“Perspectives of Children and Young People with a Parent in Prison”
The final item of business today is a members’ business debate on motion S3M-6377, in the name of Aileen Campbell, on “Perspectives of Children and Young People with a Parent in Prison”. The debate will be concluded without any question being put.
Motion debated,
That the Parliament welcomes the report, Perspectives of Children and Young People with a Parent in Prison, issued by the Commissioner for Children and Young People in Scotland and Families Outside and which explores the experiences of children and young people who have had a family member sent to prison; welcomes the consideration that has already been given to this important issue during the proceedings of the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Bill; notes with concern the finding of the report that each year as many as 16,500 children across Scotland, including the South of Scotland region, will experience the imprisonment of a parent or carer, and believes that a cross-party approach is the best way to ensure that the rights of the children of offenders, who are often the innocent and forgotten victims of crime, are respected in the legal system.
17:41
I thank all members who have stayed behind for the debate and who supported the motion. I know that it has been a long day for everyone.
Presiding Officer,
“the sins and traumas of fathers and mothers should not be visited on their children.”
Those are not my words, but the words of Justice Albie Sachs, the anti-apartheid campaigner and member of the Constitutional Court of South Africa. They will be familiar to the chamber, because I also quoted them during the stage 1 debate on the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Bill, stage 3 of which we have just completed. The words form part of the landmark ruling in S v M in 2007, in which the Constitutional Court of South Africa set out the importance of taking into account the effect of any sentence that is passed on an offender on any children of that offender. In the S v M case, the court decided to pass a non-custodial sentence on the offender, a woman convicted of fraud, because of the negative effect that a custodial sentence would have had on her four children.
The report that is the subject of my motion, “Perspectives of Children and Young People with a Parent in Prison”, lays out in detail the experience and effects of parental imprisonment on a child. Scotland’s present Commissioner for Children and Young People commissioned the report to provide further evidence and understanding of issues that were first raised in a report by the previous commissioner in 2008. That report, “Not seen. Not heard. Not guilty. The rights and status of the children of prisoners in Scotland”, argued that
“the children of prisoners are the invisible victims of crime and of our penal system”.
The report estimated that, at that time, 13,500 children were affected every year by the imprisonment of a parent. The figure has since been revised up to 16,500, some of whom—as my motion notes—live in the South of Scotland region.
Together, the two reports present a picture of a situation in which children whose parents are locked up can become trapped in a spiral of instability, leading to stress, trauma and, ultimately, patterns of antisocial behaviour and offending. I make it clear, as I have done on many occasions when raising the issue, that I am not suggesting that offenders who pose a threat to society or who have committed serious offences should not be imprisoned or that having children is some sort of get-out-of-jail-free card. What I am arguing for—as I have since the publication of the 2008 report—is a mechanism that allows judges to take into account the whole circumstances of an offender’s situation and to consider what sentences would have the best outcome for society as a whole.
A non-custodial sentence that prevents the placing of children in care saves the taxpayer money both in the short term and in the longer term, if it reduces the likelihood of antisocial behaviour and offending by the children. Even the United Kingdom Secretary of State for Justice recognises that. He is quoted in today’s edition of The Guardian as saying:
“It is virtually impossible to do anything productive with offenders on short sentences. And many of them end up losing their jobs, their homes and their families during their short time inside.”
The perspectives report from Families Outside and the children’s commissioner deals in some detail with the effects of a custodial sentence on a prisoner’s family. Drawing on qualitative interviews with 20 individuals—children, young people, carers and one adult who as a child experienced parental imprisonment—the report presents findings and case studies that are both moving and concerning.
According to the report, a carer who is a grandmother said that
“everything changed in her grandson’s life because previously the ‘father was everything, now he is not, I am’.”
Another boy was described as losing all interest in playing computer games and football, which were pastimes that he had enjoyed with his father before his father was sent to prison.
The report’s author found that children and carers who are directly affected agree that it is important that the court should take children’s views into account. Six of the children who were interviewed
“clearly believed that expressing their feelings to the judge would make a difference to the sentence”.
