The Next 250 Years of Justice: What Will Children Inherit?

By Jennifer Dalton (Leading with Conviction™ 2024)

The next 250 years of justice in America will be determined not only by how we reform prisons and courts, but by how willing we are to invest in children, families, and communities before system involvement begins.

When I first became involved in criminal justice advocacy, my focus was on prisons, sentencing, and reentry. As someone directly impacted by the criminal legal system, those issues felt deeply personal.

What I didn’t fully realize at first was how deeply parental incarceration would affect my child. I understood the consequences incarceration could have for the person serving the sentence. What I wasn’t prepared for were the consequences for a child who had no control over the situation.

I remember my son trying to run through a locked door in a prison lobby, because he knew his father was somewhere on the other side. He was too young to understand why he couldn’t get to him.

As I listened to impacted individuals and families, I realized our story was not unique. Different people. Different communities. The same underlying challenges: Trauma. Poverty. Family separation. Housing instability. Children carrying burdens they did not create.

Through my advocacy work, I saw children carrying the weight of parental incarceration and struggling with challenges that, left unaddressed, would follow them well into adulthood.

These are the realities that help fuel what we have come to know as the school-to-prison pipeline. The pipeline is not simply about discipline policies or what happens inside a classroom. It is the result of unmet needs and inequities that go unaddressed until they eventually become criminal justice issues.

Children are often the forgotten victims of our criminal legal system.

Children are often the forgotten victims of our criminal legal system.

I do not mean victims of crime. I mean the children who lose a parent to incarceration and are left to navigate the emotional, financial, and social consequences that follow.

An estimated 2.7 million children in the United States have a parent behind bars. Roughly one in 14 will experience parental incarceration.

When a parent is incarcerated, children often serve a sentence of their own. They miss birthdays, holidays, school events, graduations, and countless everyday moments that help families stay connected. Communication is expensive. Visitation is difficult. Distance and restrictive policies can make maintaining relationships nearly impossible. While the parent is serving a sentence imposed by the court, children bear consequences they never chose and did nothing to deserve.

These children are not just living through the consequences of today’s justice system. They will shape its future.

The question is whether they will inherit the same cycles that have defined so much of the last 250 years, or something better.

For too long, we have accepted conditions that should never have been normal: Children growing up without parents, communities burdened by repeated incarceration, and schools left to manage trauma without the resources to address it. The future of justice will be shaped by whether we continue accepting these outcomes or finally decide to change them. The choices we make for children today will echo for generations.

Impacted families have long understood what researchers have documented: Parental incarceration leaves lasting consequences for children. The effects of incarceration do not stop with the individual serving the sentence. They ripple through families and communities and, too often, into the next generation.

The cycle of incarceration is not simply a criminal justice issue. It is a measure of how we have failed one another as a society. Too often, we reduce incarceration to individual choices while overlooking the conditions that shaped those choices long before they were made. When the same patterns of hardship and community disinvestment repeat across generations, we must ask ourselves a difficult question: Are we witnessing individual failures, or the consequences of systems that have failed too many people for far too long?

For generations, justice has largely been measured by what happens after harm occurs. We count arrests, convictions, and sentences. We debate prison conditions, sentencing laws, and reentry programs. These conversations matter, but they cannot be the full extent of our vision. If we are serious about changing what justice looks like over the next 250 years, we must stop treating incarceration as an isolated failure of individuals and start addressing the conditions that repeatedly funnel people into the system.

That means making sure a family isn’t evicted, that a child has a school where they can actually learn, and that mental health care isn’t treated as a luxury. It means recognizing that public safety doesn’t start with a police badge. It starts when families have what they need to thrive.

For too long, children affected by incarceration have been absent from our conversations about justice. If we are serious about building a more just future, they must be at the center of it. Children affected by incarceration should not be an afterthought.

If we are serious about building a more just future, [children] must be at the center of it.

A more just future is one where children affected by incarceration are not defined by it. It is one where families receive support before crises become criminal justice issues, where schools respond to trauma with resources instead of punishment, and where fewer children grow up believing incarceration is a normal part of life.

If we fail to act, we should not be surprised when the same cycles continue into the next generation. If we continue treating children affected by incarceration as an afterthought, the next 250 years may look far too much like the last. But if we choose differently, if we invest in children, strengthen families, and support communities, we can break cycles that have persisted for generations.

We already know many of the factors that increase the likelihood of future system involvement. The question is whether we are willing to act on what we already know.

The future of justice will not be built solely in prisons, courtrooms, and legislatures. It will be built in classrooms, living rooms, community centers, and neighborhoods across the country. If we want the next 250 years to look different from the last, we must start with the children.

Jennifer Dalton, the Founder and Director of the Virginia Justice Alliance, is a dedicated advocate for human rights and social justice. As the Chairwoman of the Abolish Slavery VA coalition, she leads efforts to combat modern-day slavery. With a background in legal studies and a passion for dismantling systemic injustices, Jennifer has been instrumental in shaping policies that promote equality and protect the vulnerable.

Published in partnership with the Justice & The Next 250 campaign