Mike Konczal points out that "24% of black children will have had a parent behind bars by age 17, an eightfold increase since 1980":
There aren't definitive answers for how incarceration changes family structure, though there is evidence that incarcerated fathers are less like to be cohabitating or marrying a year after their child's birth. And incarceration increases the liklihood of divorce. But we don't have full answers, in part because the incarcerated fall off the government's radar for data collection.
The Dish 
