Throughout 2017, COPE worked closely with the Council of Europe’s Council for Penological Co-operation (PC-CP) to draft a Recommendation and Explanatory Memorandum on children with imprisoned parents. We are very pleased to announce that the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe has adopted this Recommendation and issued it to its 47 Member States today! This Recommendation highlights that children with imprisoned parents are entitled to the same rights as other children, including regular, quality contact with their parents, as long as it is in the best interests of the child.

There are approximately 2.1 million children with imprisoned parents across Council of Europe Member States. These children may be exposed to a number of risks, including trauma, stigma and anxiety. Supporting and nurturing the child-parent relationship is an essential element in maintaining a child’s well-being and healthy development, as well as in better preparing the imprisoned parent for reintegration into the family and society. The Recommendation contains 56 articles providing guidelines that should be considered from the moment of a parent’s arrest.

To minimise the impact of a parent’s imprisonment on children, the Recommendation outlines that authorities should allow alternative measures to imprisonment such as home leave, open prisons and electronic monitoring, which facilitate a parent’s transition once released. The distance between the prison where the parent is placed and the child’s home should be minimal and, where feasible, children should be allowed frequent contact with their parent through telephone calls, webcam or chat.

The adoption of Recommendation CM/Rec(2018)5 was accompanied by the publication of a detailed Explanatory Memorandum, which discusses the current situation for children with imprisoned parents in Europe and includes responses to a questionnaire that was sent to the prison services in all Council of Europe Member States.

You can find links to the Recommendation and Explanatory Memorandum below:

This is a real milestone for the COPE network and for the children we support across Europe. Thanks is owed to the two COPE experts who worked on this with the PC-CP: Kate Philbrick (Board member) and Ria Wolleswinkel (individual member), as well as Liz Ayre (COPE director) and Aisling Parkes (individual member) who also brought their expertise to meetings in Paris and Strasbourg. A special thanks to Attila Juhasz (individual COPE member and current Vice-Chair of the PC-CP), who was one of the initiators of the Recommendation and pushed for it to become a reality.

The Council of Europe has also produced a video highlighting the importance of the Recommendation, which can be viewed here:

The Recommendation is available to be shared widely and used in discussions with local and national authorities (Justice Ministries, prison administrations, etc.). The 2018 COPE campaign, “Not my crime, still my sentence”, will be focusing on the Recommendation, and its significance for children with imprisoned parents. During this year’s campaign, members across Europe will be working with children with imprisoned parents re-write the Recommendation in child-friendly language. The 56 articles of the COE Recommendation will be divided among participating members, who will then set up small creative workshops with groups of children, to support the children in re-writing the articles. For more information and to follow the progress of the campaign, see the campaign website here.