Parents of children under 18 constitute over half of those who are in pretrial detention because they cannot afford to post bail, according to analysis from the Prison Policy Initiative (PPI). Though they are legally presumed innocent, jail incarceration keeps them from and puts their children at risk, impacting over 150,000 children. Especially considering recent increases in women’s jail incarceration, PPI, supported by MacArthur, suggests the impact may be even more significant than these numbers show.
