World Children’s Day – Children with a parent in prison

“We children have done nothing wrong, so why do you punish us when our parents go to jail?”  

– boy, 14 years old, Ireland 

As we mark World Children’s Day today 20 November 2024, the Irish Penal Reform Trust (IPRT) is thinking of all the children who have a parent(s) in prison.  

Did you know, that: 

• An estimated 2.1 million children are separated from a parent in prison in Europe on any given day;  

• Ireland continues not to have publicly available data for the number of children impacted by imprisonment, but IPRT estimates that 5,000 children have a parent in prison daily with over 10,000 children affected each year; 

• Young Ireland: The National Policy Framework for children and young people in Ireland 2023-2028, published in November 2023, was the first time that children of prisoners were recognised as a cohort group in need of support;  

• Ireland has NO national support service for children and families with a family member in Prison; 

• Since July 2024, the Irish Prison Service has a Family Connection Officer; 

• The Irish Prison Service has NO Visiting Policy or Family Strategy; 

• A child with a parent in prison has the right to participate in decisions that affect them; 

• A child who is separated from one or both parents should maintain personal relations and direct contact with both parents on a regular basis, except if it is contrary to the child’s best interests; 

• Approximately 9% of children in Kinship Care are there as a result of parental imprisonment; 

• Many families of prisoners become single-parent households as a result of imprisonment; 

• Some children already living in consistent poverty, their circumstances are made even worse when their parent is imprisoned, particularly if that parent was in employment or was providing financial support; 

• Families cannot avail of the One Parent Payment where a sentence is less than 6 months; 

• Children can only speak to their parent for 6 minutes on a phonecall; 

• Cork Prison is the only Irish prison to operate evening visits for children attending school; 

• Children have to choose between one video call or one inter-person visit per week – they can’t have both; 

• Children have to undergo traumatic security procedures to attend a visit; 

• Their letters, drawings, and cards to their daddies and mammies can take several months to get to their parents; 

• Many children miss out on having their daddies or mammies in attendance during special occasions in their lives. 

 

“Children of prisoners are the invisible victims of crime”