Entry Details

About the Entry

Category: 
Print > Feature Article > 11 or Fewer Issues per Year > Upper Midwest

Title of entry: 
Parental Penalties: Collateral consequences reverberate through families long after sentences are served

Issue or Publication date:
June 1, 2023

Publication name: 
ABA Journal

Publishing/parent company: 
American Bar Association

View Website home page:
abajournal.com

Description of the enterprising work that went into this entry and its significance or impact on readers:

This enterprise story looks at the especially difficult journey of mothers returning from prison. Like all those re-entering society, parents face more than 40,000 statutes and regulations nationwide that make reentry into their communities a challenge, according to the Council of State Governments Justice Center. On average, every person released from prison must negotiate 750 consequences from state and territorial laws plus 950 from federal laws.

These “permanent punishments,” as some activists call them, run the gamut, including regulations on handling basic needs—receiving a driver’s license, finding a job, renting an apartment—along with less formal restrictions that impact the ability to participate in their child’s school activities. Many consequences are imposed indefinitely, impacting the family for the rest of the parent’s life, no matter how long they have been home or how well they reintegrate into society.

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