Children Of Imprisoned Parents Fact Sheet
UNICEF Convention on the Rights of the Child Implementation Handbook (2002) states:
Parents in prisons
"The imprisonment of parents, particularly of mothers of dependent young children, is deeply problematic, because the child is being punished along with the parent. While it is argued that the punishment of offenders always has repercussions on innocent relatives, where young children are concerned the effects can be particularly catastrophic to the children..."
On any given day, some 800,000 children in Europe (EU-27) have a parent serving a sentence in prison.
- The prison population in Europe is increasing rapidly. In 17 European Union member states (EU-27), the number of prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants exceeds 100; in 5 EU countries the number exceeds 200 per 100,000 inhabitants.
1.
- In addition to the loss of a mother or father, parental incarceration exposes children to financial instability and social exclusion. They can experience shame, stigma and guilt, leading to lower self-esteem, poor school performance and mental health problems.
2.
- In most European countries, there are no official agencies catering to the needs of prisoners' children and little information or support is routinely offered them as a result.
- According to a 2002 survey at Dublin's Mountjoy Prison, nearly two-thirds of imprisoned parents said their children did not know that they were in prison
3.
Similar trends are found throughout Europe.
- Concealing the truth about a parent's imprisonment can impair the healthy development of reasoning and other mental processes in children
4.
Children may perceive the separation due to a parent's incarceration as abandonment.
- Research reveals that children who regularly visit parents from whom they are separated show better emotional adjustment and higher IQ scores than those who do not
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- In many countries, many children do not visit an imprisoned parent during pre-trial detention. For example, 25 percent of men and 50 percent of women in pre-trial detention in the UK receive no visits from their family
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- Regular visits to imprisoned parents not only help maintain the child-parent bond, but are also good for society: Prisoners who have regular family visits are six times less likely to reoffend during their first year after release than those who do not
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