Children and Incarceration in Minnesota: A Complete Guide

Minnesota knows something about its prison population that most states have not bothered to measure. Seventy-six percent of people incarcerated in Minnesota's state prisons are parents. Sixty-six percent of the men and 77 percent of the women are parents to children who are currently minors. When the Minnesota Department of Corrections made all phone calls free on July 1, 2023, it cited this statistic explicitly. The department knew who was inside its facilities. It knew that most of them had children waiting at home. And it decided that the cost of staying in contact with those children should not be a barrier that the system imposed on families that were already carrying enough.

I went into the federal system, not the Minnesota DOC. I went in when my kids were 9, 11, 12, 15, 18, and 20. What I know from 66 months is that the cost of calling home shaped what was possible. In Minnesota, that barrier is gone for state prison calls. Three out of four people in Minnesota's prisons are parents. The system recognized that and acted on it. The question now is what the parents inside those facilities do with the access they have.

What the 76 percent means for children

The statistic is not just a number. It means that in almost any housing unit in any Minnesota Correctional Facility, most of the people in that unit have children at home who are waiting. Those children are asking questions. They are going to school with other children who may or may not know what has happened. They are being raised by a grandparent, a partner, a relative, or a single parent who is doing the work of two people. They are navigating childhood with an absence at the center of the family that nobody fully explains.

Minnesota's decision to make calls free was grounded in the research on what happens to children when that contact is maintained versus when it is not. The evidence is substantial and consistent: children who maintain regular contact with an incarcerated parent do better than children who do not, on virtually every measure that matters. The MN DOC cited that research directly when implementing free calls. The state made a policy decision based on what is good for the children.

What no policy decision can make is the quality of that contact. The call being free does not make the call good. What makes the call good is what the parent brings to it.

The decision that the statistics and the free calls do not make

My wife never said a word against me to our six children during 66 months. She had every reason. She had six kids in a situation I had created. She chose to let them love me without penalty. What I have with my adult children today is the direct result of that choice.

The parent inside a Minnesota facility carries the same obligation. Free calls mean the cost is not the barrier. What remains is the quality of the attention. A call from MCF-Faribault or Oak Park Heights or St. Cloud that opens with genuine curiosity about the child's specific life, that responds to what the child actually says, that ends with something the child carries with them, is doing the work the MN DOC's free-call policy was designed to enable. A call that drifts, or that turns into an adult's grievances delivered to a child who has no way to receive them, is spending the most valuable contact currency the family has on something that damages it.

The outside parent in Minnesota carries the same obligation from the other direction. In a state that has made calls free and moved to electronic visiting applications and invested in the Minnesota Rehabilitation and Reinvestment Act, the formal barriers have been reduced. The informal one, the choice not to speak ill of the incarcerated parent in front of the children, remains entirely up to the outside parent. My wife made that choice every day for 66 months. What I have now is what it made possible.

The MRRA and what it means

In 2023, Minnesota passed the Minnesota Rehabilitation and Reinvestment Act, which was implemented beginning in 2025. The MRRA shifts the department's focus from the amount of time spent in prison to how that time is spent. It emphasizes individualized interventions, accountability, and incentivizes participation in evidence-based programs through earned sentence reductions. It is a meaningful shift in philosophy, recognizing that what a person does during incarceration matters as much as how long they serve.

For children of incarcerated parents in Minnesota, the MRRA has an indirect but real effect: a parent who is actively engaged in programming, who is working toward earned reductions, who is focused on what they are building rather than just counting down, is a different kind of presence for the child. A parent who calls with something to report, with progress to name, with a direction they are moving, is a parent who is demonstrating to the child that they are still trying. That demonstration matters. Children evaluate the incarcerated parent not just on what they say but on what they are doing with the time. The MRRA gives the incarcerated parent in Minnesota something to do with the sentence besides serve it. Use that. The child who knows their parent is in a program, is earning toward something, is actively working on the person they want to be, has a different version of the incarceration to hold than the child who is told only that the parent is waiting for it to be over.

What the ages mean in Minnesota

My children were 9, 11, 12, 15, 18, and 20 when I went in.

The 9-year-old in Minnesota whose parent is at one of the state's facilities needs the most basic thing in this series: to hear directly and repeatedly that none of what happened is their fault. Children under 10 build private, silent explanations for a parent's absence. The explanation they most often reach is that they caused it. In Minnesota, where the MN DOC knows that 76 percent of its residents are parents, the system has removed the cost barrier from the call that lets the parent say it. Use it. Call on a consistent schedule. Say it on every call: this is not your fault. I love you. I am still your parent.

