A different kind of jail: when parents are in prison, kids face their own trials. Now states are stepping in.

• Author: Mason, Katherine

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Every night, the 8-year-old would set his mother's makeup and hairbrush by his bed. He'd go to sleep, and in the morning the maternal tableau would make him think, just for a moment, that his mom was waiting in the room next door for him to wake up.

But she wasn't. She was in prison in Arkansas, a 17-hour drive from where the youngster lived with his grandfather in Corpus Christi, Texas.

His experience, or one like it, is shared by nearly 2 million kids in the United States. Since 1991, parents confined in state and federal prisons increased by 79 percent, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Estimates are that incarcerated parents have 1.7 million minor children, accounting for 2.3 percent of all children in the country.

"This population is one of the largest at-risk groups of children," says Dee Ann Newell, a 2006 senior justice fellow of the Soros Foundation, part of a network of foundations that fund research on social issues established by billionaire financier George Soros.

Although no firm data exist, child welfare advocates say these children usually lose contact with parents, suffer financial hardships, and face social, academic and health problems. At least 12 states have set up task forces, encouraged coordination among agencies or considered developing bills of rights. Lawmakers are hoping to keep families together, help parents as they try to make the transition from prison to society, and reduce the likelihood of parents returning to prison.

LACK OF COORDINATION

State criminal justice officials don't intend to hurt kids whose parents are imprisoned, but the policies in many states can have that effect.

When a parent goes to prison, there are big changes for the family. Recent statistics indicate that half of incarcerated fathers live with their children at the time of their arrest. Most of those children continue living with their mothers, who end up supporting the family and do most of the parenting alone. When rooms end up in prison, children often live with grandparents, other relatives or friends. In cases where neither parents, relatives nor friends can help, foster care families take on the responsibility. Kids in the foster care system may find themselves shuffled among numerous homes.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

At least nine states--Hawaii, Illinois, Missouri, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania (pending), Vermont and Washington--have turned to a legislative task force to create...