Need-Based Crimes Do More Harm than Help

1 in 28 American children have an incarcerated parent. This is a dramatic increase over 2 decades ago when this number was 1 in 125, according to a 2010 report from the Pew Charitable Trusts.The study also found that parents of children under age 18 make up more than half of the incarcerated population.

Breaking a Cycle

Shaquille Payne, 20, does homework in his new apartment

The casual onlooker would have thought we were discussing the weather. Or maybe I’d asked him how his third year of college was going. Instead, Shaquille Payne was detailing a childhood in which he’d been left to raise himself as his family served time behind bars.  

In 2001, when Payne was about 8 years old, he was one of approximately 1.5 million children missing a parent, due to incarceration.