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.

Falling in Love with a Convict

I know Santa Camacho as my boyfriend’s aunt. When I reached out looking for this week’s profile, she volunteered. As we spoke, I decided that I simply wanted to tell her story, because it is so often left unheard. No numbers, no figures, just her story.

It was a fluke how Santa Camacho met her husband, Jose Carlos.

In 1997, before they’d met, he was convicted of burglary and robbery in the second degree and given 10 years.

Being in Love with a Convict Carries Stigma and Humiliation

There are very few reliable statistics surrounding women who date convicts. If there were, we’d know just how many women deal with the pain of loving someone society says you’re not supposed to, are judged for this love and are frustrated with having their relationships deemed lesser than.

This stigma arises from the same judgment heaped on the men themselves. “Why would you date him,” we ask. “You can do so much better.”

But is it fair to assume that a woman on the outside is better than a man on the inside?

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.