Generational cycles of crisis and crime: Parental imprisonment and its role in the revolving door
This summer the Government released its first estimate of the number of children with a parent in prison, revealing that 192,000 children in England and Wales experience this each year.
Advocates for prisoners’ families have long criticised the lack of an official count or registry for children with a parent in prison. By analysing prison records and tax data, officials from the Ministry of Justice determined that out of the 140,000 people who were in prison in 2021/22, 78% have children under 18. Considering there are about 14 million children under 18 in England and Wales, this means approximately one in 75 children loses a parent to imprisonment each year.
D’s* story: parental imprisonment and the pathway to the revolving door
The effects of this life-changingly traumatic experience ripple through families and lives for years – and generations – to come. D*, one of our members, whose mother served a lengthy sentence when he was a child, told us:
“I feel like some children whose parents are in prison feel like they are they are the one being punished. My mum went to prison when I was five: there was no support, no counselling. We came home one Friday and she was gone. We were told our mother had gone away to work, but we knew where she was really. In some ways I don’t feel like me and my brother ever recovered.
We spent three years being driven around the country to see our mum. They were long journeys – we’d travel three and a half hours to see our mum for one hour. We were patted down, sniffed by dogs. You feel resentful. Courts don’t take into account what it does to a kid. It’s like a bereavement. Your parent has gone.
I feel like kids think if they end up in prison they will be closer to their parents, and so get themselves into trouble. There is no support. I felt like I’d had a breakdown, I was silent, I did not participate in school. There was stigma there. We were the ones without our mum. It’s a ripple effect on a family environment. The government need to look at the impact of parental imprisonment. I feel like being a child with a parent in prison set up the course of my life.“
D’s experience is not unique for our revolving door cohort. In a retrospective study exploring the childhood experiences of people in the revolving door, 85% of the members that responded had a parent that had been in prison.
Traumatic impact of parental imprisonment
Revolving Doors believe that the impact of parental imprisonment needs further consideration by those responsible for sentencing.
The entire criminal justice system is deeply traumatic for children whose parents are imprisoned. Even before their parent is sent to prison a child can be traumatised by witnessing the arrest process and, if their parent is denied bail, children can feel as if they have simply disappeared. Despite recent work to improve the situation for children, visiting a prison can be confusing or even terrifying.
Children Heard and Seen, a charity working with children with a parent in prison report that children feel stigma from others as a result of what their parent has done. This includes teachers having lower expectations and other children’s parents not wanting them to associate with their children.
Having a parent in prison often means huge disruption to a child’s life. Just 5% of children who have a mother in prison can remain in the same home they lived in before. Many end up with relatives in other parts of the country, or even in foster care.
No way to identify children with a parent in prison
Despite the disruption, trauma and stigma they face, children with a parent in prison often remain ‘invisible’ because there are no systematic processes to identify them. Instead, the system relies on children and parents to self-identify, which many are reluctant to do due to the fear that it could lead to the children being placed in care.
This lack of identification means there is no way to inform schools, social services, or other organisations that may be working with the family that a parent has been sent to prison. As a result, children may exhibit behavioural and emotional problems at school with no apparent cause, while secretly bearing the burden of their parent’s imprisonment.
With all this considered, it’s not surprising that people such as our member, D*, who have had a parent imprisoned are at significant risk of ending up in the criminal justice system themselves.
Using data to break the cycle
There is a clear case for tracking and offering structured support to children with a parent in prison. Doing so would prevent lifetimes of further suffering and reduce offending rates – particularly amongst the most vulnerable young people.
In their election manifesto, the government committed to identifying and supporting young people to break the cycle of disadvantage. Revolving Doors views this new focus on children of prisoners as a promising initial step, yet it is crucial that this support be as robust and targeted as that provided to other disadvantaged groups, for example through pupil premium funding. For these efforts to be truly effective, they must address the specific needs of children with incarcerated parents.
We urge the government to recognize the importance of this targeted support and to act decisively to prevent these children from becoming trapped in a cycle of disadvantage, misery and crime.
