Dr Shona Minson of Oxford University’s Centre for Criminology recently released a report detailing the experiences of children and their families trying to cope with parental imprisonment during the first coronavirus-related prison lockdown in England, Scotland and Wales. The result of interviews with parents and caregivers of children whose parents were in prison, the report shows the significant harm that can be done to child-parent relationships, with negative effects on child health and well-being as a result of separation from their parents.
The report cites the sudden loss of face-to-face visits in March 2020 as having frequently generated complex feelings of betrayal and guilt in children: “Many children thought that their parent didn’t want to see them anymore, or maybe their parent no longer loved them. Children blamed themselves for this.” And with contact limited to phone and video calls, services that themselves had major logistical issues, serious concerns arose around the ability for infants and toddlers to form strong attachments to their parents.
The report also offers recommendations from families of children dealing with parental imprisonment, among which are recommendations for prisons to improve communications with family members to keep them abreast of the situation inside prisons and facilitate contact with prisoners; limiting restricted prison regimes for those serving short prison sentences and those nearing release and reintegration; increasing video call capacity and functionality, and increasing the time allowed for calls. The report calls for consideration be given to authorise parents who are in prison to serve the remainder of their sentence on license.