Children of prisoners deprived of support

The children of prisoners face multiple disadvantages. They are at increased risk of suffering mental health and behavioural problems and of becoming offenders themselves in later life.

But despite the complex problems facing the families of parents in custody, campaigners are warning that these children remain a largely hidden group. There are 65,520 looked-after children in England, but the Ministry of Justice estimates the number of children of prisoners to be more than treble that figure, at 200,000.

Last month, Barnardo’s identified improving support for the children of prisoners as a key priority at the charity. Tim Carter, assistant director, says children of prisoners are often on the radar of statutory services, but miss out on support because professionals fail to realise that one of their parents is in prison.

“It is very difficult to know if they are receiving help,” he says. “Statutory services probably know more about the group than they realise. They may feature in the care system or be on child protection plans, but, by and large, information on whether a parent is in prison doesn’t feature in assessments or discussions.”

Identify the problems
Carter argues that all agencies working with children need to be aware of the potential issues around having a parent in prison, including mental health problems such as anxiety and the psychological impact of losing touch with a parent. “Children’s centres and health visitors must play a role in identifying the issue,” he says.

“In schools, teachers and advice and guidance services must be more confident in identifying children and responding. Schools must also be more approachable for parents to raise the issue.”

Diana Ruthven, communications and information director at Action for Prisoners Families, believes there is scope for the government’s troubled families programme to play a major role in joining up services for children of prisoners.

But she says local agencies must identify, and flag, the issue.

“The trouble is in knowing which families have a parent in prison,” she says. “But there is ?a growing awareness that if we ?can reach families and support them now it will be cheaper in ?the long run.”

Work in prisons to maintain relationships between families – such as homework clubs where children can spend time with a parent doing school-work – and schemes to help prisoners prepare for home life do take place. But, according to Ruthven, they are few and far between.

“We are working with practitioners across the board, from social workers to prison staff, to make them more aware of the needs of prisoners’ families,” she says. “At the moment, there are pockets of good practice, but that good practice doesn’t extend everywhere because prisons are quite insular establishments.”

Steps to keep parents, predominantly women, out of prison have been taken by the Sentencing Council, which has published new guidelines stating that being a primary care-giver should be considered a mitigating factor by the courts.

Missing information
However, Carter says relevant information is not always presented to the courts.

“We are beginning work with probation officers on pre-sentence reports, understanding the limits on probation staff and why information on whether somebody has a family and children doesn’t seem to feature as much as it could do,” he says.

Juliet Lyon, director of the Prison Reform Trust, believes sentencers are too often stymied by a lack of community alternatives to prison. The necessity for childcare to be provided in order for a primary care-giver to be able to complete a community punishment is also a problem, she says.

“Reoffending outcomes for community sentences are eight to 10 per cent better than custodial sentences,” Lyon says. “Given that, you would hope that the government would invest heavily in community alternatives.”

She adds: “Breaking up families for what can be a sentence of about 50 days – just enough time to cause maximum chaos in someone’s life, but ?not enough to do something constructive – doesn’t make ?sense.

“That disruption is destabilising – children lose their support systems and many have to move schools. It is very hard to justify that damaging impact.”