Protect Children From Losing Their Families When a Parent Goes to Prison
The Issue
Protect Children From Losing Their Families When a Parent Goes to Prison
To the Michigan Legislature and Governor of Michigan:
When a parent is sentenced to prison, the court has imposed a sentence on that parent.
The child was not sentenced.
Yet when a parent becomes incarcerated, children can lose far more than the physical presence of that parent.
They may lose regular visits.
They may lose weekly routines.
They may lose grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins and other relatives they have known and loved for years.
They may lose holidays, family dinners, sleepovers, rides to activities, birthdays, traditions, and time in a home where they previously felt connected and loved.
Sometimes those relationships must be limited because there is a genuine safety concern.
But safe family relationships should not disappear automatically simply because one parent has gone to prison.
A parent’s incarceration should not become a family-separation sentence for the child.
We are asking Michigan lawmakers to create a Child and Family Relationship Preservation During Incarceration Act requiring courts to consider how safe, established parent-child and extended-family relationships can continue when a parent becomes incarcerated.
This proposal is not about excusing crime.
It is not about giving incarcerated parents unlimited rights.
It is not about requiring contact when a parent or relative is dangerous to a child.
It is about recognizing that children have relationships, attachments, routines and families of their own.
We are asking Michigan to create the following protections:
1. Incarceration alone should not automatically end parent-child contact.
The fact that a parent is incarcerated should not, by itself, establish that continued contact with that parent is harmful to the child.
Courts should make an individualized determination based on the specific parent, child, offense, history and circumstances involved.
When a child can safely continue a relationship with the incarcerated parent, the law should encourage that relationship to be preserved.
2. Safe parent-child contact should continue whenever reasonably possible.
Depending on the circumstances and the needs of the child, contact could include:
in-person prison visits;
video visits;
telephone calls;
letters and cards;
photographs;
electronic communication when available; and
other age-appropriate communication.
When unrestricted contact is not appropriate, courts should consider supervised, therapeutic or otherwise structured contact before eliminating the relationship altogether.
3. A child’s established weekly parenting-time schedule should not automatically disappear when the parent becomes incarcerated.
Before incarceration, many children do not simply “visit a parent.”
They have a routine.
They may spend certain evenings, weekends or portions of every week with that parent and with the parent’s family.
During that parenting time, the child may also be regularly spending time with grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins and other relatives.
When the parent becomes incarcerated, courts should consider whether all or part of that established family time can continue through a willing, safe and appropriate grandparent or other relative.
If a grandparent or relative is willing and able to transport the child, care for the child during that previously established time, preserve the child’s routines, and facilitate appropriate contact with the incarcerated parent, the court should have a clear mechanism for allowing that continuity to continue when it is in the child’s best interests.
The goal is not to transfer the incarcerated parent’s legal rights to another relative.
The goal is to prevent the child from suddenly losing an entire part of their weekly life.
4. A willing and able relative should be allowed to help preserve the child’s family continuity.
When an incarcerated parent requests it, courts should consider whether a safe grandparent, adult sibling, aunt, uncle or other established relative can help maintain the child’s connection to that side of the family.
That could include continuing some or all of the family time that previously occurred during the incarcerated parent’s parenting time.
For example, if a child previously spent every weekend or certain days each week in the incarcerated parent’s home, and a safe grandparent or relative was already part of that household or family routine, the court should consider whether the child can continue spending appropriate time with that family.
During that time, the relative could also facilitate approved prison visits, telephone calls, video visits, letters or other communication with the incarcerated parent.
This allows the child to maintain both:
a relationship with the incarcerated parent
and
a relationship with the family surrounding that parent.
5. Preserving family time during incarceration can help protect the child’s relationship with the parent after release.
A parent may be incarcerated for years.
If the child loses contact not only with the parent but also with the parent’s entire family, the child may eventually be expected to reconnect with people who have become strangers.
Preserving safe family relationships during incarceration can give children continuity.
They can continue knowing their grandparents.
They can continue seeing their cousins.
They can continue having relationships with their aunts, uncles and siblings.
They can continue visiting or communicating with their incarcerated parent when appropriate.
Then, when the parent later returns to the community, the child is not being asked to rebuild an entire side of their family from nothing.
The family connection was preserved.
6. Successful arrangements that existed before incarceration should matter.
When a child was already safely spending time with a parent through supervision, third-party transportation, relatives or other safeguards before incarceration, courts should consider whether those same or similar arrangements can continue afterward.
