The Rise of Incarcerated Mothers Suggests a Need for Family-Centered  Criminal Justice Reforms

The views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of ASPA as an organization.

By Melissa Brock & Margaret Mikulski
February 6, 2026

The United States currently has the highest incarceration rate in the world. Hyperincarceration has led to a sharp rise in the number of incarcerated parents, particularly mothers. Between 1991 and 2016, the number of incarcerated mothers nearly doubled, while the number of incarcerated fathers increased by approximately 48 percent. As incarceration expands, so too does the number of mothers and children adversely affected. Some of the most significant consequences of mass incarceration are borne by mothers and their children, including increased reliance on the foster care system, greater risk of termination of parental rights and heightened potential for intergenerational involvement in the criminal justice system.

Incarceration also severely limits a mother’s ability to parent. Incarcerated mothers often face reduced access to in-person visitation, high costs associated with video and phone calls and inconsistent availability of programs and services that support reunification. The challenge of remaining an active parent while incarcerated, and preserving the parent-child relationship, is central to family-centered reforms aimed at addressing this growing population.

What Happens When Mothers Go to Jail

When fathers are incarcerated, children are most often cared for by their mothers. When mothers are incarcerated, however, children are frequently placed with grandmothers or other relatives. In the absence of family alternatives, incarcerated mothers must rely on the foster care system. As a result, incarcerated mothers are five times more likely than incarcerated fathers to have their children enter foster care.

In some states, incarceration itself may be treated as child abandonment, prompting authorities to pursue termination of parental rights. In others, the conditions associated with incarceration, such as limited ability to participate in consistent visitation, may be used to support an abandonment claim. The “15/22 provision” of the Adoption and Safe Families Act of 1997 requires states to seek termination of parental rights when a child has been in foster care for 15 of the past 22 months, with no exception for parental incarceration. In most states, there is no clear legal pathway for incarcerated mothers to reunite with their children if parental rights are terminated during incarceration.

The intersection between foster care and incarceration extends further. Children of incarcerated mothers whose parental rights have been terminated are less likely to be adopted than other children in foster care. Prolonged foster care involvement can increase the likelihood of later contact with the juvenile justice system, with roughly half of children in foster care interacting with that system by age 17. Preserving parental rights and reducing reliance on foster care may help disrupt this trajectory.

Adverse Childhood Experiences, including parental incarceration, are known to affect health and well-being across the lifespan and can contribute to future criminal behavior. Evidence suggests these outcomes may be compounded when incarceration involves a mother rather than a father. According to the National Institute of Justice, children of incarcerated mothers experience higher rates of imprisonment and earlier and more frequent arrests than children of incarcerated fathers, reinforcing cycles of trauma and incarceration.

Implications for Policy

Historically, many policies have restricted incarcerated individuals from fully participating in parenting. For example, the Federal Communications Commission approved increases in phone and video calling rates for incarcerated people in November 2025, with some individuals now paying up to 83 percent more than the previous year to maintain contact with their children. Many facilities have replaced in-person visits with virtual alternatives, effectively placing parent-child relationships behind a paywall. In addition, most jurisdictions lack prison nurseries or lactation programs that allow bonding with newborn children.

Some states have adopted policies that prioritize preservation of the parent-child relationship. New Jersey allows regular contact visits with minor children and offers parenting education programs. Colorado created an incarceration exception within its adoption policies when parents maintain meaningful and safe relationships with their children, supported through child-friendly events at correctional facilities and coordination between criminal justice and human services agencies. Pennsylvania permits incarcerated mothers 72 hours of bonding time with newborns in hospitals, while Minnesota allows the release of postpartum individuals into the community to bond with their infants. Early outcome studies of Washington State’s Family Sentencing Alternative Pilot Program indicate that diverting incarcerated mothers to community-based supervision reduced both foster care placements and recidivism.

When diversion programs and alternatives to incarceration are unavailable, evidence-based programming can help maintain parent-child connections. The National Institute of Corrections has published a model guide outlining practices that support incarcerated parents, including interventions at intake and reentry. Individuals held in county jails, who often have limited access to diversion opportunities, may particularly benefit from standardized delivery of these services.

Additional policy considerations include incorporating parenting responsibilities as a mitigating factor in sentencing guidelines, including care of minor children in work release eligibility criteria and expanding specialty courts to include hybrid criminal-family models. These family-centered approaches may reduce the negative consequences of maternal incarceration by enabling justice-involved mothers to remain active parents while incarcerated.

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Authors: Melissa Brock and Margaret Mikulski are IGEPS Fellows at the CUNY John Jay College of Criminal Justice. Their work focuses on the intersection of criminal justice policy, family systems and administrative practices that shape outcomes for justice-involved parents and children. Through research and policy analysis, they examine how institutional design and program implementation can promote equity, accountability and family preservation within carceral systems.

 

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