Roma and Travellers tend to be overrepresented in European prison populations. Roma individuals make up an estimated fifty percent of sentenced prisoners in Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania; Travellers — though they make up 0.6 percent of Ireland’s general population—account for nearly twenty-five percent of the female prison population. Reasons for this over-representation include, among other things, elevated poverty rates among Roma and Travellers populations, an increased likelihood of racial profiling and a lack of eligibility for alternatives to incarceration before/during trial and after sentencing.
Roma & Traveller Children with a Parent in Prison: A Follow-Up Report with Case Studies & Recommendations was produced in 2018 through the collaboration of COPE members in response to a lack of studies and concerted attention to the challenges faced by Roma and Travellers prisoners and their children. The report is organised around case studies that emerged out of Roma- and Traveller-specific programs conducted by organisations Child & Space, Status: M and Romano Missio in Bulgaria, Croatia and Finland, respectively. Each case study is accompanied by good practice recommendations for NGOs and policy-makers and attests to the importance of programs developed with respect to cultural context, highlighting the influence that educating and working with prison staff can have on the prison environment as a whole.
Read the report here: Roma & Traveller Children with a Parent in Prison: A Follow-Up Report with Case Studies & Recommendations