Government must end ‘irreparable harm’ inflicted on children whose mothers are in prison, warn MPs

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The government needs to take action to end the “irreparable harm” inflicted on children whose mothers are in prison, MPs and peers have warned.

Courts often do not have adequate information about whether a defendant has children and how a sentence would impact their lives, the Joint Committee on Human Rights said.

The committee said powerful evidence it received from women of their own experiences showed their imprisonment poses a “serious threat” to both their own human rights and those of their babies and very young children.

In a report, it argued a child’s right to respect for family life should be a central concern when a judge is thinking about sending a mother to jail – and said that too often this is not the case.

An estimated 17,000 children each year are separated from their mothers in this way – and the vast majority of the women are sent to jail for non-violent offences.

The report recommends that, excluding exceptional circumstances, if a baby is born during the mother’s sentence, they should both be discharged from hospital directly to a Mother and Baby Unit (MBU). It says that when a mother with a baby is jailed, the sentence should not start until a place is secured in an MBU.

Harriet Harman, the Labour MP for Camberwell and Peckham who is the Human Rights Committee chair, said: “The right of a child to family life is only given lip service when their mothers are sent to prison. The harmful effects of a mother going to prison start at sentencing and continue for years, even after the mother is released.

“Judges can’t respect the human right of a child to family life if they don’t know the child exists. At the moment there is no guarantee that they have this information; there must be proper checks before sentencing.

“Visits of children to their mother in prison should not be part of the Incentives and Earned Privileges Scheme [which incentivises good behaviour in prison]. How can it possibly be right to punish children for their parents’ behaviour?”

Children whose mothers are jailed are more likely than their peers to have future problems – which include a higher likelihood of criminal offending, mental health problems and drug and alcohol addiction.

Compared with their counterparts, they are also more likely to make less money, stop education at a younger age and die before the age of 65.

One child told the report researchers: “I was worried about my mum when she was sent to prison. I did not know that it was going to happen. My dad had been to prison but that was not so bad as he could look after himself. I had seen things about prison and thought my mum may be upset and crying, and people may bully her. I had no way of knowing. When she did phone it was a long time. I worried a lot. I felt angry.”

He added: “It upset me most at night. I cried in the dark because I could not hear her voice. Just to say she was okay, and say goodnight and she loved me, and I could say I loved her, was all I needed.”

Another child added: “I was left with all the responsibilities of going shopping, running a house, everything really, at the age of 15. I was a dropout from college because it was taboo to have a mother in prison and I felt like I could not talk about it. I became very isolated and started to go down a really bad route of drinking, getting into trouble, expressing anger.”

The committee called for every step to be taken to make sure children can sustain positive relationships with their mothers. The report demands urgent reform in data collection, sentencing, support for children, and pregnancy and maternity.

The committee found a total lack of reliable data on the number of mothers in prison, the number of children whose mothers are in jail and the number of women who are pregnant and give birth behind bars. The report urges the government to act urgently to change this.

Ms Harman added: “It’s an indictment of the system that the prison service does not know how many women in the system have children, and that – in 2019 – we don’t even know how many children are separated from a mother in prison.”

Female prisoners are often placed in prisons far away from their local community due to the fact the female prison population is smaller and women’s prisons are significantly more geographically dispersed.

The vast majority of female offenders are handed short sentences of six months or less for minor crimes, with a quarter imprisoned for under a month. However, the jail sentence can still be profoundly disruptive – causing people to lose their jobs, homes and contact with children.

Factors said to drive women to turn to crime include poverty, drug and alcohol problems, mental health issues and coercive relationships with men.

Some 60 per cent of female offenders have experienced domestic abuse, an estimated 24 to 31 per cent have dependent children and those in jail or on probation are more than twice as likely to suffer mental health issues as men.

Almost half of all female prisoners in England and Wales say they committed their offence to support the drug use of someone else, according to Ministry of Justice data, while many more are substance abusers themselves.