APF: When 'family' doesn't include the families of prisoners

(Comment by Sarah Salmon, Assistant Director, Action for Prisoners' Families - 10 July 2007)

Gordon Brown is said to be passionate about the unfair share of opportunities some children in our society get. He has stated that 'children and families are the bedrock of our society.' The new ministry for children, under Ed Balls, will 'seek to strengthen the government's support for children, young people and families'.

The final report of Iain Duncan Smith's Social Justice Commission, published today, stresses that family breakdown is a major contributor to poverty and social disorder.

All this renewed interest in the welfare of disadvantaged children and families sounds promising. But there is a large group that is easily forgotten and missing from the political and policy agenda. Children of prisoners are among the most vulnerable groups and at great risk of social exclusion and poverty. The government estimates that 160,000 a year are separated from one of their parents in England and Wales. They suffer not only financial hardships, with their household often losing an income and ending up dependent on benefits, but also the social stigma and emotional problems of having a parent taken away from them.

A recent report by the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies highlights the consequences of incarceration for prisoners' relatives: housing, physical and mental health problems, relationships disruption, impoverishment and social exclusion: these are heavy costs, not just for the families involved but for society as a whole. Research also confirms that parental incarceration can be a strong predictor of delinquency among their offspring.

What either party fails to mention is that family breakdown is an almost inevitable consequence of the current highly punitive penal agenda, and children are its hidden victims. Families are forcibly separated by imprisonment; during their sentence, 45% of people lose contact with their relatives and many split up from their partners. With numbers incarcerated at a record high, prisoners get moved around frequently and visits become increasingly difficult. The cost of making phone calls in prisons is prohibitive and visiting conditions can be unpleasant, with some prisons providing little or no facilities for visitors (many of whom will have travelled a long way to get there), and no dedicated children and babies areas. Yet Home Office research has found that preserving family ties is fundamental in helping effective rehabilitation and a consequential reduction in re-offending.

Prisoners' children and their families need focused support from agencies.

There is no systematic help available for them, no statutory safety net, and inadequate and short term funding for the voluntary and community organisations to which they can turn to. This group are also hardly 'on the map' at local government level, with only 3% of all local authorities Strategic Children and Young People Plans mentioning prisoners' children.

Being serious about combating social exclusion and a chronic crime problem surely means having a long-term, integrated approach to supporting this forgotten group.