Maternal Imprisonment and Family Life. Booth, Natalie

caregiving status of defendants. This means that women can receive a custodial sentence before their dependent children are identified by criminal justice agencies. Pre-Sentence Reports (PSRs) are recurrently identified as a method to address this problem (PRT, 2015; MoJ, 2018d) as they inform sentencers about the defendant’s personal circumstances, including children. However, a continued failure to use PSRs in practice not only removes opportunities for statutory agencies to consider the needs and welfare of children in sentencing decisions (Epstein, 2012; PRT, 2015; JCHR, 2019), but can also delay or obstruct opportunities to organise childcare arrangements with caregiving relatives. Granted, some mothers are reluctant to disclose information about their children to criminal justice agencies out of fear that social services will remove them from their care (Brooks-Gordon and Bainham, 2004). This may occur as a result of negative past experiences with practitioners or ‘stories’ about the role and practices of social welfare agencies. Nevertheless, many mothers are not given the chance to disclose details of their children or to seek advice about childcare provisions in the event that a custodial sentence is given. This is despite courts serving England and Wales being bound by European legislations which state that a primary consideration should be given to the best interests of the child when a court is considering a decision to separate a child from their parent through a custodial sentence (see the European Convention on Human Rights³ [ECHR] and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child [UNCRC] [United Nations, 1989]). Short, informative videos aimed at sentencers and mothers produced from research conducted by Minson (2018b) are an attempt to bridge this gap, though the potential of these films can only be reached if they are shared widely and changes are implemented consistently.

      Mothers were also found to be failed at court by following advice from legal practitioners to plead guilty in order to avoid prison (Masson, 2019). This poor counsel left mothers wholly unequipped for the custodial sentence that then followed, and significantly impacted opportunities to prepare children for the separation, or to organise childcare. Of critical concern is that all these practices can also exclude family members – as potential caregivers – from the process and the decisions that will directly concern them as the ones caring for children thereafter. One study with mothers at Her Majesty’s Prison (HMP) Holloway reported that a quarter of caregivers had not anticipated a custodial sentence and were given little notice, or opportunity, to prepare to assume these childcare responsibilities (Boswell and Wood, 2011). Again, a glance back to Linda’s story in the Preface shows some of the practical and emotional realities that can face relatives with little time or opportunity to prepare to assume the full-time care of children.

As well as being physically separated from children and families by the custodial sentence, women are also held in prisons geographically far away from their homes (Corston, 2007; HMIP [Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons], 2010; NOMS [National Offender Management System]2013). The sizeably smaller female prisoner population means that there are fewer female prison establishments (currently 12), which are dispersed across England. Despite calls for women to be housed closer to their children and families (NOMS, 2013), with Baroness Corston’s (2007) review suggesting that this could be achieved through a dispersed set of smaller custodial hubs, visitors of female prisons continue to travel longer distances for face-to-face contact. There are also no female prisons in Wales (NOMS, 2013) or the Isle of Wight (Baldwin, 2017); therefore, all female prisoners are detained in England,⁴ potentially causing more practical and financial obstacles for families from other regions to maintain contact through prison visits. In addition, research has highlighted the myriad of challenges facing family members wishing to sustain contact with a loved one in prison (HMIP, 2016). This includes the stress of taking long journeys to the prison (Christian, 2005), stringent and degrading search procedures (Arditti et al, 2003; Condry, 2007a; Codd, 2008), restrictive visiting environments that can prevent meaningful parent-child interactions (Booth, 2016, 2018a), and costly telephone calls (PRT, 2006; Booth, 2018b). It is important to consider what this means, as well as how this is managed by family members caring for children during maternal imprisonment. Otherwise, recent policy attention (Farmer, 2017, 2019; JCHR, 2019; MoJ and HMPPS, 2019a) directed towards supporting prisoners’ family ties runs the risk of failing families.

      Discussions about contact in the prison setting take a different form when mothers are given a place on Mother and Baby Units (MBUs). Mothers of babies and young children usually under 18 months of age may be eligible for one of six MBUs located inside female prisons serving England and Wales (NOMS, 2011c). The motivations behind MBUs ‘reflect society’s normal assumption that the best place for a young child is with his or her parent’, and they operate in the best interests of the children who reside there (NOMS, 2011c: 2). Recent studies have contributed much-needed insights into mothers’ experiences of MBUs (O’Keeffe and Dixon, 2015; Abbott, 2018); however, it is not clear how fathers or other caregiving family members consider these facilities. Familial perspectives are of value given that they may be supporting the mother practically, emotionally and financially while also attempting to maintain family relationships with the baby housed in the prison.

      Taken together, the process of incarcerating women cannot be divorced from their roles and responsibilities as mothers. Yet, as prisons are stubbornly favoured as the ‘response’ to lawbreaking, and policymakers continue to evade, ignore or fail to implement gender-specific policies for mothers (Corston, 2007; MoJ, 2018d), it is vital that room is made to voice the experiences of people for whom maternal imprisonment is a reality. In this book, it is the caregivers’ narratives and experiences that are privileged.

      Caregivers: the forgotten family members

      Recently, a considerable body of knowledge on the impact of imprisonment on families (Condry and Scharff Smith, 2018) has developed, alongside an increased focus on the ‘collateral consequences’ of imprisonment (Turanovic et al, 2012) and rising prisoner populations internationally (World Prison Brief, 2019). Most of this has focused on the experiences of partners and children (Jardine, 2018), especially when a male relative is imprisoned (Codd, Скачать книгу