Members will be aware of the considerable work that is being done to raise awareness of the issue by the children’s commissioner and interest groups such as Families Outside, Action for Children, Children in Scotland and Barnardo’s. I thank the representatives of those organisations who have provided information, support and their perspectives and suggestions on how to move the issue forward. The Cabinet Secretary for Justice has taken time to meet and correspond with me and those organisations, so he is aware of the issue.
Families Outside, in particular, has brought depth to consideration of the issue. Through its direct work with families, the organisation can highlight people’s stories, the stresses and strains and the worries and concerns, which does more than simple statistics can do to illustrate the human suffering that children and families throughout Scotland experience. I recently chaired a conference for Families Outside and I do not think that there was a dry eye in the hall when we heard some of those moving stories at first hand. That is why the perspectives report is so important. It details and examines the human impact on innocent victims of crime.
It does not have to be like that. The example of S v M in South Africa shows that justice can be served without judicial decisions necessarily having a negative impact on an offender’s dependent children. New Zealand does not use the same mechanisms as South Africa, but its sentencing guidelines provide that a court
“must take into account the offender’s personal, family, whanau, community, and cultural background in imposing a sentence or other means of dealing with the offender with a partly or wholly rehabilitative purpose”.
I acknowledge everything that Aileen Campbell has said. I want to highlight the concerns of women in the Highlands who are imprisoned in Cornton Vale prison. Such women often do not see their children for months, if not years, and are therefore unable to build bonds with them. That is a particular issue.
I thank Mary Scanlon for her intervention, which was useful and appropriate.
In New Zealand’s judicial system there is explicit recognition of the issue, which is given due prominence in legislation. There are other examples of countries in which sentencers are required to take the family situation into account. That is the case in Fiji, and in Australia, as a result of the 1996 case, Walsh v Department of Social Security. Scotland has a long and proud independent legal tradition and I hope that international examples will help to inform our courts and, in due course, the Scottish sentencing council. I look forward to hearing what the minister will say on behalf of the Scottish Government.
The current mechanisms do not always work in the way that they were intended to work. Social inquiry reports, which have been used in arguments about caring duties that have been made at the point of sentencing, are not required in most cases and are not always requested by sentencers. Even when they are requested, such reports contain little information about an offender’s family. Reports concentrate on issues to do with criminal justice and focus on the needs of the offender. Indeed, a social inquiry report might be prepared while a person is in custody on remand.
Families Outside is supporting a family in which four young children were taken into care while their mother served just one month in custody for breach of a community penalty for a driving offence. The sentence of one month was enough to make the children and their mum lose their home, and two years later the family has still not been reunited. That is a drastic but real example of how damaging custodial sentences can be for the wider family. It shows that the issue needs attention and that we need to put aside political differences so that we can figure out how to address it.
I welcome the cross-party support for the motion, which I hope indicates a willingness to work together to take the issue forward, to ensure that in future, as the motion says:
“the rights of the children of offenders, who are often the innocent and forgotten victims of crime, are respected in the legal system.”
A considerable number of members want to speak, so I ask members to keep their speeches to a tight four minutes.
17:49
I congratulate Aileen Campbell on securing the debate. The previous children’s commissioner, Kathleen Marshall, and the current incumbent, Tam Baillie, have been consistent in their commitment to raising the issue of the welfare of children who have a parent in prison. I commend their perseverance and the efforts of the report’s author.
In Scotland, we have a children’s hearings system that places child welfare at the heart of the youth justice system. Therefore, it is entirely understandable that concerns are raised that that approach does not seem to be carried through with regard to the sentencing of adults with children. From the outset, I make it clear that that is not a call for a less tough approach to crime. Our criminal justice system must ensure that those who commit crimes are held to account for their actions.
The report points out that children often have varying and conflicting views about the incarceration of their parent. Sometimes imprisonment means that a violent parent is removed from the household, which can be a relief to the child, but the report makes it clear that, for most children, the imprisonment of their mother or father can be a traumatic and potentially scarring event. Indeed, it can have an impact on the rest of their lives, affecting their mental and physical health, their educational opportunities and even the likelihood that they will become involved in criminal activities.