If a safe arrangement was already working, incarceration alone should not automatically erase it.
Courts should consider:
who transported the child before incarceration;
where the child regularly spent parenting time;
which relatives were involved in the child’s routine;
whether a relative is willing to continue facilitating contact;
whether the child was safe under the existing arrangement; and
whether maintaining that continuity would benefit the child.
7. A no-contact order between the parents should not automatically become a no-contact order between a parent and child.
There are circumstances in which two parents appropriately may be prohibited from communicating directly because of a personal protection order, restraining order, criminal no-contact condition or other court order.
But a restriction between two adults should not automatically eliminate the child’s relationship with one of those parents.
If the parents cannot communicate directly, courts should consider safe alternatives such as:
communication through an approved relative;
third-party transportation;
supervised exchanges;
attorneys;
Friend of the Court procedures;
neutral intermediaries; and
other structured arrangements.
When a safe third-party system was already working before incarceration, that history should be considered before parent-child contact is eliminated.
8. The incarcerated parent’s efforts to remain involved should matter.
An incarcerated parent should be allowed to demonstrate continued commitment to their child.
Courts should consider documented efforts such as:
requesting visits;
requesting telephone or video contact;
sending letters, cards or photographs;
asking about the child’s health, education and wellbeing;
attempting to participate in important decisions when legally permitted;
completing available parenting, treatment or rehabilitation programs; and
asking relatives to help maintain safe family connections.
A parent should not be characterized as uninvolved simply because incarceration makes involvement more difficult.
9. A parent should not be considered to have abandoned a child when reasonable attempts at contact were prevented.
Courts should distinguish between:
a parent who did not try
and
a parent who tried but was prevented from reaching their child.
When another person has blocked visits, refused communication, withheld correspondence or prevented reasonable contact, those circumstances should be considered before the incarcerated parent is characterized as having abandoned the relationship.
10. A child’s relationships with grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins and other established relatives should be considered independently.
A child does not have only one relationship with the incarcerated parent’s side of the family.
A child may have an independent bond with Grandma.
An independent bond with Grandpa.
A relationship with brothers and sisters.
Relationships with aunts, uncles and cousins.
Those relationships belong to the child too.
They should not automatically disappear simply because the parent connecting the child to that side of the family becomes incarcerated.
11. A safety concern involving one family member should not automatically eliminate an entire family.
Family safety decisions should be individualized whenever reasonably possible.
If a particular relative is unsafe, facilitates dangerous contact, exposes the child to prohibited individuals, undermines necessary safety protections or otherwise creates a credible risk, courts must be able to restrict that relationship.
But one person’s conduct should not automatically be attributed to every grandparent, sibling, aunt, uncle or cousin on that side of the family.
Protect the child from the unsafe person without unnecessarily taking away the safe people too.
12. Mental-health history should be evaluated according to actual risk to the child.
A mental-health diagnosis, psychiatric crisis or past suicide attempt should not automatically establish that a parent is dangerous to their child.
Courts should examine what actually occurred and whether the child was harmed, endangered, targeted or exposed to unsafe circumstances.
Mental-health concerns should be taken seriously.
They should also be evaluated individually rather than used automatically to erase a parent-child relationship.
13. The nature of the criminal offense should be considered individually.
Not every criminal offense demonstrates the same risk to a child.
An offense involving direct abuse, exploitation or violence toward a child raises fundamentally different concerns from an offense that did not involve the child.
Courts should retain full authority to protect children from dangerous parents while also recognizing that incarceration for an offense unrelated to the child does not automatically make the parent-child relationship itself unsafe.
14. Less restrictive alternatives should be considered before a safe family relationship is permanently severed.
Before permanently eliminating a child’s relationship with an incarcerated parent or that parent’s family, courts should consider whether safety can be protected through a less restrictive option.
Those alternatives may include:
supervised visitation;
therapeutic visitation;
prison visitation;
video or telephone contact;
written correspondence;
approved third-party facilitation;
continued family time with a safe relative;
structured transportation arrangements; or
temporarily limited contact followed by review.
Permanent family separation should be a last resort when safe alternatives exist.
Child safety must always come first.
Nothing in this proposal would require a child to have contact with a parent or relative when credible evidence shows that the particular relationship presents a real risk to the child’s physical or emotional safety.
Nothing in this proposal would automatically give grandparents or other relatives parental rights.
