The steady growth in the number of women imprisoned in the United States in recent decades has drawn attention to the toll it places on public budgets – as well as on family and social stability. New research in June showed it costs 25% to 75% more to hold a woman in prison, compared with the national annual average of $70,000 per person. This is largely a function of fewer and smaller facilities for women, as well as outsourced healthcare.
But a cost not easily captured in dollar terms has begun to shift the emphasis in corrections systems from punitive to redemptive justice and detention: the cost in lost parental care and affection experienced by the more than 2.7 million children in the U.S. – half of them under 10 years of age – who have a parent in incarceration.
A child’s need for parental presence, affection, and family stability has been well documented. Research also confirms that the negative impacts of a parent’s absence are amplified when the imprisoned parent is a mother.
“Women who come in contact with the criminal justice system are more likely than men to be parents and twice as likely as fathers to be the primary caretakers of their children,” according to Anne Precythe, a former director of the Missouri Department of Corrections. “These women are central to their families’ daily functioning – putting dinner on the table, taking children to school … caring for elderly relatives,” she wrote on the news site Governing this month.
The American justice system has shown an increasing willingness to meet the challenges of helping imprisoned caregivers fulfill their responsibilities to both society and their children. Most women in prison, Ms. Precythe pointed out, were not convicted of violent offenses or new crimes but rather were there for probation violations or court-ordered substance use treatment.
“We can hold women accountable for breaking the law while using prison more judiciously,” she observed.
More and more, facilities are offering simple, low-cost parenting education and skills programs that help both fathers and mothers. And nonprofits are working to support more frequent virtual and in-person visits by children that include meaningful interactions. These can involve reading a book together or a parent recording a book reading that is then sent home.
Another approach, such as in Washington state, is alternative sentencing, which allows eligible parents to serve part or all of a sentence at home, under intensive community supervision or electronic monitoring.
When it comes to mothers of very young children, coresidence or prison nursery programs are impactful – but still rare. An estimated 58,000 pregnant women enter jail or prison annually, and the majority are separated from their babies soon after birth. A 2025 report found that only eight state-run facilities operate such prison nurseries. Yet their positive impact is substantial: There was a 28% reduction in recidivism in Nebraska, while in Illinois, only 3% of the mothers returned to prison for new crimes. In addition, children who initially spend time closer to their mothers in prison nurseries exhibit better mental health and academic outcomes than those who are separated from their mothers after delivery.
Such reforms are not just about restoring families but also about “breaking generational cycles of crime and punishment … and building safer, healthier communities,” stated Oklahoma first lady Sarah Stitt. She was an adviser for a study last year by the Council on Criminal Justice that proposed alternatives to imprisonment for parents of young children.
The cornerstone of such ideas is a child’s right to uninterrupted care by a parent – the bond of love at the heart of a society’s harmony.