The scale of that problem is significant. The report points out that the issue affects an estimated 16,500 children in Scotland each year. That means that, each year, more children in Scotland will experience a parent’s imprisonment than a parent’s divorce.
The first part of the report is a review of the literature that is currently available on the issue. It points out that there is clear evidence of intergenerational offending. A study by Kandel and colleagues in 1988 compared the criminal tendencies of 92 children of jailed parents with 513 children of similar ages with non-incarcerated parents. It found that 39 per cent of the children of incarcerated parents followed in their parents’ footsteps and had already been in prison, compared with 7 per cent of those who had non-incarcerated parents. A similar study by Johnston in 1995 notes that children of incarcerated parents are five to six times more likely to follow in the footsteps of their parents in that regard in comparison with other children of a similar age. Clearly, other social and economic factors will be at play but, nevertheless, those are stark and depressing statistics.
The report also makes it clear that children of parents in prison are much more likely to experience post-traumatic stress disorder. That is an important point, as the report also concludes that the children of prisoners do not have enough support to deal with such traumatic events as a parent’s incarceration and often do not speak about them to anyone else. There is a need for improved and more systematic support mechanisms to help children and young people through the difficult time when a parent is in prison.
The report also concludes that there is a need for more research on the impact of parental imprisonment on children, including the relationship between parental imprisonment and the child’s risk of imprisonment in the future. I hope that the minister will respond to that recommendation positively.
I mention two specific points that are raised in the report. First, it highlights the important role that grandmothers play in supporting and caring for children whose parents are imprisoned. Such kinship care has often been talked about in the Parliament. In fact, in the report, the children themselves ask that the grandmothers who look after them be recognised and properly supported. I ask that the minister examine that issue and how we can better address kinship care.
Secondly, the report demonstrates that children feel strongly that the courts and the Parole Board for Scotland should take their views into account. That is important. I have no doubt that, in many instances, the need to incarcerate will override the potential impact on the child, but the courts should at least take the child’s views into consideration.
I welcome the report by the children’s commissioner and Families Outside. I agree with the central recommendation that there is a need for further, more detailed research on this important matter.
17:54
I congratulate Aileen Campbell on securing the debate. She has worked on the issue for a long time.
The motion is not about women or men, or about mothers or fathers; it is about children and about acknowledging the fact that, when it comes to the sentencing of adults, the rights of their kids have, on the whole, been ignored.
Nonetheless, progress has been made. The recent report by the Scottish Prisons Commission, the cross-party support that the motion has attracted and the particular attention that has been paid to the matter by both the previous and the current children’s commissioners demonstrate that at least we are no longer ignoring the issue.
Social inquiry reports are often carried out before a sentence is decided. We have all heard of them, but I did not know that a significant number of women are sentenced without such a report being produced. Further, when a social inquiry report is produced, the needs of the children are not specifically taken into account—as Aileen Campbell said, they are lumped in with other factors. I want the needs of children to be a distinct category in social inquiry reports, and I want it to be compulsory for such a report to be instructed in all cases in which a parent who lives with a child is to be sentenced.
I accept that it is sometimes necessary for a child’s parent to go to prison, but please let us ensure that prison policies take into account the rights and needs of that child. Withdrawing the right of a prisoner to a visit from their child may make sense if the prison wants to punish the prisoner, but it will not make sense to the child. Where are their rights? Telling them, “It is not our fault—your mummy was naughty,” will do nothing for that wee person as they cry themselves to sleep wondering when they will see their mum or dad again.
A particular group of children who have a parent in prison never need to worry that they will miss a visit to the imprisoned parent or about being separated from them. They are not separated from them because they are imprisoned alongside their parents. I refer, of course, to the children of asylum seekers whom the Home Office wishes to deport and who are held in immigration removal centres. They may be called “removal centres” but they are, in effect, prisons. The people in them may not leave, they are surrounded by perimeter fences and barbed wire, and guards in uniform lock each room after they enter it. Those parents in detention are prisoners in all but name, without ever having committed a crime, and their children are also prisoners.
