were earning their college degrees—the first in their respective families to eventually graduate from college. My father, a veteran, benefited from educational stipends and a VA-backed home loan. Even though my family struggled for many years, the VA benefits allowed us to move to a community that was a supportive backdrop for our fragile family: providing a safe neighborhood and a quality K–12 school, and built around a hospital and medical school, so healthy living was a priority in my community. I later became an attorney to help represent families similar to my own—struggling to break through structural and generational barriers while attempting to chart a new course.

When I had the opportunity in my late 20s to help start a non-profit organization that focused on children impacted by parental incarceration, I volunteered right away to help my pastor Wintley Phipps with his vision for what would become the U.S. Dream Academy. I ended up pivoting in my career to become an executive director where I focused on deeply listening to those in communities hardest hit by mass incarceration, creating partnerships that helped bridge the resource gap, and developing innovative and positive youth development models to support youth in trauma and families navigating the criminal justice system. Yet, I witnessed so much suffering that our program could not help relieve—the absence of a parent, long prison sentences, unwelcoming visiting rooms, and parents recidivating. We needed more resources and support to truly help families in a more comprehensive way for long-term community impact.

The federal government can make a difference by supporting the programs these youth and their families count on.

The Families Act provides a lifeline to families by facilitating the organizations and programs that create stronger connections between incarcerated parents and their children. Investing in community-based alternatives to incarceration gives parents an opportunity to foster true rehabilitation and access the services they need to provide enhanced support for their children. The stakes for not intervening in time can be high: parental incarceration is linked to various negative outcomes for children, including higher rates of school suspensions or expulsions, poorer physical health, and increased hardships, such as food insecurity and displacement from their homes. The Families Act also acknowledges the role of trauma in the lives of these children. Children of incarcerated parents are at higher risk for negative outcomes, such as behavioral problems, poor academic performance, and mental health issues. Under the Families Act, nonprofits could receive dedicated funding to train staff in trauma-informed practices.

The impact of programs like the Families Act depends largely on how the legislation is implemented, and whether nonprofits can navigate the bureaucracy that often accompanies federal funding. In order to maximize its impact, the bill must expand the level of technical assistance it offers by including provisions for streamlined funding applications and technical assistance for smaller nonprofits. Moreover, the bill must ensure that funding also reaches the grassroots organizations working in the hardest-hit areas, where parental incarceration exacerbates cycles of poverty and social inequity.

Non-profit organizations cannot bear the weight of supporting youth with incarcerated parents alone, but with the Families Act, they may continue to have a partner in the federal government. This partnership has the potential to not only improve the lives of children and families, but also reduce recidivism, reduce the effects of trauma for children, and help families chart a new path that does not include future incarceration.