As of 2016, the United States had 2.2 million people in prison. The U.S. has not only the largest incarcerated population in the world, but also the highest incarceration rate per capita anywhere. Much has been written about the toll incarceration takes on the imprisoned population, but there’s been less attention paid to the collateral damage inflicted on others. Every person imprisoned has others in their lives who are also affected, and the toll may be greatest on children. Dr. Julie Poehlmann-Tynan is the Dorothy A. O’Brien Professor in Human Ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where she teaches in the Human Development and Family Studies department in the School of Human Ecology. She has co-authored a new study: “Getting Under the Skin: Physiological Stress and Witnessing Paternal Arrest in Young Children with Incarcerated Fathers.”
Featured image: California CDCR Special Service Unit agents making an arrest
Scorpion381, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons