FWD.us releases new report on the “family tax” associated with incarceration

As reported in this new NPR piece, according “to a report released this week from FWD.us, an advocacy organization aimed at criminal justice reform, having a loved one in prison or jail is estimated to cost families across the country nearly $350 billion each year — about four times the amount the federal government estimates it costs taxpayers annually to operate the nation’s prisons and jails.”  Here is more:

On average, people with a family member behind bars spend around $4,000 a year on their incarcerated loved ones, the report says.  “That’s a lot of money for anybody,” says Zoë Towns, the organization’s executive director.  “It’s important to understand that it’s actually falling on those families that can least afford it.”

Towns’ organization, in partnership with researchers at Duke University and NORC, a nonpartisan research group at the University of Chicago, surveyed more than 1,600 people and conducted focus groups to identify the wide range of costs that come with having a family member in prison or jail: Families pay for emails and phone calls to their loved ones. They spend money traveling to visit them [and] they send what they can for commissary purchases.

The new FWD.us report is headlined “We Can’t Afford It: Mass Incarceration and the Family Tax,” and here is the start of its executive summary:

It is well established that the United States has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world and the criminal justice system is a defining and damaging feature in the lives of far too many American families. In 2018, FWD.us was the first to document that a staggering 1 in 2 adults in the United States has an immediate family member who has been incarcerated.

What is too often left out of this conversation is the role that the incarceration crisis plays in the f inancial well-being of American families. Yet it is nearly impossible to separate the economic uncertainty that so many families are experiencing today from the widespread impact of incarceration.  The costs associated with having a family member who is incarcerated are crippling, but opaque governance of prisons and jails, the stigma associated with incarceration, and other factors limit the public’s exposure to these costs, leading them to be more often talked about at kitchen tables rather than town halls.

Now, for the first time, FWD.us has worked with leading researchers at Duke University and NORC at the University of Chicago to document that incarceration is costing families with incarcerated loved ones almost $350 billion every year. As part of this research, we’ve also found that people with an immediate family member (parent, sibling, child, grandchild, spouse, or co-parent) in prison are spending an average of nearly $4,200 annually to stay in touch with and support each of their loved ones behind bars.