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More than 90 per cent of prisoners’ children get no special help when a parent is in jail, despite being at much greater risk of turning to crime themselves, according to research. Barnardo’s examined the provision of services in Britain’s 208 local authority areas. The charity found that 188 made no reference to prisoners’ families, despite a government directive that they are a vulnerable group whose needs should be met. The vast majority of local authorities do not even count the number of prisoners’ children in their area. Barnardo’s estimated that there were about 160,000 such children - more than twice the number of children in care and six times the number on the child protection register. Local authorities must by law produce a Children’s Plan to show how they are caring for the young people in their area. They are, however, only advised, rather than required, by the Government to include provision for prisoners’ children, and the research shows that most have decided that they are not a special case. Barnardo’s said that it was astonishing that such a group should be invisible. Research shows that these children are especially vulnerable, suffer high levels of poverty and are unlikely to do well at school. The children of prisoners are three times more likely than their peers to engage in antisocial and delinquent behaviour. Boys with a parent in prison fare particularly badly, with one third having depression or anxiety by the time they reach middle age compared with 15 per cent of the general male population. Almost two thirds of boys (65 per cent) whose fathers have been convicted of a crime go on to offend themselves. Previous research has established that prisoners are far less likely to reoffend if they keep up contact with their family while in jail. Yet nothing is in place to help to maintain prisoner visits or phone calls home. In Britain, more than half of prisoners are held further than 50 miles from home. Experts say that the impact on children of having a parent imprisoned can be profound. The arrest itself can often be traumatic. Many struggle to cope with the emotional state of their other parent. Others suffer feelings of shame or try to hide the fact that a parent is in jail. Children can find visits to prisons frightening as so few make any concessions to young people. Julian Walker, Barnardo’s director of policy and research, said that the children of prisoners needed special care and attention. “We cannot continue to neglect the needs of these children when there is so much we can do. The consequences of failure to address their needs will rebound on the children themselves and on society as a whole,” she said. “We know from experience that the harmful effects on a child of losing a parent in this way can be buffered and the damaging cycle can be broken.” The charity is calling for a systematic collection of data on the children of prisoners and for local authorities to take proper account of their needs in their Children’s Plan.
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