Activists who work with incarcerated moms say the compelling and compounding harm when mothers are behind bars shouldn’t be overlooked. “The impact of incarcerated women, who are very often the sole caregiver for their children, is that those children are then displaced, and effectively punished through separation,” said Holly Krig, the director of organizing for Moms United Against Violence and Incarceration, an advocacy group in Chicago.



Through her work, Krig has observed first-hand how mothers are underrepresented and ignored in the discourse surrounding incarcerated parents, which is even reflected in the visits that parents receive. “Fathers report far more visits from their children when they are incarcerated than women do. The reason for that is because more often children continue to live with their mothers when their father is incarcerated … it's the mother who ensures the kids continue to see their father. When moms are incarcerated, it's far less often … the kids are more likely to be in the custody of either state foster care systems or with a grandmother or another relative [without] the resources.”



To address this disparity, Krig’s organization teamed up with local community leaders to raise funds for bus trips to reunite children and their mothers incarcerated at Logan Correctional Center, a women’s prison about three hours southwest of Chicago. Launched on Mother’s Day 2016, the monthly visits with rotating groups of children have been critical for youngsters and parents alike. Kids who reported the type of symptoms summarized in the EPI report—difficulty in school, nightmares, and stress—are experiencing some improvements. “We've been very intentional about creating a space in which we can talk about the underlying issues, where we can address feelings of shame people have around incarceration,” Krig said, emphasizing that the visits are “crucial for the survivability of whole families affected by incarceration, both the people who are incarcerated and [their children].”



Combatting the negative impact of parental incarceration on children also fuels the work of Morsy, the EPI researcher and a former middle-school teacher. Time spent in Bronx and East Harlem classrooms cemented the belief that social conditions of children outside school are inseparably connected to better performance inside school—and “one of those social conditions [is] a fair criminal-justice system.”



The report calls for educators to make criminal-justice policy the focus of their advocacy at the local and state levels by teaming with criminal-justice reformers to repeal mandatory minimum sentences for drug offenses and nonviolent crimes, eliminate sentencing disparities, and increase support for released offenders. Morsy concedes that the recommendations are “a start, [not] a 100 percent solution, to our discriminatory justice system” but views them as a necessary and timely call to arms.



“Educators advocate for and against charter schools … for and against pay for performance for teachers. I don't see that it's different to advocate for policies that would improve their students' outcomes even if those policies are happening [outside] the education system,” she said, stressing that taking a stand to reform the criminal justice system is ultimately a child-centered, family-friendly policy.

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