This Woman Wants To End The Stigma Of Having A Parent In Prison, And It’s Personal

Jasmine Barclay knows exactly what it feels like to be stigmatized for having a parent in prison. She’s also a producer of the documentary “Echoes of Incarceration,” and she joined HuffPost Live host Caroline Modarressy-Tehrani to discuss the importance of supporting children with a parent in prison, not shunning or judging them.

“There is a lot of stigma that goes along with it, and because of that stigma, it’s very hard for us to open up to people that we should probably be opening up to, such as guidance counselors at school or maybe a teacher,” said Barclay. “I think people mostly have this idea that, ‘Oh well, it’s the parent’s fault so they should have thought about their child when they were committing a crime,’ but often times I feel that people forget there are many reasons why people actually commit crimes. Sometimes it’s because they have to take care of their kids, and that someone may resort to doing something illegal to do it… That stigma attached is very detrimental to the youth because they’re not getting the help and the support that they need because people mostly want to stay at a distance from the issue when we need to be attacking it head-on.”

The Huffington Post