THE MARSHALL PROJECT:

Posted by Jim on June 18, 2026

A new series centering justice-impacted people.

Making journalism about the criminal justice system accessible to the people impacted by it is a core part of The Marshall Project’s mission. In our free print publication, News Inside, and our award-winning video series, Inside Story, both distributed to hundreds of prisons and jails across the U.S., we make our reporting available to incarcerated readers. But readers behind bars — and their loved ones — need more than just hard news. With features like Reader to Reader, a News Inside column built around advice and insights by and for justice-impacted people, we offer incarcerated readers a place to share peer-to-peer guidance on the challenges of prison life.

Now we’re bringing this forum for sharing knowledge and connection beyond News Inside, to a wider audience. This Father’s Day, The Marshall Project is launching “Sending Kites,” a new monthly column that explores different challenges faced by people with incarcerated loved ones. “Kites” is a prison term for letters or notes passed between people on the inside. Our newsroom corresponds with thousands of incarcerated people, many of whom share advice and reflections from their own lives. Every month, “Sending Kites” will draw from those experiences — and from families living these realities firsthand — to share practical ideas, creative solutions and guidance from inside prison walls.

Sending Kites: Parenting in Prison

We’re starting “Sending Kites” with the topic of parenting from prison. While this column is launching close to Father’s Day, it’s about the broader challenges mothers, fathers and other caregivers face when they try to stay present in their children’s lives from behind bars. As you’ll see in the responses, many parents behind bars fight to stay present. They call, write, pray and send artwork. They try to share and teach life lessons from their cells and find creative ways to guide their children through milestones and decisions from afar. Their experiences are about persistence as much as love, and finding ways to be there for their children, even when “being there” looks different for them.

“Sending Kites” will be published monthly on our website, where we’ll invite readers with personal experience of the criminal justice system to write in with their own experiences. You can also follow “Sending Kites” in your inbox; sign up today to get each edition as a monthly email newsletter.