Blears suggests monitoring of criminals’ children
Home Office Minister Hazel Blears has suggested that the children of criminals will be monitored to prevent them falling into offending behaviour.
The scheme would build on Labour’s Sure Start campaign, which focuses on pre-school provision in deprived areas, and follow the children through school and the teenage years. Ideas floated included parenting classes for mothers and recreational activities for older children such as sport and drama to “give them something to succeed at”.
In an interview with The Independent this morning, Ms Blears said that 65 per cent of children with a father in prison end up in jail.
She confirmed that she is talking to the Department for Education about her ideas, telling the paper: “We can predict the risk factors that will lead a child into offending behaviour.
“About 125,000 kids have a dad in prison. That’s a huge risk factor. We need to track the children who are most at risk. I don’t think it is stigmatising those children by targeting them.”
The Minister rejected suggestions that such a scheme would unfairly stigmatise already vulnerable children, saying: “You can intervene at an early age and say ‘your life can be different and we will help you and your parents make your life different.’ Let’s put the support in as early as we can.”
Responding to the plans, Paul Cavadino, chief executive of the crime reduction charity Nacro, said that the plans could have merit, but he was concerned by the possibility of discrimination.
Mr Cavadino said: “Children with a parent in prison face powerful disadvantages, including an increased risk of becoming offenders. When a father is imprisoned, mothers face all the problems of deprivation suffered by many single parents as well as the social stigma of having a partner in jail. When mothers are imprisoned, their children suffer the trauma and disruption of separation and many have to go into care.
“If targeting means providing genuine practical support for prisoners’ children and help for their mothers, it could help reduce their chances of becoming delinquent. But help must be given in a way which does not stigmatise families or publicly label children as potential criminals. Otherwise it could reinforce the risk that they will follow in their parents’ footsteps.”
