Key players

A parent’s arrest may be the first contact a child has with the criminal justice system. The way in which an arrest takes place can have a long-lasting impact on children’s future relationship with the police and with authority in general. Police officers need to consider the impact on children before beginning an arrest. Various stakeholders have made suggestions to improve conditions of arrest in the presence of children, including:

• training for police on identifying if the person being arrested has children,
• having them wear civilian clothing and not use handcuffs or violence when children are present,
• ensure they do not witness the arrest or search and allow arrested parents time to say goodbye.

Clear written guidelines could help police perform impact assessments of the children’s needs and use subtler methods of arrest that maintain the parent’s dignity in front of children, ensure that someone with appropriate qualifications can speak to children at the time of arrest and ensure there is follow-up (by police, social services or others) if children are temporarily placed with neighbours or other alternative carers.

Further information can be found in the DIHR and COPING reports as well as the EU funded special edition newsletter on police, judges and sentencing and the looking forward edition.

Courts decide protection and placement measures for children who have been harmed or abused, but they also affect the lives of these children when sentencing their parents. As the COPING Project report mentions, “any potential sentences should take into account the impact on any children; sentences that minimise the negative effects on family life should be preferred.”

Article 9 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child states that “States Parties shall ensure that a child shall not be separated from his or her parents against their will, except if it is determined that such separation is in the best interests of the child”. If the Convention is to be respected it is important that judges and lawyers take the into account that the person on trial is a parent with dependent children. In this case, the presiding judge would consider all possible alternatives before delivering a prison sentence. Should prison be found as the only appropriate sentence, the court should ensure that prisoners are imprisoned as close as possible to the family in order to facilitate contact.

Further information can be found in the DIHR and COPING reports as well as the EU funded special edition newsletter on police, judges and sentencing.

Children are often influenced by exaggerated depictions of prison settings seen on television, in films or online. Often, a single visit to their parent in prison can reassure a child that their parent is alive and well and not being mistreated or neglected. However, it must not be overlooked that the process of visiting an imprisoned parent – a figure usually representing stability and safety to a child – can be a traumatic process.

A child’s ideas and images of a daunting and frightening place can have an effect on his or her experience of the visit. These preconceptions are exacerbated if the visit is not child-friendly, as is often the case. Imposing gates; the security search process; drugs dogs; stern prison officers; the lack of play area or child-oriented decorations and pictures: all of this can heighten a child’s fears. Child-friendly prison design, regulations and initiatives can help children and parents reconnect.

Prison staff have a key role to play in ensuring that prison visits are child-friendly and in actively reassuring children. Through sensitivity training and the implementation of child-friendly policies, prisons can mitigate the traumatising effects that children face in the context of the tense, rigid, often fearful environment of the prison. It bears emphasising the positive impact of the presence of responsible, well-trained staff members in accompanying and counselling children throughout the visitation process, especially when staff members can share information in a child-friendly manner.

Furthermore, child-friendly spaces should be in place to “soften” the impact of a stressful prison visit and to provide as comfortable a space as possible to allow for normal interaction between child and parent. The thoughtful curation of these spaces by child-friendly staff, ensuring that play areas are clean and equipped with age appropriate toys, is paramount. These facilities should be accessible to children with disabilities.

Further information can be found in the DIHR, COPING  and Europris Family Relations Good Practice Collection reports.

Schools are the single institution that almost all children regularly attend. Not only are they largely responsible for the socialisation of children, they also provide fertile ground for systematic, individualised, rights-based support for children.

Schools are not necessarily made aware when a child has an imprisoned parent, nor are there  always standards in place to help schools, teachers and counsellors to provide support. School staff must first be aware of the need for emotional support and counselling, and to that fact that children with imprisoned parents may be affected by circumstances that are outside of their control and outside of the control of their caregiver.

When teachers or other trusted school staff (such as secretaries, school nurses or cleaning staff) know about the imprisonment of a student’s parent, they can provide emotional and practical support to children of prisoners. Teachers can help affected children academically, through homework clubs or extra tutoring. Schools can also encourage parents to be open with their children about parental imprisonment and they can reassure and encourage them to be honest about the impact of parental imprisonment on their child’s school attendance (e.g. absences due to prison visits). Teachers and other staff can tackle stigma surrounding parental imprisonment by raising awareness of this issue in schools and by promoting a positive, non-discriminatory school environment.

Teachers and other staff may need guidance on how to engage children in conversation around parental imprisonment. Schools need to be sympathetic and show an awareness of the needs of children of prisoners, but parents need to have the confidence and trust that if they share this information, the school will be supportive and treat the information confidentially.
Given that children more reliably pass through schools than other cultural institutions, schools should play a key role in normalising the collection of data on children who have imprisoned parents. Standardising entry surveys in schools, for example, with three basic questions—Does your child have any health difficulties? Do they have any disabilities? Have they had any Adverse Childhood Experiences? (including parental imprisonment; for further information, see Feletti 1998)—acknowledges the gravity of having an imprisoned parent, while making the collection of information regular without singling kids out.

Further information can be found in the COPING report.

Children with a secure attachment to a parent can experience severe disruption when that parent is incarcerated. Especially for very young children, the disruption of that psychological attachment can lead a child to be confused whether the imprisoned parent is family or not, can incur the internalisation of uncertainty as stigma, and can lead to depression and antisocial behaviour.  

Close and supportive relationships with another parent, grandparents, siblings and other caregivers therefore play an integral role in the development of children’s emotional resilience, especially when it comes to the child’s ability to be physically separate from an imprisoned parent.  Grandparents and the extended family play a particularly crucial role, through emotional, financial and material support. Family cohesion for the child depends largely on the quality of the emotional ties with the imprisoned parent, which the caregivers and wider family should actively promote in the best interest of the child.

Further information can be found in the DIHR and COPING reports.