Vicky\u2019s children are acting up. That is hardly surprising, since they only see their mother once every three or four months. \u201cThey have gone off the rails,\u201d she says. \u201cThey\u2019ve been bunking off school. One was taken to the local hospital A&E department after too much alcohol. They are lashing out.\u201d<\/p>\n
When Vicky talks about the local hospital she means one in Truro in Cornwall. But she lives four hours drive from there because she is halfway through a two year sentence in the women\u2019s prison at Eastwood Park in Gloucestershire.<\/p>\n
Long-distance parenting from prison is not good for either a mother or her children. Vicky has two boys, aged 12 and 13, who live with their father. The relationship is complicated by the nature of her offence. \u201cMy crime was against him. He was violent for years and eventually I stabbed him,\u201d she says. Her case is not so unusual as might be thought. Over half the women in British prisons are victims of violence and one in three has experienced sexual abuse.<\/p>\n
That may explain the questions her sons ask. \u201cThey write to me and ask: \u2018Do they hit you in prison? Do you get beat up? Do they treat you badly?\u2019\u201d she says, sitting in a spartan association room at Eastwood Park. \u201cI only see them every three or four months.\u00a0 It\u2019s an eight hour round trip and costs \u00a3130 in diesel. I can\u2019t expect that every fortnight. Their father can\u2019t afford it. I don\u2019t mind; if he spent the money on that that the boys would have to do without something else\u201d.<\/p>\n
It also explains something else. During their sentence 45 per cent of prisoners lose contact with their families, and many separate from their partners. That has wide repercussions because statistics show that family support reduces a woman\u2019s chances of returning to jail significantly. Government figures reveal that the odds of reoffending are 39 per cent higher among those who had not received visits whilst in prison compared to those who had.<\/p>\n
But maintaining contact with children is made more difficult because women prisoners are held, on average, 55 miles from home. Some 700 of the 4,144 female prisoners who were last week in prison in England and Wales are held over 100 miles from their children.<\/p>\n
Separation can cause long-term emotional, social, material and psychological damage to children. They have committed no crime and yet they suffer for the crimes of others.\u00a0 Children of prisoners have three times the mental health problems of children in the general population. Research by academics at the Centre for Social and Educational Research in Dublin\u00a0 found that children of prisoners suffer depression, hyperactivity, and behave badly with their carers in their parents\u2019 absence while becoming shy when they visited their own parent.<\/p>\n
Other studies show that the problems are more severe when it is their mother \u2013 rather than father \u2013 who is imprisoned. \u201cHowever bad a mother has been,\u201d says the psychotherapist Tessa\u00a0Baradon of the Anna Freud Centre, who devised the parenting programmes in use in many British prisons, \u201cit is rare that a child will feel more relief than loss when their mother goes to prison.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yet despite all these indicators prison regimes make it hard for mothers to maintain, or in many cases to establish, good relationships with their child. That problem begins the day they are convicted, as the case of Amina shows.<\/p>\n
The 27-year-old had been caught with cannabis in her coat pocket when visiting her husband in prison. She was found guilt of \u201cintent to supply\u201d and jailed for six months. She had been expecting to be bailed for social services reports but the judge sent her straight to Peterborough prison, 90 miles from the nursery where she had left her two-and-a-half year old daughter Selina in London. \u201cI didn\u2019t even get a chance to say goodbye to her. It breaks my heart to think about it,\u201d says Amina, close to tears at the memory of it.<\/p>\n
With Amina behind bars social workers were left to find someone to care for her daughter. Selena was eventually taken in by Amina\u2019s brother and sister-in-law. The process is not automatic. A family support worker has to do risk assessments.\u00a0 One in seven women has a problem ensuring their dependent children are looked after when they were taken into custody, according to Nick Hardwick, the official Chief Inspector of Prisons.<\/p>\n
Once inside women have to confront the problem of prison visits. Amina wanted to arrange for her daughter to visit as soon as possible. \u201cI felt strongly that it was most important for me to see my daughter to maintain her bond with me,\u201d she says.\u00a0 But her social worker vetoed the visit until she had done a risk assessment. \u201cThose first two weeks were the longest and most difficult of my life. I\u2019d been to prison before \u2013 I got four years when I was 21 and served two. I wasn\u2019t that close to my family and I really didn\u2019t feel like I was missing out. But the second time I was a mum and it was totally different. It was much harder.\u201d<\/p>\n
It was 10 weeks before the child was able to visit, with bureaucratic delays exacerbated by Amina being ill. When the first visit came, she recalls, \u201cI was really happy to see her but I don\u2019t think she recognised me. It was very hard for me to see her closer to my sister-in-law than to me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Each year around 17,000 children are separated from their mother by imprisonment.<\/p>\n
at least 17,240 children separated from their mothers in prison in 2010.<\/p>\n
But only half of the women who were in contact with their children prior to imprisonment will receive a visit once in prison, according to Government figures.<\/p>\n
Why is this? Some women choose not to tell their children they are in prison, resorting instead to elaborate tales about how they are in hospital, in the Army or \u00a0working away from home. Some jailed mothers decide that prison is not an appropriate place for their children, others that visits will be too upsetting for both parent and child.