And nothing in this proposal would prevent a court from limiting contact when the facts show that limitation is necessary to protect the child.
The goal is simply to require courts to consider whether safe relationships can be preserved before allowing an entire side of a child’s family to disappear.
Protecting children from danger and protecting children from unnecessary family loss are not opposing goals.
Michigan can do both.
Why this matters
Children do not experience parenting time as a legal document.
They experience it as their life.
It is Grandma’s house.
It is playing with cousins.
It is seeing Dad.
It is dinner with the family.
It is the bedroom they sleep in.
It is the people waiting for them when they walk through the door.
When a parent goes to prison, the child already loses something enormous.
The law should ask whether it is truly necessary for that child to lose everything and everyone surrounding that parent too.
A child does not stop being someone’s grandchild because a parent goes to prison.
They do not stop being someone’s sibling.
They do not stop being a niece, nephew or cousin.
And when those relationships are safe and established, the law should provide a meaningful way to preserve them.
The question should not automatically become:
“How much of this child’s family should disappear too?”
The better questions are:
“Which relationships are safe?”
“Which relationships were already part of this child’s life?”
“Can a willing and appropriate relative preserve some of the parenting-time routine the child already had?”
“Can that family time also help the child maintain a relationship with the incarcerated parent?”
“What safeguards could preserve those relationships without compromising the child’s wellbeing?”
And ultimately:
“Are we protecting this child from actual danger, or are we allowing incarceration to unnecessarily erase an entire family?”
We are asking Michigan lawmakers to act.
Please create a Child and Family Relationship Preservation During Incarceration Act requiring courts to consider how safe parent-child and extended-family relationships can continue when a parent becomes incarcerated.
When a child already had an established parenting-time schedule, and a safe, willing and able grandparent or relative can preserve some or all of that family time, courts should have a clear process for considering that arrangement.
The incarcerated parent should be able to ask that their child remain connected to their safe family.
The child should be able to continue knowing the people who were already part of their life.
And when possible, that family should be able to help the child continue visiting and communicating with the incarcerated parent.
A prison sentence belongs to the person who was convicted.
It should not automatically become a family-separation sentence for their child.
Please sign and share this petition if you believe children deserve both protection from danger and protection from unnecessary family loss.
292
The Issue
Protect Children From Losing Their Families When a Parent Goes to Prison
To the Michigan Legislature and Governor of Michigan:
When a parent is sentenced to prison, the court has imposed a sentence on that parent.
The child was not sentenced.
Yet when a parent becomes incarcerated, children can lose far more than the physical presence of that parent.
They may lose regular visits.
They may lose weekly routines.
They may lose grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins and other relatives they have known and loved for years.
They may lose holidays, family dinners, sleepovers, rides to activities, birthdays, traditions, and time in a home where they previously felt connected and loved.
Sometimes those relationships must be limited because there is a genuine safety concern.
But safe family relationships should not disappear automatically simply because one parent has gone to prison.
A parent’s incarceration should not become a family-separation sentence for the child.
We are asking Michigan lawmakers to create a Child and Family Relationship Preservation During Incarceration Act requiring courts to consider how safe, established parent-child and extended-family relationships can continue when a parent becomes incarcerated.
This proposal is not about excusing crime.
It is not about giving incarcerated parents unlimited rights.
It is not about requiring contact when a parent or relative is dangerous to a child.
It is about recognizing that children have relationships, attachments, routines and families of their own.
We are asking Michigan to create the following protections:
1. Incarceration alone should not automatically end parent-child contact.
The fact that a parent is incarcerated should not, by itself, establish that continued contact with that parent is harmful to the child.
Courts should make an individualized determination based on the specific parent, child, offense, history and circumstances involved.
When a child can safely continue a relationship with the incarcerated parent, the law should encourage that relationship to be preserved.
2. Safe parent-child contact should continue whenever reasonably possible.
Depending on the circumstances and the needs of the child, contact could include:
in-person prison visits;
video visits;
telephone calls;
letters and cards;
photographs;
electronic communication when available; and
other age-appropriate communication.
When unrestricted contact is not appropriate, courts should consider supervised, therapeutic or otherwise structured contact before eliminating the relationship altogether.
3. A child’s established weekly parenting-time schedule should not automatically disappear when the parent becomes incarcerated.
Before incarceration, many children do not simply “visit a parent.”
They have a routine.
They may spend certain evenings, weekends or portions of every week with that parent and with the parent’s family.