The 11 and 12-year-old in Minnesota is navigating middle school in a state with wide community differences: from Minneapolis and St. Paul to rural communities in the Iron Range to the Twin Cities suburbs. In each of those contexts, a parent's incarceration is a visible fact that the child carries into the school environment. The incarcerated parent who uses free daily calls to ask real questions about the child's actual life, who remembers what was said last time and asks about it by name this time, is maintaining a presence across the miles and the weeks that keeps the 12-year-old in the relationship.

The 15-year-old is evaluating whether the calls are genuine. They have been evaluating it for years. A parent who shows up present on a free call, who asks and listens, who does not use the unlimited access as an excuse to deliver lectures the teenager did not ask for, will keep the teenager. Ask more than you tell.

The 18 and 20-year-old is an adult making a choice about what to maintain. Show up as someone worth choosing.

What the outside parent carries in Minnesota

The outside parent in Minnesota is managing children, a household, and the logistics of incarceration in a state where the facilities are spread from the Twin Cities area south to Faribault and north to Moose Lake. Some families are close to a facility and can visit regularly. Others are not.

What they need from the incarcerated parent is acknowledgment. Minnesota made phone calls free so that the cost of staying in contact would not fall on families. That decision acknowledged the burden families were already carrying. The incarcerated parent inside a Minnesota facility can do the same thing, one call at a time: name specifically what you see the outside parent doing and say thank you for it, in direct and genuine terms that are addressed to what is actually happening in the outside parent's life. Not a general expression of gratitude. A specific acknowledgment of the specific thing they are carrying. My wife deserved to hear that every day of those 66 months. I said so as often as the access allowed.

For the outside parent: the children will carry what they hear you say about the incarcerated parent. In Minnesota, where the policy has moved to reduce barriers, the informal choice, how you speak about the person who is gone in front of the children who are listening, is the one that determines what relationship the children can eventually have with that parent.

How communication works in Minnesota

Phone calls from all Minnesota DOC state facilities have been free since July 1, 2023. No prepaid account or funds are required to receive calls. As of May 14, 2025, a 15-minute wait period applies between completed calls at all facilities except MCF-Red Wing, to ensure equitable access to the phones. The provider is ViaPath (ConnectNetwork). If you have existing funds in a ConnectNetwork AdvancePay account you wish returned, call ViaPath customer service at 1-877-650-4249. Note that calls from county jails and out-of-state facilities using ViaPath may still require a funded account.

Video calls remain fee-based at $0.23 per minute. Legislation to extend free communication to video calls and electronic messaging was under consideration in 2025; check mn.gov/doc for current status.

For in-person visitation: effective August 4, 2025, all adult correctional facilities use an electronic visiting application process. Visit mn.gov/doc for the current application. If a minor will be escorted by an adult who is not their legal guardian, a Notarized Minor Escort Authorization form is required. A Minor Child Documentation Form is also available. Questions about the application process: Visitor Assessment Unit at 320-358-0466. Active protective orders or no-contact directives between the applicant and the incarcerated individual prohibit visitation.

MN DOC headquarters: 1450 Energy Park Drive, St. Paul, MN 55108. Phone: 651-361-7200. Website: mn.gov/doc.

Note: MCF-Stillwater is in a phased closure process. Confirm current status of any specific facility through the MN DOC website or inmate locator before planning a visit.

Federal inmates in Minnesota fall under BOP jurisdiction. BOP communication uses TRULINCS for email via CORRLINKS and TRUFONE for phone. FCC rate caps apply; First Step Act programming offers 300 free minutes per month.

Where this leaves you

Minnesota counted. It measured the percentage of its incarcerated population that are parents, published that number, and then made policy decisions based on what it showed. Seventy-six percent. Three in four. The system recognized what most systems do not bother to name: that most of the people inside are also parents of children who are waiting outside.

What the system cannot count is what both parents choose to do with the access that recognition provided. The incarcerated parent in Minnesota who calls every day, free of charge, and shows up fully for those calls, is doing the work the policy was designed to enable. The outside parent who speaks carefully about the incarcerated parent in front of those children, who keeps the door open through the years of the sentence, is doing the same.

Minnesota recognized that three out of four people in its prisons are parents. Both parents can recognize the same thing about the children who are waiting. Make the calls. Make them matter.