Model Practices for Parents in Prisons and Jails

"This report offers a comprehensive guide to inform correctional administrators in their efforts to reduce barriers to incarcerated parents’ contact and communication with their children. Informed by leading experts in the field and individuals directly affected by parental incarceration, the guide describes many low-cost, high-impact practices and provides administrators with evidence on the effectiveness of recommended practices and helpful tips and resources for successful implementation. Examples of family-friendly practices include designing welcoming visitor lobbies, providing parenting and parent-child relationship programming, allowing for contact visiting, coaching parents on telephone calls with their kids, hosting family activity days, and conducting family-inclusive reentry planning."

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Link to Full Report

2.7 Million Children Under the Age of 18 Have a Parent in Prison or Jail - We Need Criminal Justice Reform Now

Reform criminal justice now. That was the core message US Attorney General  Eric Holder delivered recently to the American Bar Associationand our nation. He declared that "too many Americans go to too many prisons for far too long, and for no truly good law enforcement reason" and at great public expense.

Seeking to cut imprisonment rates and spending while protecting the public, Holder has directed the Justice Department to charge non-violent drug offenders with less severe federal crimes. Beyond reducing the use of mandatory minimum sentences and shortening prison times for lower-level drug felons, while reserving more serious charges and longer sentences for violent and higher-ranking drug traffickers, the Justice Department supports sentencing more people to rehab than (re-)imprisonment for crimes rooted in drug abuse and addiction.

Those reforms, among others, according to Holder, will do more for "the lives being harmed, not helped, by a criminal justice system that doesn't serve the American people as well as it should". There is one group of Americans that couldn't agree more – the  children of the imprisoned.

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