30:1B-6.6 Findings, declarations relative to incarcerated primary caretaker parents.

2. The Legislature finds and declares:

a. A growing segment of the prison population typically is excluded from the criminal justice reform conversation and does not get the attention it deserves: primary caretaker parents behind bars. According to the Sentencing Project, in 2004, 52 percent of inmates in state prisons and 63 percent in federal prisons were parents of minor children. Most parents in prison are fathers, but the rate of female incarceration in America is growing at an alarming rate. While the number of fathers in prison increased 76 percent between 1991 and 2007, the number of mothers in prison increased by 122 percent during that period.

b. Presumably, the considerable growth in incarcerated parents represents a considerable growth in incarcerated primary caretaker parents. This is significant because these parents face unique challenges. Their incarceration is not their burden to alone share; it also greatly impacts their family. Many incarcerated primary caretaker parents also are faced with difficult and competing choices, like whether to use their limited funds to communicate with their children or in the case of female inmates, to purchase hygiene products in the commissary.

c. Therefore, it is necessary to create a strengthened Corrections Ombudsperson in the Office of the Corrections Ombudsperson to enforce the rights of inmates, provide access to the benefits to which they are entitled, and ensure accountability, transparency, monitoring, and continued improvements within all correctional facilities.

d. It is time for this State to focus on its incarcerated primary caretaker parents and provide them with the protections they deserve.

L.2019, c.288, s.2.