Irreparable harm caused to children whose mothers are in prison

9 Sep 2019 01:43 PM

The Joint Committee on Human Rights publishes report on the Right to family life: Children whose mothers are in prison. After hearing powerful evidence, MPs and Peers propose urgent reform to data collection, sentencing, support for children, and pregnancy and maternity for mothers in prison.

The harmful effects of a mother going to prison start at sentencing and continue for years

When a judge is considering sending a mother to prison, her child's right to respect for family life should be a central concern – but too frequently this is not the case, says the Human Rights Committee in a new report.

An estimated 17,000 children each year are separated from their mothers when those mothers are sent to prison, the vast majority for non-violent offences.

Children whose mothers are sent to prison are more likely than their peers to have future problems. These include an increased likelihood of criminal offending, mental health problems and drug and alcohol addiction.

They are also likely to earn less than their counterparts as adults and stop education at a younger age than is the norm. They are more likely to die before the age of 65.

The Committee makes proposal for urgent reform in four areas:

Human Rights Committee Chair Harriet Harman yesterday said:

“The right of a child to family life is only given lip service when their mothers are sent to prison.

The harmful effects of a mother going to prison start at sentencing and continue for years, even after the mother is released.”

Sentencing

The court often lacks adequate information about whether a defendant has children and what the impact of a custodial sentence would be on them.

The report recommends that:

Committee Chair Harriet Harman yesterday said:

“Judges can’t respect the human right of a child to family life if they don’t know the child exists.

At the moment there is no guarantee that they have this information; there must be proper checks before sentencing.”

Support for children

The report concludes that in order to ensure that children’s rights to family life are respected, every step must be taken to ensure that children are able to maintain positive relationships with their mothers.

The report recommends that:

Committee Chair Harriet Harman yesterday said:

“Visits of children to their mother in prison should not be part of the Incentives and Earned Privileges Scheme.

How can it possibly be right to punish children for their parents’ behaviour?”

Pregnancy and maternity

The Committee welcomes the Women’s Policy Framework and supporting guidance issued in December 2018, which ensures that pre and postnatal needs are assessed and addressed for all women in prison.

But the evidence received about women’s own experiences clearly demonstrate that their imprisonment poses a serious threat to their human rights – and those of their babies and very young children.

The report recommends that, other than in exceptional circumstances:

Data collection

The Committee found a complete lack of reliable quantitative data on the number of mothers in prison, the number of children whose mothers are in prison and the number of women who are pregnant and give birth in prison.

The estimates of the number of children whose mothers go to prison each year range from 2,544 to 17,240.

The report calls on the Government to act urgently to remedy this, recommending that:

Committee Chair Harriet Harman yesterday said:

“It’s an indictment of the system that the prison service does not know how many women in the system have children, and that – in 2019 - we don’t even know how many children are separated from a mother in prison.”

Further information