I believe the detention of the children of asylum seekers to be abhorrent. The psychological damage has been well documented, and I therefore welcome moves to end it. Indeed, when I leave the chamber I will respond to the United Kingdom Government’s consultation on the matter, which ends tomorrow. In doing so, I will highlight the case of 10-year-old Precious Mhango, who has twice been detained, ready to be deported. Only this morning, despite the Home Office knowing that the lawyer is appealing, she received removal directions for yet another planned deportation. Unless we can stop it quickly, any day now that wee girl could be suffering the double torment of not only having a parent locked up but being locked up herself.
Theatre Nemo works primarily with people who have mental health problems, but it recently set up a drama group for children who have a family member in prison. The idea is that the group gives them the space to express themselves in a creative and fun way with other children who know what it is like to have a family member in prison. I recently attended a spellbinding performance by the group. It was a brilliant day not only for the children but for their families watching them.
I pay tribute to the work of the children’s commissioners in producing both this report and the previous one. When such reports tell us that the effect of the imprisonment of a parent on a child is similar to bereavement, when they tell us that there appears to be a link between the imprisonment of a parent and the risk of future imprisonment of the child, and when we hear that more children will experience the imprisonment of a parent than the divorce of a parent, we know that it is surely only right that, when it comes to the sentencing and imprisonment of parents, we all remember that this is about not only the guilty parent but the innocent child.
17:58
Like other members, I congratulate Aileen Campbell on securing a debate on such an important subject. Like her, I welcome the children’s commissioner’s report, which highlights the fact that children are often the forgotten victims in the justice system. If their parents are imprisoned, they can suffer stigma, they can lose their homes, their family income might be reduced and they might be separated from their siblings and sent to foster homes or care. Overall, there is an economic, psychological and social repercussion for children.
Of course, the imprisonment of an abusive parent is sometimes a respite, but even then the aftermath and the repercussions can be traumatic for children.
The evidence taken by the Equal Opportunities Committee in our inquiry into female offenders in the criminal justice system suggests that there are particular women’s issues and issues for their children when mothers are imprisoned. For example, a number of women offend as a result of drug dependency, which can often be an attempt to blot out the harsh realities of things such as prostitution and sexual exploitation—or it can be the cause of their involvement in those matters. We need to offer more support to allow women to escape that cycle of violence and exploitation for their own sake, but also for the sake of their children. We need better options; centres such as the 218 centre can be invaluable.
The impact of prison is usually greater for women than it is for men because women are much more likely to lose not only their homes but their responsibility for the care of their children. As women are still the main carers in our society, imprisoning mothers really results in the punishing of children.
It is a tragedy that, as is outlined in the committee’s report, so many thousands of children face life without a parent for the period of the parent’s incarceration and experience the trauma of visiting their parents in a prison environment. It is therefore vital that alternatives to prison take account of the impact of a custodial sentence on children, as Aileen Campbell outlined so well.
In our report, the Equal Opportunities Committee makes the point that cancelling children’s visits as a punishment for their mother’s behaviour, as seems to happen frequently, is unacceptable. That ties in with the commissioner’s assertion that children are not simply aids to their parent’s rehabilitation but have their own needs and rights. Obviously, children can play an important role in helping sentencing to change adult behaviour, but they must be seen as people in their own right.
Overall, the committee’s report contains 28 laudable recommendations that make sense for society and for the individuals involved. Respecting the rights of children, making their needs a major factor in decisions and ensuring that the children are not punished when they have done nothing wrong will benefit our society as a whole.
Once again, I congratulate Aileen Campbell on highlighting the children’s commissioner’s report and on bringing the issue before the Parliament this evening.
18:01
I too congratulate Aileen Campbell on securing this important debate in the Parliament this evening.
I welcome the report “Perspectives of Children and Young People With a Parent in Prison”, which has been produced for Scotland’s Commissioner for Children and Young People and Families Outside. The report explores the experience of children and young people who have a family member sent to prison. In doing so, the report also serves to raise awareness about a serious issue.
