6th October 2010
Using new data found in SPACE I, the 2007 survey on prison populations, published by the Council of Europe Annual Penal Statistics, Eurochips has updated our extrapolation on how many European children have a parent in prison. Our extrapolation uses a demographic ‘parenting rate’ of 1.3 offspring per offender, based on the results of a 1999 study conducted by France’s national statistics institute, the INSEE part of a national census that included 1,700 male offenders. Although no official rate has been established for imprisoned mothers, the rate is assumed to be higher for women than for men.
The figures here are far from conclusive, but they give a rough idea of the number of children concerned.
The total number of children with a parent in prison in the European Union is now considered to be 799,779, based on the total number of prisoners, including pre-trial detainees (615,215), provided in SPACE I.