08/03/2026
The Children We Never Sentenced
~Letters from the Visiting Room~
The children never stood before a judge.
No one read them their rights. No one sentenced them. No one entered their names into the court record.
And yet, from the moment a parent is arrested, they begin serving a sentence of their own.
Whether they are an infant cradled in someoneās arms or a teenager trying to make sense of a world that suddenly feels unsafe, there is no part of their life left untouched by a parentās incarceration.
When a mother or father is sent to prison, children are often pushed deeper into poverty. They are forced into an adult world long before they are readyāone filled with uncertainty, financial hardship, complicated family dynamics, and impossible questions that no child should have to answer.
They carry shame that does not belong to them.
They carry stigma that they did not earn.
They are quietly pushed to the margins.
Iāve often said that when a childās parent dies, a community instinctively knows how to respond. Friends organize meal trains. Neighbors bring lasagna. Churches collect donations. Scholarship funds are established. People sit in the familyās living room and grieve together.
But when a childās parent goes to prisonā¦
No one comes.
No one starts a scholarship fund.
No one knocks on the door carrying dinner.
Instead, many families disappear into silence.
Children lose the simple privilege of calling their parent after a difficult day at school. They canāt pick up the phone because they scored the winning basket or got accepted into college. They canāt reach out when theyāre scared, angry, or simply need to hear, āI love you.ā
Instead, they wait.
They wait for the prison phone to ring.
If it does, they may have fifteen precious minutes before the call ends. Throughout that conversation, an automated voice repeatedly reminds them that the call is being recorded and that they are speaking with an āinmate.ā
Imagine hearing your mother or father reduced to a number and a label every time you speak with them.
Children may not understand sentencing guidelines or parole hearings.
But they understand time.
They know the difference between a birthday and ten birthdays.
Between one Christmas and fifteen.
Between missing a first-grade graduation and missing an entire childhood.
The United States incarcerates more people than any other nation in the world. We have built a system that often measures justice by the length of a sentence rather than by the healing it creates.
And in doing so, we continue to punish people who were never convicted of anything.
Our response to crime has become overwhelmingly punitive and retributive. Yet every day I witness another truth: punishment alone does not heal families. It does not repair communities. It does not give children back the years they lost waiting for a phone call, a visit, or the chance to hug a parent.
If we truly care about public safety, then we must also care about family stability.
If we believe children matter, then we must stop treating them as invisible casualties of our criminal legal system.
Justice should hold people accountable.
It should never require children to serve a sentence they did not receive.
šKaren McDaniel is the Founder and Executive Director of The Place4Grace and Vice President of the Inland Region Reentry Collaborative. For nearly two decades she has worked alongside children, families, and incarcerated parents across California.