Of course, the impact of having a parent in prison is different on each child, depending on the child’s age and stage of development and on whether the child lived with the parent prior to the imprisonment, but the report tells us that the experience is akin to bereavement. In effect, the children of offenders are grieving.
Furthermore, a child with a parent in prison is at risk of developing a post-traumatic stress disorder, particularly if the child lived with the parent prior to imprisonment. That should come as no great surprise, given that the imprisonment of a parent can affect a child’s housing, care arrangements and schooling and can lead to victimisation, substance abuse and an increased risk of future offending by the child. In the time available to me, I want to develop that aspect, which is highlighted in the motion and in the report. The recent EOC report “Female offenders in the criminal justice system”, to which Elaine Smith referred, revealed the alarming statistic that around half the children of female prisoners will also end up in prison. It is important to ensure, as the motion highlights, that those children’s rights are not overlooked or dismissed.
Innocent children must not become the unintended victims of crime merely because they have a parent or parents in prison. That point is picked up by the SCCYP’s report and the EOC’s inquiry report, both of which comment on the visiting arrangements for children and young people who have a parent in prison. From the evidence that the Equal Opportunities Committee heard, it is clear that drug taking by prisoners has a wider relevance because it can impact on the offender’s family. For example, women who take drugs in Cornton Vale may be punished by not being allowed to see their children on future visits. Clearly, that is unacceptable. The rights of the child must be paramount. Given that both reports clearly favour the proposal that such visits should be conducted in as child-friendly a way as possible, l commend the example of Hydebank Wood prison, which has put in place a facility that provides the best possible visiting arrangements for the child.
Finally, I want to mention the work of the charity Circle, which has identified the need for more structured throughcare for female offenders. After negotiation with Cornton Vale prison, in August 2008 Circle began to deliver a throughcare service for women who are released from prison in Edinburgh, West Lothian, North Lanarkshire and South Lanarkshire. Although it is early days, the charity is providing intensive support to those women, and their families, upon their release from Cornton Vale. That is encouraging.
I have much pleasure in supporting the motion’s call for cross-party support as the best way of ensuring that the rights of offenders’ children, who are often the innocent and forgotten victims of crime, are respected by the legal system.
18:05
I congratulate Aileen Campbell on securing such an important debate, and I welcome the report “Perspectives of Children and Young People With a Parent in Prison”, which found that the impact on children of a parent’s imprisonment is severe. For example, it states that the effects on a child are the same as the child’s experience of bereavement, that children are more likely to be moved between different homes, schools and care givers at a time when stability in their lives is essential, and that they often experience
“deterioration in behaviour, in physical and mental health, and in social and financial circumstances.”
Those effects can often be long term and impact on family and future relationships, can reduce coping mechanisms and can induce mental health problems. No child should be left to experience that without proper support, but 16,500 children are affected by parental imprisonment every year in Scotland. As the former children’s commissioner, Kathleen Marshall, said, children are the invisible victims of crime and we must do more to ensure that their rights and best interests are protected.
In her report, “Not Seen. Not Heard. Not Guilty.”, Marshall called for the use of child or family impact assessments to be provided during sentencing. Evidence that was presented to the Equal Opportunities Committee during its work on female offenders was clear that the impact of family imprisonment is not addressed by the criminal justice system as it currently stands. As Anne McLaughlin said, social inquiry reports focus on the offender, information about the offender’s caring responsibilities is not always included, and social inquiry reports are not always requested by the judge.
Although an offender should never escape punishment just because they are a parent, taking account of the needs of the child on a case-by-case basis would, in some cases, be more beneficial to society by preventing some of the knock-on effects of parental imprisonment. For example, during the Equal Opportunities Committee inquiry we were presented with evidence that women are often given custodial sentences for relatively trivial crimes because community sentences are not designed for them. Because women are often the primary carer, children are far more likely to be taken from their homes and put into alternative care arrangements, with all the problems and turmoil that that causes for the child.
