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101 J. Crim. L. & Criminology 77 (2011)
Children of Incarcerated Parents: The Child's Constitutional Right to the Family Relationship

handle is hein.journals/jclc101 and id is 79 raw text is: 0091-4169/11/10101-0077 THE JOURNAL OF CRIMINAL LAW & CRIMINOLOGY Vol. 101, No. 1 Copyright C 2011 by Northwestern University School of Law Printed in US.A. CHILDREN OF INCARCERATED PARENTS: THE CHILD'S CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO THE FAMILY RELATIONSHIP CHESA BOUDIN I. INTRODUCTION When judges sentence people to prison, and when prison administrators determine visitation policies, minor children are often ignored.' This is not an obscure issue but rather has significant, daily ramifications for a generation of American youth. As incarceration rates have spiraled by over 500% in the last thirty years,2 so have the number of children who have lost parents to the prison system. In fact, in the United States, there are more children with incarcerated parents than there are people in prison.4 Incarcerating parents of minor children is not just an issue for those sentenced to prison; the practice also generates third party harms for the children, their caregivers, the welfare apparatus of the state, . Chesa Boudin is a third year law student at Yale University. Special thanks to Professor Judith Resnik for her guidance and feedback throughout the research and writing of this Article. Thanks also to Professor Philip Genty, Aileen Campbell, Theresa Miguel, Ashley Waddell, and my mother, Kathy Boudin. 1 See generally NELL BERNSTEIN, ALL ALONE IN THE WORLD: CHILDREN OF THE INCARCERATED (2005) (detailing the plight of children with incarcerated parents); CHILDREN OF INCARCERATED PARENTS (Katherine Gabel & Denise Johnston eds., 1995) (providing guidance to social workers, caregivers, and others who work with children of incarcerated parents). 2 The Sentencing Project News-Incarceration, THE SENTENCING PROJECT, http://www.sentencingproject.org/template/page.cfm?id=107 (last visited Oct. 29, 2010); see also Bureau of Justice Statistics, Dep't of Justice, Correctional Population Trends Chart, http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/glance/corr2.cfm (last visited Oct. 29, 2010). 3 LAUREN E. GLAZE & LAURA M. MARUSCHAK, BUREAU OF JUSTICE STATISTICS, DEP'T OF JUSTICE, SPECIAL REPORT: PARENTS IN PRISON AND THEIR MINOR CHILDREN 1-2 (2008), available at http:/Ibjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/pptmc.pdf. 4~ Id. at 1. 77

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