During that parenting time, the child may also be regularly spending time with grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins and other relatives.
When the parent becomes incarcerated, courts should consider whether all or part of that established family time can continue through a willing, safe and appropriate grandparent or other relative.
If a grandparent or relative is willing and able to transport the child, care for the child during that previously established time, preserve the child’s routines, and facilitate appropriate contact with the incarcerated parent, the court should have a clear mechanism for allowing that continuity to continue when it is in the child’s best interests.
The goal is not to transfer the incarcerated parent’s legal rights to another relative.
The goal is to prevent the child from suddenly losing an entire part of their weekly life.
4. A willing and able relative should be allowed to help preserve the child’s family continuity.
When an incarcerated parent requests it, courts should consider whether a safe grandparent, adult sibling, aunt, uncle or other established relative can help maintain the child’s connection to that side of the family.
That could include continuing some or all of the family time that previously occurred during the incarcerated parent’s parenting time.
For example, if a child previously spent every weekend or certain days each week in the incarcerated parent’s home, and a safe grandparent or relative was already part of that household or family routine, the court should consider whether the child can continue spending appropriate time with that family.
During that time, the relative could also facilitate approved prison visits, telephone calls, video visits, letters or other communication with the incarcerated parent.
This allows the child to maintain both:
a relationship with the incarcerated parent
and
a relationship with the family surrounding that parent.
5. Preserving family time during incarceration can help protect the child’s relationship with the parent after release.
A parent may be incarcerated for years.
If the child loses contact not only with the parent but also with the parent’s entire family, the child may eventually be expected to reconnect with people who have become strangers.
Preserving safe family relationships during incarceration can give children continuity.
They can continue knowing their grandparents.
They can continue seeing their cousins.
They can continue having relationships with their aunts, uncles and siblings.
They can continue visiting or communicating with their incarcerated parent when appropriate.
Then, when the parent later returns to the community, the child is not being asked to rebuild an entire side of their family from nothing.
The family connection was preserved.
6. Successful arrangements that existed before incarceration should matter.
When a child was already safely spending time with a parent through supervision, third-party transportation, relatives or other safeguards before incarceration, courts should consider whether those same or similar arrangements can continue afterward.
If a safe arrangement was already working, incarceration alone should not automatically erase it.
Courts should consider:
who transported the child before incarceration;
where the child regularly spent parenting time;
which relatives were involved in the child’s routine;
whether a relative is willing to continue facilitating contact;
whether the child was safe under the existing arrangement; and
whether maintaining that continuity would benefit the child.
7. A no-contact order between the parents should not automatically become a no-contact order between a parent and child.
There are circumstances in which two parents appropriately may be prohibited from communicating directly because of a personal protection order, restraining order, criminal no-contact condition or other court order.
But a restriction between two adults should not automatically eliminate the child’s relationship with one of those parents.
If the parents cannot communicate directly, courts should consider safe alternatives such as:
communication through an approved relative;
third-party transportation;
supervised exchanges;
attorneys;
Friend of the Court procedures;
neutral intermediaries; and
other structured arrangements.
When a safe third-party system was already working before incarceration, that history should be considered before parent-child contact is eliminated.
8. The incarcerated parent’s efforts to remain involved should matter.
An incarcerated parent should be allowed to demonstrate continued commitment to their child.
Courts should consider documented efforts such as:
requesting visits;
requesting telephone or video contact;
sending letters, cards or photographs;
asking about the child’s health, education and wellbeing;
attempting to participate in important decisions when legally permitted;
completing available parenting, treatment or rehabilitation programs; and
asking relatives to help maintain safe family connections.
A parent should not be characterized as uninvolved simply because incarceration makes involvement more difficult.
9. A parent should not be considered to have abandoned a child when reasonable attempts at contact were prevented.
Courts should distinguish between:
a parent who did not try
and
a parent who tried but was prevented from reaching their child.
When another person has blocked visits, refused communication, withheld correspondence or prevented reasonable contact, those circumstances should be considered before the incarcerated parent is characterized as having abandoned the relationship.
10. A child’s relationships with grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins and other established relatives should be considered independently.
A child does not have only one relationship with the incarcerated parent’s side of the family.
A child may have an independent bond with Grandma.
An independent bond with Grandpa.
A relationship with brothers and sisters.
Relationships with aunts, uncles and cousins.
Those relationships belong to the child too.
