Adverse Childhood Experiences and Parental Incarceration Among African American Children in the United States

This study examines how adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) such as violence exposure, household substance use, and parental divorce/separation, are associated with parental incarceration among African American children in the U.S.

Introduction

Using a nationally representative dataset, this study investigates the relationship between adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and parental incarceration among African American children in the United States. ACEs are described as traumatic events that occur before age 18; they are grouped into three domains: maltreatment (physical, emotional, or sexual harm), neglect (failure to meet basic needs), and household dysfunction (exposure to substance use, mental illness, domestic violence, divorce, or incarceration).

This study is important because African American children are disproportionately affected by both ACEs and parental incarceration, yet few studies have examined their intersection using nationally representative data. Between 2.7 and 5 million children in the U.S. have had a parent incarcerated, most often involving a father.  By age 17, approximately 24.2% of non-Hispanic Black children have experienced parental incarceration compared to just 3.9% of non-Hispanic White children. Therefore, this research helps fill a critical gap in understanding how overlapping adversities compound harm among African American children. 

Lead author Edson Chipalo is an Assistant Professor in the School of Social Work at the University of Cincinnati, where his research focuses on adverse childhood experiences, child welfare, and racial health disparities. Co-author Oliver I. Eya is a PhD student in the College of Social Work at the University of Tennessee, where his work centers on social welfare and structural inequities. Their combined expertise in social work and public health strengthens the study’s focus on trauma, family instability, and racial disparities in child well-being.

Methods and Findings

The study draws on the 2022 National Survey of Children’s Health (NSCH), a cross-sectional, nationally representative survey of U.S. children aged 0 to 17. After restricting the sample to African American children, the final analytic sample consisted of 3,710 children, 51.6% of whom were male, with a mean age of 8.6 years. Parental incarceration was measured using a yes/no survey item asking whether a parent or guardian had ever served time in jail or prison. ACEs assessed included economic hardship, parental divorce or separation, parental death, exposure to violence, household mental illness, household substance use, and discrimination. The authors used chi-square tests to estimate prevalence and conducted unadjusted and adjusted logistic regression models to examine associations between ACEs and parental incarceration. The adjusted model controlled for child, family, and community-level factors.

Prevalence of Parental Incarceration and ACEs

• 9.7% of African American children in the sample had at least one parent incarcerated at some point.

• 22.6% had experienced two or more ACEs before the age of 18.

ACEs Associated with Parental Incarceration

• Violence exposure, measured as either witnessing domestic violence between adults in the home, or being a victim of or witnessing violence in the neighborhood, was the strongest individual predictor of parental incarceration. Children exposed to neighborhood or household violence were nearly five times more likely to have an incarcerated parent, even after adjusting for child characteristics (age and sex), family characteristics (parental marital status, education, and employment), and community characteristics (place of residence and neighborhood conditions).
• Children with divorced or separated parents were approximately 2.3 times more likely to have an incarcerated parent. 
• Children living with a family member who used alcohol or drugs were approximately 4.4 times more likely to have an incarcerated parent.                           
• Children who had experienced the death of a parent were approximately twice as likely to have an incarcerated parent.                                                                                

Non-Significant and Unexpected Findings

• Experiences of discrimination were not statistically associated with parental incarceration after adjusting for child, family, and community-level factors, including age, household income, caregiver education, and neighborhood conditions.                                                         
• Unexpectedly, children who experienced multiple ACEs were statistically less likely to have an incarcerated parent. The authors suggest this finding likely reflects a measurement limitation: parental incarceration was only treated as the outcome variable and was not included as an ACE itself. Thus, the finding should not be interpreted as indicating that experiencing multiple adversities (ACEs) somehow protects against parental incarceration. 

Conclusions

Chipalo and Eya conclude that parental incarceration does not occur in isolation for African American children. Rather, it clusters with a set of overlapping hardships, including neighborhood violence, household substance use, family separation, and economic stress, all of which collectively shape children’s health, development, and long-term opportunities. The authors argue that addressing parental incarceration as a standalone issue is insufficient; effective interventions must also simultaneously address the broader context of adversity in which it occurs.

Recommendations for Practice:

• Train practitioners across healthcare, juvenile justice, education, and child welfare to recognize and respond to the overlapping adversities commonly experienced by African American children with incarcerated parents. 
• Revise ACE screening tools to explicitly include parental incarceration and reflect the culturally relevant stressors affecting Black families, including experiences of racism and community violence.
• Establish clear referral pathways to connect high-risk children with mental health counseling, grief support, peer mentoring, and other evidence-based services.
• Invest in long-term protective services, such as early childhood education, mentorship programs, and youth enrichment activities that promote resilience before crises occur.
• Adopt restorative, non-punitive approaches in schools and community center settings that foster stable relationships and safe spaces for children who have experienced trauma.

Policy Implications:

• Advance decarceration strategies, especially for nonviolent offenses, to reduce children’s exposure to family separation, economic instability, emotional trauma, and disrupted caregiving relationships.
• Strengthen family-centered incarceration and reentry policies by improving visitation policies, virtual contact options, and family-based reentry programs to sustain parent-child attachment. 
• Invest in affordable housing, income supports, and neighborhood revitalization to address structural conditions that contribute to both adverse childhood experiences and parental incarceration. 
• Adopt intersectional policy frameworks that recognize how race, poverty, and systemic discrimination converge to shape children’s health and life trajectories.