Writing about the impact on children of having a parent in prison, you always hit the same brick wall: no one knows how many children have a parent in prison, including the Ministry of Justice. The MoJ estimates that ‘approximately 200,000 children’ have a parent in or heading to prison. Ministers have commissioned a review which is due to provide an updated figure on 13 June. The charity Prison Advice and Care Trust, pulling together various strands of MoJ statistics, suggested something in the ballpark of 100,000, though they only counted male prisoners. Meanwhile, Crest Advisory, a criminal justice consultancy, puts the figure much higher, at 312,000. If this lack of reliable data makes it difficult for journalists to write about the issue, you can imagine what it does to those services which are charged with supporting these children.
Which is why a new ten minute rule bill from Labour MP Kerry McCarthy is very much welcome. The Children (Parental Imprisonment) Bill is a simple piece of legislation that would do three things. It would require the government to put in place national guidelines on children with parents in prison. It would oblige the state to identify children affected at the point at which their parent is sentenced. It would introduce accountability for extending support to these children. Like all good legislation, McCarthy’s Bill is straightforward, modest, clearly defined and aimed at a practical purpose rather than rushing to ‘send a message’ with no thought to what that would involve.
It is not only good legislation, but necessary legislation. As McCarthy said when introducing it yesterday:
We simply do not know how many children have a parent in prison. We do not know who they are, where they are or who is looking after them, or at least not in any systemic way. They are the invisible children. Sarah Burrows, who is here today, is the chief executive of Children Heard and Seen… She is fond of saying that we know exactly how many Labradors there are in this country, yet we do not know how many children have a parent in prison.
It may seem unfathomable that our vastly resourced state has no clue how many children have a father or mother inside, but spend enough time researching the criminal justice system and almost nothing will be unfathomable to you. Absurdity, caprice, incompetence and cruelty are the norm. As McCarthy is keen to stress, her Bill is not about prisoners, but about their children. ‘We do not start with the prisoner’s wellbeing,’ she told MPs. ‘We start with what is in the child’s best interest.’
McCarthy says her Bill will create ‘a statutory mechanism so that, at the point when an adult is sentenced to imprisonment, someone finds out whether there are any children involved and someone is then responsible for making sure that those children are okay’. You might have assumed this already happened as standard, but such gross negligence is another thing that falls under the category of very much fathomable. The criminal justice system is already a poor custodian of the welfare of prisoners, but truly dire when it comes to sharing information with other parts of the state, making it harder for them to safeguard the welfare of prisoners’ children.
Support for these youngsters varies across the country, and some local authorities are better than others, but the horror stories are horrifying. McCarthy recounted the experience of a 15-year-old girl who was only found to be living alone because a vigilante mob attacked the house after her father was jailed for sexual offences. A 16-year-old boy was left as the sole carer for his eight-year-old brother after their parents were imprisoned. A 15-year-old boy was living alone after his mother was sent down. The house had no gas or electricity but the boy was still going to school every day. ‘The child has done nothing wrong, but in many ways the child is punished too,’ McCarthy says.
Identifying children whose parents have been sentenced to custody and intervening with the necessary support is the bare minimum the state can do. It is estimated — that weasel word again — that 54 per cent of prisoners have a child under 18. Having a prisoner parent triples the likelihood that a child will become involved in anti-social behaviour, and two-thirds of boys in this situation will become involved in criminal activity at some point in their lives. With national guidelines, identification and support, it might be possible to divert children from these trends and get them on better paths in life. The costs financial and societal of early intervention pale compared to those when young people are left to fend for themselves.
Kerry McCarthy’s Bill is small in scope, mostly making administrative changes to current practices, but the outcomes could be huge for vulnerable young people going through painful and sudden separation from a mother or father. Improve outcomes for those children and there is a chance you can break the chain of intergenerational offending. Ten minute rule bills typically don’t get very far because they are not on the government’s legislative agenda. The government should take this one up.
The public are talking once again about the failures of the state, and how government indifference or ineptitude can lead to injustices like the blood contamination scandal. Here is an opportunity to remedy another injustice without the need for public inquiries or prime ministerial apologies, with nothing more than a few lines of legislation. In supporting this Bill, ministers could demonstrate that the state is capable of recognising its failures and fixing them by choice, rather than under public duress and national shame.
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