\nMany are defeated by the practicalities of prison visits. Distance is a big factor. Visiting hours are often scheduled for when children should be at school. Weekend visiting is rare. Some children cannot visit because they have no adult who will accompany them. And prisons are generally not child-friendly places.<\/p>\n
\u201cTypically, children wait for 30 to 60 minutes in a visitation area with little to do before being called for a 20 minute visit in a crowded noisy room,\u201d says the Dr Joseph Murray of Cambridge University\u2019s Psychiatry department. \u201cTo enter children might have to pass through a locked door, pass a metal detector, be sniffed by dogs, and sometimes be searched. Children can be scared of these procedures and the officers who enforce them. In many prisons, inmates are restricted to their seat (which is bolted to the floor) during visitation, and sometimes physical contact between prisoners and visitors is prohibited. Normal visitation environments do not facilitate the close contact that could reassure children\u201d.<\/p>\n
In addition women receive only half as many visits as men prisoners do, seemingly because male prisoner\u2019s wives make more effort to maintain relationships than the partners of jails women do. \u201cA man in prison will look after himself,\u201d says Martin Narey, a former head of the Prison Service, \u201cwhereas a woman is still focused primarily on others, worrying and agonising about the kids she\u2019s left behind or her partner inside.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cThere is generally a very high level of unidentified distress among women in prison,\u201d says the Chief Inspector of Prisons, Nick Hardwick. \u201cWomen in prison have different relationships with their family than men. These range from all the issues surrounding pregnancy and mothers and babies in custody, to the disruption of many women\u2019s role as the primary carer when they are taken into custody, to contact with family once a women is in prison. These issues are vastly different in type and scale to those experienced by men.\u201d<\/p>\n The Prison Service has made some acknowledgement of that. Its rules now calls on prisons not to limit the number of children at each visit. It instructs guards to allow women to hug their children during visits and allow small children to sit on their laps. It recognises that children can find visits frightening, boring or confusing. But prisoners, charities and campaigners say the application of these rules in prisons can be very patchy.<\/p>\n \u201cVisiting is very unsatisfactory,\u201d says Vicky in Eastwood Park. \u201c The room is too full. You have to sit at a table with a chair at each side. You can\u2019t leave the chair to go to your child. They can\u2019t sit on your lap. Hugs are counted as excessive contact. You feel constantly watched and overheard.\u201d<\/p>\n The seven children of Martha, recently discharged from Bronzefield prison in Sussex, had to take it in turns to visit their mother. \u201cYou are only allowed three visitors at a time so they had to take turns. It was a difficult journey for them but they came to visit quite a bit. But you are only allowed three visitors at a time so they had to take turns.\u201d<\/p>\n Prison visits take place in a very artificial environment, says Sarah Salmon of the charity Action for Prisoners\u2019 Families. \u201cOften by the time they are just getting relaxed the time is up,\u201d she says. \u201cThere is no privacy.\u00a0 So it is hard to talk about the problems they are having. Or about the crime they committed which can be like the elephant in the room. Visits can be only two every 28 days which is not much to maintain a parent-child relationship. If a visit goes badly it can end up leaving the prisoner and her family in a worse state. They lie in their cell and worry about their children, what they are doing, how they are behaving, what they are eating…\u201d<\/p>\n It\u2019s even harder to maintain a relationship with kids in between visits. The women can buy phonecards so they can call home and talk to their children. But payphone charges are high and the women don\u2019t earn much from prison wages. So they can\u2019t talk for as long as they want, or sometimes need. There is often a queue for the phone on the prison landing. There are no mobiles so there\u2019s no texting. In some prisons you can email a\u00a0 prisoner but they can\u2019t email back. Prisoners just get a stamp for one letter per child per week.