A key recommendation of the Equal Opportunities Committee’s report on female offenders concerned children’s visiting rights. Cornton Vale has lots to be proud of in its efforts to support relationships between offenders and their children, with family contact officers assisting extended visiting for children in the informal and more comfortable setting of the little cherubs facility outside normal visiting hours, but a key criterion for a prisoner to be eligible for that service is proof that they are managing their addiction programme. That means that they need to show three negative blood tests before they can enjoy extended and informal visits with their children. Although that might seem like a good incentive to reduce drug use in prison, it punishes children again for their parent’s behaviour, and it is directly in contravention of their rights under the United Nations convention on the rights of the child.
Although the Scottish Government was supportive of the majority of the committee’s recommendations, its response omitted any mention of children’s visiting rights. We will never stop some parents going to prison, so it is vital that we do all that we can to ensure that children have as normal a family life as we can possibly give them.
Superb work is being done in West Pilton in my constituency by the Circle project, which Margaret Mitchell mentioned. Circle is a charity that provides intensive community-based support to marginalised children and their families. Since August 2008, Circle has been working with female offenders in prison and when they return home to enable them to maintain and rebuild their family lives. Many women who enter Cornton Vale have no idea what happens to their children from the point at which they enter custody. There is a real breakdown in communication at that point, and Circle provides an important bridge in passing on information about care arrangements, facilitating parent-child visits and ensuring that the offending parent is aware of and can participate in their children’s hearings sessions.
After release, Circle helps to rebuild family trust, re-establishes relations between parent and child and, when it is in the child’s best interests, helps parents to get their children back. It also helps families with a range of issues such as housing, finances, and support for mental health and substance abuse problems. It is vital, therefore, that we keep up funding support for that organisation’s excellent work.
I end by congratulating Circle as well as, once again, congratulating Aileen Campbell.
18:09
Like other speakers, I congratulate Aileen Campbell on bringing this particularly important issue to the chamber for this evening’s debate.
It is clear from members’ contributions that crime impacts on a wider section of society than simply the victim and the criminal. Speaker after speaker has indicated clearly the ill-considered way in which young people—children who are innocent victims—are often forgotten about when the crimes of their parents are dealt with.
Like the previous Administration, this Government has been good at addressing the issues, through initiatives such as what we call GIRFEC—getting it right for every child. To wider society, we have highlighted the need to look after the individual needs of children, but I do not think that our prison system and the way that we operate have been quite as focused on getting it right for every child as wider society has been. I seek assurances from the minister that that particular aspect of GIRFEC will be focused on much more closely than it currently is.
Like other speakers, including Margaret Mitchell and Malcolm Chisholm, I was on the Equal Opportunities Committee during the inquiry into female offenders in the criminal justice system. Some of the impacts on children from a parent being incarcerated are traumatic. The work of Circle, in particular, is successful in bringing young people together and helping them to rebond with parents who have been absent from the family home because of criminal activity.
As possibly the only member here who has worked in a prison—for a very short time—I have seen at first hand the damage caused to children by being separated from their parents: the anxiety and stress levels that young children present, even at the point of ending a visit. We need to find a way of minimising those impacts. As Karen Whitefield and others have said, the long-standing impact possibly does not surface right away, but the potential for long-term damage is huge.
The work of the children’s charities and the children’s commissioner in bringing those issues to the foreground is critical. They are a vital part of thinking for the long term. Although it might be expedient to modify someone’s behaviour by threatening to suspend children’s visits, the damage that that does to the child and what the child subsequently does in its life need to be considered closely—and I do not think that we do that widely enough.
Finally, I have an observation about the economic impact. As Elaine Smith said in her speech, it often happens—particularly in the case of female prisoners—that the house is lost and the family breaks down. There is an economic impact from that in terms of access to benefits, employment opportunities and educational opportunities. Those factors all have an impact on our wider economic prospects. If we intervene early and provide support mechanisms at an early enough stage—through the work of the charities and inputs from the Government, whether this one or the next—we can improve the prospects for young people and make a considerable difference to their longer journey.
