1Introduction
1.In September 2019, the Joint Committee on Human Rights published a report on the right to family life of children whose mothers are in prison.1 This found that sending a mother to prison had a serious, detrimental impact on her children. This impact was felt from the moment of sentencing and continued to have long-term effects. Academic research has shown that children who had a parent go to prison were more likely than their peers to have future problems, and that a child with an imprisoned mother was more likely to suffer more negative effects than a child with an imprisoned father.
2.The inquiry made proposals for fundamental reform in four key areas:
- Data: It found a complete lack of reliable quantitative data on the number of children whose mothers are in prison and called for mandatory data collection and publication to be urgently prioritised by the Ministry of Justice.
- Sentencing: It made a number of recommendations to make children more visible in the sentencing process and for judges to take into account the welfare of dependent children when sentencing mothers of dependent children.
- Support for children of mothers in prisons: That a range of support should be provided for children whose mothers go to prison including recommendations that would aid the ability for children to visit their mothers in prison to help maintain positive relationships.
- Pregnancy and maternity: That separating a baby from its mother was a serious interference with the right to family life. Wherever possible, mothers and babies in prison should be placed in Mother and Baby Units.
3.On 19 March 2020, we announced an inquiry into the implications for human rights of the Government’s Covid-19 response.2 As part of this inquiry we heard evidence on 8 June from children, and grandparents caring for children, of mothers in prison. We are particularly grateful to those who told us how mothers being sent to prison had affected them in such a moving and honest way. We also thank Sarah Burrows of Children Heard and Seen who facilitated the audio recording that enabled us to hear these experiences first-hand. We also heard evidence from the Minister for Prisons and Probation, Lucy Frazer QC MP, Jo Farrar, Chief Executive of HM Prison and Probation Service, and Naomi Mallick, Legal Director, Ministry of Justice. We are grateful to all our witnesses. This report is focused on the situation in England and Wales as justice is a devolved matter in Scotland and Northern Ireland.
4.Children are negatively affected when a parent goes to prison, whether that be their mother or their father, although the effects are significantly greater when it is their mother.3 This report therefore focuses on mothers and other primary carers (who may be fathers or grandparents) who go to prison. As women are more likely to be primary carers,4 the report generally refers to mothers. This should be read as including all primary carers unless otherwise stated.
1 Joint Committee on Human Rights, Twenty-Second Report of Session 2017–19, The right to family life: children whose mothers are in prison, HC 1610 / HL Paper 411
3 Shona Minson, Direct Harms and Social Consequences: An analysis of the impact of maternal imprisonment on dependent children in England and Wales, Criminology and Criminal Justice, Sage Journals, first published on 23 August 2018
4 Prison Reform Trust, Why focus on reducing women’s imprisonment?, February 2017
Published: 3 July 2020