1 / 23

BJS Reports - Parents

BJS Reports - Parents. 1997 Survey - State and Federal Prisons (BJS has stopped doing this survey - last one done in 1999 – problem has grown since then) Page 1 Summary and Highlights. BJS Reports - Parents. Thirty years ago US prison pop less than 300,000

carsyn
Download Presentation

BJS Reports - Parents

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript


  1. BJS Reports - Parents 1997 Survey - State and Federal Prisons (BJS has stopped doing this survey - last one done in 1999 – problem has grown since then) Page 1 Summary and Highlights

  2. BJS Reports - Parents Thirty years ago US prison pop less than 300,000 Today 700,000 + Parents in prison Less than half are violent offenders (1/4 for mothers) Poor - 70% less than high school diploma 75% minority (Poor, Minority, Petty offenders!)

  3. BJS Reports - Parents About half lived with children before incarceration - 2/3 of mothers Most have 1 or 2 minor children (Table 1) Not the “welfare stereotype” of poor people with many kids

  4. BJS Reports - Parents About 1.5 million children (Huge increase over last 30 years!) Fathers - children usually live with mother (Usually poor single mother) Mothers - children usually live with GP, other Rel, (Makes poor relatives poorer!) -- OR foster care or “ward of the court”

  5. BJS Reports - Parents Less than half have weekly contact with children More than half, no contact since admission More than half, prison more than 100 miles away

  6. BJS Reports - Parents Page 2 3/4 of children are minorities Black kids 9x more likely than white kids Hisp kids 3x more likely than white kids to have a parent in prison

  7. BJS Reports - Parents Page 3 Table 3 49% black, 29% white, 22% hisp median age 32 40% some high school or less

  8. BJS Reports - Parents Page 5 Table 6 Contact with children visitation unusual, prison far away *** Go Over In Class

  9. BJS Reports - Parents Page 6 Table 7 Current Offense (mostly nonviolent) property and drug offenses *** Go Over In Class

  10. BJS Reports - Parents Page 6 Table 8 Time to Serve *** Go Over In Class

  11. BJS Reports - Parents Page 7 Table 9 Criminal History Status -- about half none History -- less than half violent Priors -- most have few priors Repeat petty offenders!!

  12. BJS Reports - Parents Page 8 Table 10 Drug Use Ever used - most, but soft drugs Within month - fewer, soft drugs At the time - very few

  13. BJS Reports - Parents Page 9 Table 11 Alcohol Alcohol much more connected with crime! *** Go over in class

  14. BJS Reports - Parents Page 9 Table 12 Mental Illness 1 in 7 fathers almost 1 in 4 mothers

  15. BJS Reports - Parents Page 10 Table 13 Employment/Income/Homelessness Very economically unstable! *** Go Over In Class

  16. BJS Reports - Parents Putting all the pieces together: Thirty years ago, we had very few parents in prison, and very few children had parents in prison. Only a very tiny number of children had mothers in prison.

  17. BJS Reports - Parents Then came the conservative-driven Get Tough on crime and War on Drugs -- and the resulting Imprisonment Binge. These new policies targeted young, poor, male minorities, mostly petty offenders -- but they eventually began to net young, poor, female minority petty offenders as well. Many of the new targets are parents.

  18. BJS Reports - Parents Policymakers, prison administrators, and the public pay little attention to the drastically different consequences of the new policies. Over the last 30 years, a large and disastrous new problem has emerged - the destruction of tens of thousands of poor families, and especially children, by the imprisonment binge itself.

More Related