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BY TONY WEST/ When Wisconsin's Laura Kaeppeler won the title of Miss America 2012, she knew what she wanted to do with her year of fame. She had a missio...

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BY TONY WEST/ When Wisconsin?s Laura Kaeppeler won the title of Miss America 2012, she knew what she wanted to do with her year of fame. She had a mission.

Six years earlier, when she was 17, her father was sentenced to prison for two years for a white-collar crime. Kaeppeler and her younger sisters underwent a shocking introduction to a world no child should have to know ? but millions of American children are forced to learn.

Now Miss America is touring the nation to advocate for the plight of children with incarcerated parents. She came to Philadelphia last week to support a new report by Pennsylvania?s Joint State Government Commission which casts a searing spotlight on this problem.

Miss America?s nation leads the world in locking people up; one out of every 100 Americans is behind bars. Stranded outside are their young children ? more than 1.7 million of them. Black children are seven times likelier to have a parent in prison than white children.

Children of prisoners suffer in many ways, economically and emotionally. Their family income drops. Their relationship with the incarcerated parent can be shattered or strained. Humiliation and loss torment them. As a rule, they are twice as likely as other children to show antisocial behavior, mental-health problems and school problems ? and to wind up in prison themselves.

One day, State Sen. Stewart Greenleaf (R-Montgomery) met in the same prison a grandfather, a father and a son; they had all met each other for the first time in that prison.

As chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Greenleaf has become a leader of the movement to curtail the USA?s bizarre addiction to mass imprisonment. ?Punishment without rehabilitation is an absolute failure,? he said at a press conference in City Hall where he was joined by Miss America. ?It is imperative that we change the atmosphere, change the attitude about prisons in our country.?

Greenleaf introduced a bill in 2009 calling for an advisory committee to study the problems of prisoners? children. Its report was released last December. It calls for a host of reforms.

Law officers, caregivers and child-welfare professionals all need protocols and training for how to handle the arrest and incarceration of a minor child.

These families fare much better if parent-child communications are regular and comfortable. The report calls for facilitating in-person and contact visitation; it also recommends support for other channels of contact, such as by videoconferencing, email and telephone.

The report, ?The Effects of Parental Incarceration on Children: Needs and Responsive Services?, urges the establishment of a permanent statewide commission dedicated to the concerns of these children.