Although women are legally allowed to fight for custody of their children while incarcerated, mothers often face barriers to attending trials, receiving transportation to court, and gaining adequate legal representation to maintain custody. Additionally, the outcome for children of incarcerated mothers can be very unpredictable. Tragically, about 1 in 8 children of incarcerated parents end up in foster care because of a loss of parental rights. Often, the seriousness of the parent’s offense has little impact on whether they are granted permission to maintain parental rights. This point demonstrates how easy it is for incarcerated mothers to lose custody of their children due to lack of adequate resources. As legal scholar Dorothy Roberts notes, “instead of actually responding to the struggles of poor families…we’ve decided that it’s simpler to take their children away.” The removal of children from their mothers, especially mothers of color and poor mothers, exemplifies some of the core issues at the heart of the foster care system.