The Economic Impacts on Mothers of Having an Incarcerated Co-Parent

When men are incarcerated, the mothers of their children are often left to carry a huge financial burden.  This visual report uses an analysis of a longitudinal national survey tracking nearly 5,000 women and their partners over roughly two decades, and personal accounts with mothers in New York to explore the financial burden that the criminal legal system places on mothers who support incarcerated partners or co-parents. The piece frames these findings within a broader list of financial burdens on justice-involved families, including lost income during incarceration, reduced lifetime earnings from stigma, reduced child support, bail and court costs, treatment/supervision fees, housing insecurity, and interest on criminal justice debt. The report estimates that these mothers on average experience an annual earning loss of $28,000, likely due to added childcare and caregiving demands.

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Key Findings:

• 47 percent of the 1.1 million men in state and federal prisons are parents of minor children.
• An estimated 530,000 mothers shoulder the costs associated with having their co-parent incarcerated.
• Mothers with a currently incarcerated co-parent work about 61 percent fewer hours than mothers whose co-parents were never incarcerated.