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Stigma, financial hardship, emotional trauma: Children pay for the sins of incarcerated parents

Published: 17 Apr. 2026, 17:36 Updated: 22 Apr. 2026, 13:48

An illustration of a person behind bars [JOONGANG ILBO]

“I suddenly found myself having to earn money for everything, even basic things like food and clothes,” said a 19-year-old going by the alias Park Seong-min. “I tried just about every job I could to make money.”

Park, who just became a legal adult this year, was forced to support himself alone in 2023 while in the first year of high school after his father was arrested on fraud charges.

Park had already lost contact with his divorced mother at a young age. It also became his responsibility to pay monthly court restitution of 500,000 to 600,000 won ($335 to $402), as his father was imprisoned after filing for personal rehabilitation.

Park, who was registered as a basic livelihood security recipient, received about 700,000 won in monthly support, but after paying various utility bills, his father’s commissary funds and court restitution, the bank account was often nearly empty.

But more than the money, it was the sudden change in circumstances and having to bear it alone that was the most difficult part, Park said in a phone interview with the JoongAng Ilbo.

“On weekdays, after school, I worked part-time at a barbecue restaurant from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. for 40,000 won a day, and on weekends I worked at construction sites, earning 100,000 to 120,000 won,” Park said.

“Until my first year of high school, my grades were in the top, mostly Grade 1 or 2, but after my father’s imprisonment, I could hardly study and my grades dropped to Grade 8.” In Korea, grades are typically divided into nine tiers, with lower numbers indicating higher performance — the highest level being Grade 1.

The JoongAng Ilbo interviewed the children of imprisoned parents, who were forced to take on the role of heads of their households from a young age and revealed the difficulties of young breadwinners who had to take care of not only themselves but the remaining family, while being unable to recover from the wounds of social stigma.

A 23-year-old university student, identified by the pseudonym Kim Min-hyeok, whose father was imprisoned in 2022, works at a construction site, as shown in a photo provided by Kim. [JOONGANG ILBO]

“That day, which was supposed to be just my sister’s birthday, became the day we became children of an imprisoned parent, and at the same time, the day our mother died,” said a 23-year-old going by the alias Kim Min-hyeok, who was left alone with a younger sister, seven years her junior, when their father was arrested in 2022 for killing their mother. The incident happened on his sister’s birthday, when she was in sixth grade of elementary school.

“I took a leave of absence from university and worked whatever jobs I could find, including loading and unloading parcels at a logistics center, to earn money," Kim said. “My sister was just in sixth grade at the time and is now in her first year in high school. Even if it doesn’t show on the outside, it still hurts to think those childhood experiences may have left a deep scar.”

Children of imprisoned parents cited social isolation as a major issue. Although what happened was not their fault, they said society still stigmatizes them as “the family of a criminal."

In a 2021 survey of 1,000 adults nationwide conducted by the child welfare organization, ChorogUsan, only 2.4 percent said that they could accept a child of an incarcerated person as a spouse, while 14.7 percent said they could accept such a person as a friend, when asked to what extent they could accept a child of an imprisoned parent in a relationship.

A surprising 13.8 percent of respondents said that they would not be willing to open themselves up to any form of relationship with the child of a prisoner at all.

“After my father was imprisoned, I kept thinking, ‘I have to solve everything on my own’ and ‘If I fail at this, it will be a disaster,’ so I kept pushing myself to the limit,” Park said. Park’s father’s prison term ended near the end of Park’s final year of high school. The 19-year-old had only recently begun preparing for college entrance exams again.

A logistic center at which the 23-year-old university student, identified by the pseudonym Kim Min-hyeok and whose father was imprisoned in 2022, works a part-time job loading and unloading parcels is shown in a photo provided by Kim. [JOONGANG ILBO]

“There was no one to help me, and I didn’t even know how to ask for help, so I ended up taking responsibility for everything alone, and I had nowhere to lean on emotionally,” Kim said. Kim, who is majoring in physical therapy but has shifted interest to marketing, recently registered a business in 2024, beginning a new chapter.

The trauma of being a child of an incarcerated parent continues into adulthood.

“Since I was young, I have always hesitated, wondering, ‘Will people leave me if they find out who I really am?’” said Gibok (a pen name) whose father was first imprisoned when the writer was in the sixth grade.

Gibok published a book titled “The Courage to Remember” (translated, 2025), compiling personal experiences after the father’s imprisonment along with those of nine other children of imprisoned parents.

“After meeting others in similar situations and going through the process of overcoming the pain, I came to believe that I don’t have to hide behind a mask anymore,” Gibok said.

“Parents’ crimes should not become a social stigma that extends to their children, who are also victims,” Park Sun-young, a professor of the Department of Police Administration at Hansei University, said. “It is important to establish a system of economic and emotional support to help children of incarcerated parents integrate well into schools and local communities.”

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.
BY OH SAM-GWON, IM SOUNG-BIN, KIM YE-JUNG [[email protected]]