Every year, about 28,000 children experience parental incarceration in Canada. Around 30% of them are Indigenous.
This is the first study to systematically estimate the number and percentage of children who experience parental incarceration in Canada. Given data limitations, our findings should be treated as minimum estimates.
Parental incarceration 29% higher in Canada than EU
- We found that 169,740 children experienced parental incarceration in BC, Alberta, Saskachewan, Ontario and Nova Scotia between 2015-2021.
- That’s 1/100 (1.2%) of children under 18.
- 29% higher than the rate for the EU (229/100,000) Canada vs EU (178/100,000).
- 87.4% had one and 12% had 2 parents who experienced incarceration.
- 5.9% had at least one Black parent. 30.5% had at least one Indigenous parent.
- Parents who experienced incarceration were 22.6% female, 77.4% male.
- Parents who experienced incarceration were 6% Black, 31.6% Indigenous.
- Children experienced a median of 60 and a mean of 166.5 total days of parental incarceration during the study period (2015-2021).