NCJ Number
223214
Date Published
2007
Length
26 pages
Annotation
Drawing on previous studies, this chapter explores what happens to children of incarcerated women and explores how women in prison maintain their links with their children.
Abstract
The impact of parental imprisonment on children is qualitatively different for women who go to prison, most particularly when women are the sole providers of their children. The nature of this impact is conveyed in findings from two studies. One major study was undertaken in Victoria, Australia over 2003-2004 which interviewed women leaving prison and at intervals after prison. The second study explored the experiences of children whose mothers had been in prison; they were children whose mothers had participated in the major study of women leaving prison. What overwhelmingly emerges is the need for greater awareness and acknowledgement in court proceedings of women’s family circumstances. A family impact statement should be submitted to the court in proceedings where the defendant is a primary caregiver of dependant children and supported by court-appointed children’s support workers. Child-centered practices must be introduced into the adult criminal justice system when women who are parents face going to prison. This is an attempt to recognize the breadth of impact on family members when a woman with dependent children goes to prison. While female prisoners represent approximately 7 percent of the prison population in Australia, they bring particular challenges, being generally young and with dependent children. In this chapter, the authors consider the experiences of women prisoners and their children, including how women in prison maintain their links with their children and the issues women face on their return to the community in terms of their resumption of family connections and parenting role. Tables, figures, references