WUNRN
THE GIRL CHILD OF IMPRISONED
PARENT(S)
Direct Link to Report:
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THE
IMPACT OF PARENTAL IMPRISONMENT ON CHILDREN
Children of imprisoned parents are often described as the forgotten victims
of imprisonment. When a mother or father goes to prison, their children are
affected, usually adversely. Yet these effects are rarely considered in
criminal justice processes, which instead focus on determining individual guilt
or innocence and punishing lawbreakers. The failure to consider or consult
children of imprisoned parents at all stages of the criminal justice process –
from arrest to trial to imprisonment to release to rehabilitation into the
community – can result in their rights, needs and best interests being
overlooked or actively damaged.
Children may have to take on new roles following parental imprisonment in order
to provide domestic, emotional or financial support for other family members.
Their relationships with the imprisoned parent and others around them
frequently suffer. They may have to move to a new area, a new home or a new
school because of imprisonment. Yet these impacts are largely unacknowledged in
criminal justice systems worldwide, many of which fail to record information
about prisoners’ children, or even whether there are any. Efforts to compensate
for these failings have primarily been individual or local endeavours rather
than changes in official procedures and structures which put children’s
interests at the centre of issues that affect them within the prison context.
This neglect of the interests of children of imprisoned parents by officials
and institutions is a foreseeable consequence of judicial systems “centred on
the principals of ‘justice’ and ‘individual responsibility’”. The focus on the
offender means that the people around them are regularly ignored, from arrest
to post-release. Police officers may not consider the impact of a late-night
arrest on a suspect’s children, even though children find it a frightening and
traumatic experience. Too often judges do not consider an offender’s caring responsibilities
when passing sentence. Prison buildings and regimes are created without
considering the impact they have on young visitors, often resulting in remote
and inaccessible facilities which are inappropriate for children. The return of
a parent to a family following imprisonment is challenging for all concerned,
yet families and prisoners are rarely given the support they need during this
major change, which may be as disruptive as the imprisonment itself.
Yet both anecdotal and academic evidence suggests that when children are
considered then many of the negative effects of parental imprisonment can be
ameliorated. By helping children to understand what is happening to their
parent and themselves, thereby reducing the fear and uncertainty; by enabling
children to stay in contact with an imprisoned parent, through letters,
telephone calls and visits; by supporting children
Although children are the obvious persons towards whom imprisoned adults have a
caring responsibility and are the focus of this paper, there are other groups
of people such as elderly or disabled adults, legal wards and those over whom
the prisoner holds power of attorney for whom several of the issues raised here
will be relevant.
Helping families to maintain close relationships may also help to prevent
future antisocial or criminal behaviour by imprisoned parents (because having a
supportive family environment to return to is a major disincentive to
committing further crimes) and by the children themselves. Given that a key goal
of any justice system should be to prevent future crime and ensure that there
are as few victims as possible from any criminal act, considering the children
of imprisoned parents should be a welcome addition to crime-fighting and
crime-prevention toolkits.
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