<\/p>\n \u201cIt can be a real struggle,\u201d says Juliet Lyon of the Prison Reform Trust, \u201ctrying to parent by phone, trying to remind their kids of day to day stuff like \u2018Don\u2019t forget to go to the dentist\u2019.\u201d There is another problem. When prisoners behave badly in prison one of the sanctions governors use it removing visiting rights. \u201cLosing visits as a punishment is wrong,\u201d she adds. \u201cIt penalises the children, who are innocent parties and who look forward to these visits. And visits help maintain family links which reduces reoffending.\u201d<\/p>\n But the experience can be improved. At Eastwood Park the prison\u2019s Mother and Baby unit has four family days each year.\u00a0 \u201cMy kids came up for one recently,\u201d says Vicky. \u201cI was nervous. I hadn\u2019t seen my kids for five months and, even though I ring them once a week, you worry how it\u2019s going to be, but it all flowed straight back to normal. It was brilliant. We were able to spend the day doing things together, decorating biscuits, doing arts and crafts, cooking a meal.\u00a0 The staff were amazing we were allowed to interact normally, talking, laughing and with plenty of hugs. And I had a good talk to them about them going off the rails, bunking off school and all the rest. Things improved enormously. And their school reports have got better.\u201d<\/p>\n A report by the Howard League for Penal Reform last year concluded that the children of prisoners are suffering unnecessary long-term harm. \u201cMany initiatives have been launched to try to limit the damage to children of those in jail but that have not worked,\u201d says the League\u2019s chief executive Frances Crook. Family visiting days like Vicky\u2019s are likely to be scrapped due to budget cuts. \u201cThe damage we\u2019re doing to the next generation is enormous\u201d.<\/p>\n Another report by the charity Barnardo\u2019s spells that out. \u201cChildren who have a parent in prison are three times more likely to engage in antisocial behaviour,\u201d it reveals. \u201cStatistics indicate that children of prisoners are more likely to be incarcerated in adulthood than other children. This finding, coupled with research showing that positive family relationships can help reduce prisoners re-offending, highlights the importance of working with parents within the prison system to break this cycle… It is vital that the needs of prisoners\u2019 children are addressed\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cVisits are emotionally very draining,\u201d says Vicky. \u201cI break down when my kids have gone. I know why I am in here. But my children didn\u2019t do anything wrong. Why should they be punished? Because they are being.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n The names of the prisoners and their children have been changed<\/em><\/p>\n Additional reporting by Sarah Cassidy<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Vicky\u2019s children are acting up. That is hardly surprising, since they only see their mother once every three or four months. \u201cThey have gone off the rails,\u201d she says. \u201cThey\u2019ve been bunking off school. One was taken to the local hospital A&E department after too much alcohol. They are lashing out.\u201d When Vicky talks about […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,432,37,30,38],"tags":[423,11,68],"class_list":["post-6170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ethics","category-family","category-politics","category-prisons","category-society","tag-child-protection","tag-children","tag-prison-reform"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6170"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6170\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7237,"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6170\/revisions\/7237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/paulvallely.com\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Introduction: Children in peril as women are jailed in record numbers<\/a><\/h1>\n
<\/h1>\n
Introductory comment: The hidden victims of a \u2018lock them up\u2019 culture <\/a><\/h1>\n
<\/h1>\n
Part 1: \u00a0Babies behind bars <\/a><\/h1>\n
<\/h1>\n
Part 2: \u00a0The 17,000 children separated from their Mums <\/a><\/h1>\n
<\/h1>\n
Part 3: The grandmothers left holding the baby and bringing up the children <\/a><\/h1>\n
<\/h1>\n
Part 4: The devastating hidden toll on children \u00a0<\/a><\/h1>\n
<\/h1>\n
Part 5: More effective alternatives to custody <\/a><\/h1>\n
<\/h1>\n
Part 6: The changes that are needed<\/a><\/h1>\n
<\/h1>\n
Final comment: We risk creating the felons of the future<\/a><\/h1>\n