WASHINGTON Nearly 1.5 million U.S. children an estimated two percent of all American children under age 17 had a parent in jail last year, AFP quoted the Justice Department as reporting recently.
The figure constitutes a more than 30-percent increase since 1991, according to a report by the Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics.
A majority of the children with imprisoned parents 58 percent were younger than 10 years old.
Ninety-three percent of imprisoned parents were male, according to the report.
Half of them were black, about a quarter were white and a fifth were Hispanic.
The percentage of black children in the U.S. resident population with an imprisoned parent was nearly nine times higher than that of white children.
Hispanic children were three times as likely as white children to have a parent in prison, the report said.
Forty percent of the imprisoned fathers and 60 percent of the mothers reported weekly contact with their children by phone, mail or visit.
However, 57 percent of the imprisoned fathers and 54 percent of the mothers reported never having had a personal visit with their children since their admission to state prison, according to the report.