18:14
I join others in thanking Aileen Campbell for lodging the motion.
One of the most shocking statements at the Families Outside conference last November was from one of Scotland’s most respected judges, Lord Cullen, who said that the impact of imprisonment on families is rarely raised in court. With 16,500 children affected by the imprisonment of at least one parent each and every year, the challenge to the Parliament is to ensure that the courts are provided with an assessment of the damage that can be inflicted on those children and whether it is a price worth paying for the imprisonment of the parent.
In my view, no social inquiry report should omit an assessment of that impact if children are involved—Anne McLaughlin made the same point. I illustrate that with an example from when I worked in Cornton Vale prison. A woman was admitted for seven days for fine default—it was a very old fine and she had straightened herself out some time previously—who had seven children who were taken into care. I ask members to imagine the effect on that family of that failure to take into account the effect on the children. The judiciary should be given such information and required to take into account the impact on the children of those who are sent to prison—those who are sent there on remand as well as those who are sentenced.
As I said in this afternoon’s debate on the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Bill, the number of people who are going to prison on remand is increasing year on year, and many of them are women. The increase in the number of women who are being sent to prison on remand is significant. At a time when the crime rate is falling and the numbers of short-term sentences and fine defaults are rising, why is there a rise in the number of people who are being remanded? To me, that is incomprehensible. It is not up to the minister to explain that, but other ministers should look at that issue carefully.
We need alternatives to custody. As the Equal Opportunities Committee has pointed out, in Scotland we still have only one 218 centre, which was referred to as a time-out centre in the report “A Better Way”, which was published when I was the Deputy Minister for Justice. The centre has been deemed a success, so why is it not being rolled out? Why is a similar centre for men not being piloted? The centre treats drug problems and provides a community setting in which the families can be kept together. The same applies to treatment for alcohol problems. One of the community payback orders that can be imposed under new section 227A of the Criminal Procedure (Scotland) Act 1995 requires treatment for alcohol problems, and I hope that we will get alcohol treatment and testing orders as well as drug treatment and testing orders. That will keep the families together.
In the short time that remains to me, I will address the issue of visitor centres. That is a different issue from visiting within prisons being stopped as a punishment when prisoners fail to comply with certain prison rules, which other members have spoken about. In my experience, the Scottish Prison Service seems to be doing all that it can to obstruct the development of external visitor centres. That is certainly the case at two prisons in my constituency: Cornton Vale and Glenochil. In Glenochil, there was a suitable building but, when the community applied for it to be used, it was promptly demolished as part of a redevelopment. At Cornton Vale, the former staff canteen is still there and the prison visitor committee and the community group both want to use it as a prison visitor centre for families, but that is not being pursued. SPS’s current policy is not to create more of those facilities
“unless facilities within the prison inhibit the provision of support and information to visitors.”
I am not talking about formal visits; I am talking about managing the families and their children—preparing them before visits and handling and managing them afterwards.
Such visitor centres are worth while. Research by Dr Nancy Loucks in Tayside in 2002 suggested that they play a key role in encouraging family ties. All new-build prisons in England are required to include such centres and most English prisons have them. Her Majesty’s chief inspector of prisons supports their development, but the SPS does not seem to be getting the message that the centres are important. They should be outside the main prison, physically or administratively. They help to reduce tension, prepare visitors for their visit and improve liaison with the prison and understanding of the prison system. I therefore ask the minister to pass on to his colleagues the message that such centres should be allowed.
Visits that are made by those who are very young should be frequent, extensive and—when the family wants it—private. The centres should also be made available for play. It is not enough that children are allowed to remain with their parents for nine months after birth. If they are to remain attached to their mothers, the children need to have continued and frequent opportunities for meetings. I hope that the 28 recommendations of the review by the former children’s commissioner, “Not Seen. Not Heard. Not Guilty.”, will lead to some movement, although I am not sure that that movement will be enough.
I thank Aileen Campbell for securing the debate.
