From the report Incarcerated Parents and Termination of Parental Rights in Connecticut: Recommendations for Reform by Connecticut Voices for Children:
Connecticut’s children with incarcerated parents are at greater risk of permanent, legal severance of their relationships with their parents than children whose parents are not in prison. This enhanced risk is the result of state application of a federal law enacted at the height of the
“tough on crime” and welfare “reform” eras of the 1990s. The Adoption and Safe Families Act (ASFA), enacted in 1997, provides monetary incentives for states to legally terminate children’s parental ties when they have spent 15 of the past 22 months in foster care. In practice, terminating
parental rights due to the length of time that a child has spent in foster care risks lifelong psychological trauma for children who are severed from their biological families and makes some children legal orphans.
In the decades since ASFA’s passage, tens of thousands of families have borne this extreme collateral consequence. Every year, children in Connecticut and throughout the country experience the trauma of permanently losing family ties because of ASFA. From 2006-2019, more than 32,000 incarcerated people across the country had their parental rights terminated.1 According to some
estimates, ASFA caused a 250 percent increase in the termination of parental rights (TPR) nationwide for incarcerated parents.2 The precise impact of ASFA on families with incarcerated parents is challenging to quantify in Connecticut due to a lack of data; no state agency reports this
information. While greater data reporting is essential to understand the full scope of this problem, the nationwide data is clear: By enforcing the 15/22 months rule against parents in prison, ASFA unduly punishes their children.
This paper outlines the history of ASFA as well as its current application in Connecticut to children with parents in prison. The paper also recommends a number of policy reforms that will promote the integrity of Connecticut families with incarcerated parents. Many of those reforms can be implemented without putting a strain on the state budget and some can be implemented
with reinvestment of budget savings from the closure of prisons.
Read the report here.
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