They should not automatically disappear simply because the parent connecting the child to that side of the family becomes incarcerated.
11. A safety concern involving one family member should not automatically eliminate an entire family.
Family safety decisions should be individualized whenever reasonably possible.
If a particular relative is unsafe, facilitates dangerous contact, exposes the child to prohibited individuals, undermines necessary safety protections or otherwise creates a credible risk, courts must be able to restrict that relationship.
But one person’s conduct should not automatically be attributed to every grandparent, sibling, aunt, uncle or cousin on that side of the family.
Protect the child from the unsafe person without unnecessarily taking away the safe people too.
12. Mental-health history should be evaluated according to actual risk to the child.
A mental-health diagnosis, psychiatric crisis or past suicide attempt should not automatically establish that a parent is dangerous to their child.
Courts should examine what actually occurred and whether the child was harmed, endangered, targeted or exposed to unsafe circumstances.
Mental-health concerns should be taken seriously.
They should also be evaluated individually rather than used automatically to erase a parent-child relationship.
13. The nature of the criminal offense should be considered individually.
Not every criminal offense demonstrates the same risk to a child.
An offense involving direct abuse, exploitation or violence toward a child raises fundamentally different concerns from an offense that did not involve the child.
Courts should retain full authority to protect children from dangerous parents while also recognizing that incarceration for an offense unrelated to the child does not automatically make the parent-child relationship itself unsafe.
14. Less restrictive alternatives should be considered before a safe family relationship is permanently severed.
Before permanently eliminating a child’s relationship with an incarcerated parent or that parent’s family, courts should consider whether safety can be protected through a less restrictive option.
Those alternatives may include:
supervised visitation;
therapeutic visitation;
prison visitation;
video or telephone contact;
written correspondence;
approved third-party facilitation;
continued family time with a safe relative;
structured transportation arrangements; or
temporarily limited contact followed by review.
Permanent family separation should be a last resort when safe alternatives exist.
Child safety must always come first.
Nothing in this proposal would require a child to have contact with a parent or relative when credible evidence shows that the particular relationship presents a real risk to the child’s physical or emotional safety.
Nothing in this proposal would automatically give grandparents or other relatives parental rights.
And nothing in this proposal would prevent a court from limiting contact when the facts show that limitation is necessary to protect the child.
The goal is simply to require courts to consider whether safe relationships can be preserved before allowing an entire side of a child’s family to disappear.
Protecting children from danger and protecting children from unnecessary family loss are not opposing goals.
Michigan can do both.
Why this matters
Children do not experience parenting time as a legal document.
They experience it as their life.
It is Grandma’s house.
It is playing with cousins.
It is seeing Dad.
It is dinner with the family.
It is the bedroom they sleep in.
It is the people waiting for them when they walk through the door.
When a parent goes to prison, the child already loses something enormous.
The law should ask whether it is truly necessary for that child to lose everything and everyone surrounding that parent too.
A child does not stop being someone’s grandchild because a parent goes to prison.
They do not stop being someone’s sibling.
They do not stop being a niece, nephew or cousin.
And when those relationships are safe and established, the law should provide a meaningful way to preserve them.
The question should not automatically become:
“How much of this child’s family should disappear too?”
The better questions are:
“Which relationships are safe?”
“Which relationships were already part of this child’s life?”
“Can a willing and appropriate relative preserve some of the parenting-time routine the child already had?”
“Can that family time also help the child maintain a relationship with the incarcerated parent?”
“What safeguards could preserve those relationships without compromising the child’s wellbeing?”
And ultimately:
“Are we protecting this child from actual danger, or are we allowing incarceration to unnecessarily erase an entire family?”
We are asking Michigan lawmakers to act.
Please create a Child and Family Relationship Preservation During Incarceration Act requiring courts to consider how safe parent-child and extended-family relationships can continue when a parent becomes incarcerated.
When a child already had an established parenting-time schedule, and a safe, willing and able grandparent or relative can preserve some or all of that family time, courts should have a clear process for considering that arrangement.
The incarcerated parent should be able to ask that their child remain connected to their safe family.
The child should be able to continue knowing the people who were already part of their life.
And when possible, that family should be able to help the child continue visiting and communicating with the incarcerated parent.
A prison sentence belongs to the person who was convicted.
It should not automatically become a family-separation sentence for their child.
Please sign and share this petition if you believe children deserve both protection from danger and protection from unnecessary family loss.
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Petition created on September 12, 2026