Number of children who have a parent in prison on the rise

He was a New Year's baby, just barely, born 48 minutes before midnight on New Year's Day.

His daddy wasn't at the hospital. He was in a federal prison in Memphis, Tenn., serving time for a drug conviction.

Twelve years later, some things remain the same. Kaden's dad is on the front end of a 15-year sentence at a federal prison in California -- same problem, drugs, according to Kaden's mother, Erin Newsom.

Kaden, a Cape Girardeau sixth-grader, is a big young man. Big in body, big in thoughts. He's big enough to know that the father he has primarily known through collect phone calls from behind prison walls probably will never be a major presence in his life.

He shrugs.

"I feel that it doesn't really bother me because I think he deserves to be there because he didn't learn his lesson, and I don't think he deserves to see me, either, because he didn't learn his lesson," Kaden says.

His mother knows better. She knows her son is angry, resentful. Newsom said her dad and stepdad do the best they can to serve as father figures in their grandchild's life, but it's not the same. And with her serious health concerns -- she says she is undergoing chemotherapy in a long, painful fight against Crohn's disease -- Kaden is beginning to struggle with some big questions.

"He's scared I'm going to die because Kaden knows that I'm sick, and he always tells me, "Mommy, I'm scared that whenever I wake up you're not going to be there,'" Newsom said.

Behind bars

Children of incarcerated parents make up more than 2 percent of the U.S. population, and the impact on them is tremendous, corrections officials and others say. The numbers, nationally and in Southeast Missouri, are rising.

Nearly 810,000 prisoners in the nation's prisons were parents of minor children as of mid-year 2007, according to a U.S. Justice Department report. Today, there are an estimated 2.5 million children of prisoners and convicted people on probation or parole, including about 60,000 in Missouri.

Between 1991 and midyear 2007, parents in state and federal prisons increased by 79 percent, according to the Justice Department report.

Big Brothers Big Sisters of Eastern Missouri served 76 children whose parents are in prison, on probation or on parole through April 25, according to executive director Ashley Beggs. The agency serves children in Cape Girardeau and Scott counties. More than half of the children whose parents are incarcerated, about 40, live in the Cape Girardeau School District, Beggs said. The numbers appear to be on course to outpace last year's total of 114 children, which was up slightly from 2009 and more than double the number of children served in 2006.

The future is troublesome for the vast majority of these young people. Children of incarcerated parents are seven times more likely to enter the prison system than their traditional peers, according to the Missouri Department of Corrections.

Newsom knows the statistics.

"I always tell Kaden that I don't care what we do, what we have to go through. I said, 'I'm bound and determined you will not be like your daddy.' I'm not going to let that happen," she said.

Big influence

Newsom says Kaden has a lot of people in his life who love and support him. High on that list and, it seems, among the more influential people surrounding Kaden, is Justin Lane, a 23-year-old graduate student at Southeast Missouri State University. Lane has been Kaden's big brother through the Big Brothers Big Sisters program for more than four years.

"It's been awesome watching him grow up as a child, in terms of a young adult," Lane said. "He's almost as tall as I am now."

Every other Tuesday, Lane and Kaden toss around the football, play board games, work on homework. Most important, they talk -- about little things, big things, guy things. They're both quiet people, but when they get together, Newsom said, they just click. On a warm late April afternoon the "Big" and his "Little" played a quiet but intense game of checkers.

Lane knew what he was getting into when he began his relationship with Kaden. From the start, he said, he just wanted to be a good friend to a boy who really needed one.

'Through this child'

Big Brothers Big Sisters of Eastern Missouri for years has led a program to serve some of the state's most at-risk children, those with parents in the prison system. It's called Amachi, a West African word that means "who knows but what God has brought us through this child."

In a partnership with Missouri Big Brothers Big Sisters in Kansas City, Springfield, Columbia and Jefferson City, the agencies "have the opportunity to break the cycle of incarceration." Combined, they paired mentors and friends with more than 1,140 Missouri children, providing additional support services.

George Lombardi, director of the Missouri Department of Corrections, said more than a decade ago he was approached by Becky James-Hatter, president and CEO of Big Brothers Big Sisters of Eastern Missouri. She wanted to launch a program to mentor children of prisoners. It began through the women's prison in Vandalia, and Lombardi was so pleased by the results he quickly expanded it.

"I believe if we're ever going to shut down prisons, it will have to be through efforts like this," he said.

The program, officials say, has made a measurable difference in the lives of the children, but Lombardi said it's also changing prison parents, some who are seeing the results of positive parenting choices for the first time.

James-Hatter could not be reached for comment.

Deena Ring, director of special services for the Cape Girardeau School District, said the schools offer a variety of programs to assist the growing number of students with incarcerated parents, everything from counseling to intervention initiatives. Breaking the cycle, she said, will take a combined effort.

"Human beings have an intrinsic need to be loved and accepted," she said. "If it continues to go unmet, you will find something to fill that void."

Programs like Amachi hope to fill the void with support, stability and positive reinforcement.

Kaden, his mother says, receives that connection through his relationship with Lane. His grades are up, she said, and this preteen who loves math and science has big dreams. He thinks he might want to be a meteorologist someday.

Lane says he receives the better end of the deal from the Big Brother-Little Brother relationship.

"I've told people that when I walk in and see him smile, just to be here and spend time with him, it can brighten up my week," the mentor said. "Realizing I can make a difference in someone's life is awesome."

mkittle@semissourian.com

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