18:19
I am pleased to be here to listen to my parliamentary colleagues, some of whom have significant expertise in and knowledge of the area, discussing the important issues that Scotland faces in meeting our commitment to improve outcomes for the children of prisoners. I have heard a number of interesting suggestions this evening and I undertake either to follow them up or to pass them on to colleagues.
I agree whole-heartedly with Aileen Campbell’s assertion that the children of prisoners are often the innocent and forgotten victims of crime, and I congratulate her on raising the subject for debate today.
The report, which was produced by the children’s commissioner and Families Outside, confirms what, I suspect, we know already, which is that the impact of a parent’s imprisonment can cause huge sadness and emotional turmoil for children—a number of members have mentioned that it is akin to a bereavement in the family. The report also highlights that the rights and views of children very often appear to be forgotten or ignored. That is, frankly, unacceptable. However, there is already a great deal happening to address those issues. I will summarise some of the activities that are under way.
Aileen Campbell knows that the Scottish Government supported her proposed amendment to the Criminal Justice and Licensing (Scotland) Bill, which would have required courts to have regard to the parental circumstances of an offender when considering sentencing. I am sorry that the amendment was defeated, but we need to move on.
We are currently revising the guidance on social inquiry reports, which were mentioned by Aileen Campbell, Anne McLaughlin and Richard Simpson. The children’s commissioner and Families Outside have provided input into the content of the revised guidance, which will stress the importance of identifying the impact of sentences on families and children.
At a more strategic level, we are working with our local partners to turn round Scotland’s deeply entrenched and intergenerational cycles of poverty, poor health, poor educational outcomes, deprivation and unemployment—the circumstances and environments in which crime and criminality can thrive. If we can break those cycles, we can get at the very roots of the issues that we are discussing today and reduce the risks of future generations facing the same problems.
We are in this for the long haul, but our social policy frameworks on improving outcomes in the early years and tackling poverty and health inequalities are aimed firmly at moving from managing crises once they have happened to an agenda of prevention, early identification, early intervention and multi-agency support that is built around the needs of the individual. As Hugh O’Donnell said, those are the principles that underpin the getting it right for every child programme.
We launched the guide to implementing GIRFEC at the children’s summit last week, which was chaired by Tam Baillie, the children’s commissioner. The GIRFEC approach is aimed at meeting the needs of every child, regardless of the needs and circumstances of that child. The needs of children of prisoners are certainly part and parcel of that approach, and we must also ensure that there are stronger links between adult and children’s services, so that no child falls between services and the full range of circumstances that affect the child’s wellbeing are known of by all relevant service providers.
The rights of the child are central to the issues that we are discussing today. As many members will be aware, the Government has done much to embed the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in our policies, to improve outcomes for all our children and young people.
The wellbeing of children of prisoners was selected as one of the key priority areas for action in “Do the Right Thing”, the Scottish Government’s response to the concluding observations from the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. Our colleagues in the Scottish Prison Service are already delivering or developing a full range of actions to meet the needs of prisoners and children. Children and families groups have been established in almost every Scottish prison, and they are working to good-practice guidelines that were developed by the SPS children and families strategy group.
New SPS child protection policies and procedures will reflect the principles of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and GIRFEC.
Malcolm Chisholm mentioned the need for assessment of the impact of parental imprisonment on children’s rights. SPS has started to use just such an assessment tool. SPS also funds the Families Outside helpline and continues to work alongside local authorities and other partners to ensure that the impact of parental imprisonment is minimised as far as possible. The Scottish Government provides about £133,000 per annum to support Families Outside’s running costs.
There are certainly shared concerns and a shared wish by all those who are involved in supporting children and families to improve the lives and emotional wellbeing of children who have a parent in prison. The report by the commissioner and Families Outside provides more evidence to show just how much damage can be caused to a child and must give us all further impetus to do more.
I agree with Aileen Campbell’s view, as expressed in her motion, that our work with the SPS and other partners must be done on a cross-party basis, and I hope that what we do in the Parliament will move on into the next session as well. Children’s needs must be our collective focal point. From what I heard in the debate, I know that members recognise that and support us in this essential work.
Meeting closed at 18:26.