One in every seven kids in the U.S. lives in a house where someone is currently being prosecuted by the government.
March 24, 2026
Original Paper
Challenging Multigenerational Punishment
SSRN · 6381198
The Takeaway
We typically view criminal justice as an individual matter, but this data reveals that prosecution is a massive 'multigenerational' experience affecting 11 million children annually. It shows how civil laws like eviction and benefit bans effectively punish entire families for the legal cases of a single member, creating a permanent household underclass.
From the abstract
<p>This article presents novel empirical research showing that 1 in 7 U.S. children have had a household member prosecuted by the state in the last five years. Using unique data derived from millions of administrative and Census survey records from multiple states and decades, I show that for an estimated eleven million U.S. children each year, a parent, sibling, or other household member is dealing with an active criminal case or sentence. For children living in high poverty neighborhoods, and