Arrested Development

Dear Judge, I need my mom. Would you help my mom? I have no dad and my grandmom have cancer I dont have innyone to take care of me and my sisters and my niece and nephew and my birthdays coming up in October the 25 and I need my mom to be here on the 25 and for the rest of my life. I will cut your grass and wash your car everyday just dont send my mom off. Please Please Please don't!!!" -- Phillip (from Nell Bernstein's All Alone in the World .

When former Enron executive Andrew Fastow and his wife Lea were convicted of wire and securites fraud, the judge staggered their sentences so not to leave their children without a parent.

Millions of other American kids aren't so lucky.

A reprehensible number of children of prisoners in the United States have been left parentless in recent years thanks in large part to overreaching mandatory sentencing laws. Often poor, psychologically scarred and prone to generational cycles of criminality, their numbers grow with the industrial prison complex, itself an offspring of fear, profit and politically motivated "wars" on drugs and crime.

More than 2.2 million citizens are behind bars, a fivefold spike over three decades. The Sentencing Project, a Washington D.C.-based watchdog group, reports that the lifer population in U.S. prisons has more than tripled in the past two decades. One in every 11 federal and state prisoners now carries a life sentence. And one in four is serving a sentence of 20 years or more.

And the children bear the costs. Many must rely on grandmothers, elderly women who are often in poor health and financially struggling. Other kids fall into bureaucratic mazes or shuttle between foster homes. Too many take to the street, uncorrected problems becoming fountains for new ones.

• 2.4 million American children have a mom or dad in jail.
• Three in every hundred American children have a parent behind bars.
• The number of incarcerated women (many of them mothers) increased more than sevenfold between 1980 and the end of 2003, from 13,400 to over 100,000, according to the General Accounting Office.

In an age of fear factor politicking, can the U.S. combat crime while keeping families together? Can society protect family bonds by softening mandatory sentencing laws passed during America's crack hysteria of the 1980s? In short, can the American criminal justice system be taught to think?

Journalist Nell Bernstein says yes. In her new book, All Alone in the World, Bernstein deftly uses studies, interviews, policy recommendations and tragic personal stories to map the damage our criminal justice system has done to the people it may too likely house in the future.

You note that some have called over-incarceration the civil rights issue of the 21st century. You've suggested it may also be the children's issue of our time. If a new civil rights movement is to emerge, where does it best begin and who is most likely to start it?

I think the interesting thing is that civil rights movements only work when led by those affected. There is definitely a movement brewing on the part of former prisoners looking at lots of things including the legal denial of civil rights. But when it comes to children it's hard. Obviously young children can't lead or participate. There are teenagers, young adults, who have experienced this who are powerful leaders and voices, but there is still a lot of stigma. Almost more than anything else I've written about, there is a hesitancy to talk about it.

You report how overly punitive drug laws are responsible for leaving many children parentless. What in your opinion has lead to the contemporary American hysteria that prefers retribution to rehabilitation?

I think there are lots of things that contribute to it. But I also don't think most people think that way anymore. What's really interesting is that recent polls have showed people turning toward rehabilitation. That wasn't true 10 years ago when there was a real lock-em'-up attitude. The politics hasn't caught up though.