Children of currently or formerly incarcerated parents go through much more than the surface level of what incarceration is. Further aspects of parental incarceration include:

• Loss of a parental figure in the household
• Witnessing parental arrest
• Loss of parent’s income 
• Facing the stigma of having an incarcerated parent

Children with incarcerated parents are more likely to deal with mental health concerns. These mental health concerns include:

• Internalization (anxiety, intrusive thoughts)
• Suicidal ideation
• Mental health problem diagnosis

Children of ethnic or minority groups are more likely to exhibit these mental health concerns than are White children. Following that, individuals from ethnic or racial minority groups have less access to proper mental health care in comparison to White individuals. (Davis & Shlafer, 2017) 

Parental incarceration has a big effect on children’s mental health and can be long-term or short-term, depending on if the adversities are addressed by professionals. If not, then these mental health problems can extend into adulthood. 

Parental incarceration has a direct contribution to depression in children. One of the reasons for this is the absence of a caregiver (or the instability of one), which can affect the way the children view family roles (Jones et al., 2024). These stressors that cause negative mental health effects align with the strain theory, where the children experiencing parental incarceration face negative emotions as a result of the changes happening in their life and strained relationships (Gaston, 2016). Children with incarcerated parents are also more likely to be at risk for antisocial behavioral disorder (Murray et al., 2012), post-traumatic stress disorder and anxiety (Lee et al., 2013).