For folks who are interested in this topic, I did an audio piece for the NewsHour a couple of years ago on how this might fit into the new administration's "Fatherhood Agenda," on a program that records incarcerated parents reading to their kids and then sends them the audio tapes. You can listen to it here.
Monica Potts followed up on the administration's efforts to promote fatherhood more recently--but her piece reflects I think, the degree to which resolving the mutually reinforcing cycle of poverty and family instability doesn't have any clear public policy solution yet. Mark Kleiman's writing on swift sanctions has convinced me that large public policy problems may have very focused solutions--simply keeping men out of jail or prison with an effective probation or parole program may be enough to keep them employed and supporting their kids--but we simply haven't devoted enough resources on trying to figure this out, in part because the people it would benefit don't have much political influence.
