[Transcript]

Do y’all remember when Obama said “If we are honest with ourselves, we’ll admit that what too many fathers also are missing – missing from too many lives and too many homes” . This was back in 2008 where Obama made his famous father’s day speech.This leads to an important question that is left unanswered when media talks about (if they even talk about) Mass Incarceration. There are over “1.7 million children under the age of 18 with one or both parents in jail.” These children are fighting for their lives without the guidance of their parents, and are left vulnerable to the horrors of the poverty-stricken neighborhoods that most of these children grow up in.

Children run into a multitude of problems when they are affected by mass incarceration. Many studies show that children with incarcerated parents are three times more likely to be addressed during adolescence. Studies also show that children with incarcerated adults are likely to be diagnosed with depression, anxiety, PTSD, and other mental disorders.

There needs to be more support groups and organizations for children affected by mass incarceration and there needs to be guidelines when finding a program for children that are affected by parental incarceration. They need to tell children the truth about their parents, find responsible and caring adults to care for them, and teach them how to cope with the conditions that they are in. This way we can teach children that their lives mean something to other people and that they are not defined by the status that they are in.