Is a parent able to claim a child this is in prison?

Is the child in prison (or I guess juvenile prison?) or the parent?

If the chlld is in "prison" they are not really a child are they?

But no, if the child has been in prison the majority of the year.

The child is 20 and in adult prison

He was in college full time for 4 months and then in prison for the rest of year>

Probably not, because four months is NOT enough time to meet the "full-time student" exception to the requirement to provide more than half of the child's total support.

Given that the child was in prison EIGHT months of the year, the IRS default position would be that you did NOT provide more than half of the child's total support.