The following is an abstract of Imprisoned Fathers: The Children's View by Gwyneth Boswell published in The Howard Journal Vol 41 NO.1. February 2002

Children are often the forgotten victims of a parent’s imprisonment and the relationships they have with their imprisoned fathers have been neglected in research. Here, the author, a Principal Lecturer at the Community and Criminal Justice Studies, De Monfort University, Leicester, summarises the views and experiences of the children of imprisoned fathers and reflects on the implications for sentences, prison visits, school and support systems.

As part of a National Study carried out by the Department of Health in the United Kingdom, that recorded data on 209 families, 424 children under the age of 18, this study ultimately interviewed 17 children (age 3 to 19) to get a sense of some of the reactions and feelings they had about their fathers' imprisonment, and to provide them with an opportunity to have their voices heard.

Questions asked were about likes and dislikes about visiting arrangements; feelings about Dad being away from home;  effect of Dad being in prison and life in school;  hopes and fears;  the use of letters and any other comments about staying in touch with Dad.

Here are some of the children's comments:

"I like going to see him.  We walk around and play a lot.  We can watch the telly and videos too and the prison officers are nice to us." (Sally, age 10)

"….now he’s in prison, he and my mom have split up.  But it’s actually reduced the tension and life is really much easier now.  I only realised after two months after he'd gone what a nightmare it had been.  If you live with something long enough you get used to it.  He's my Dad though and I love him anyway and always will." (Jim, age 19)

"School helps me forget.” (Luke, age 12)

"They bully me, say nasty things. I don’t let them know I care, but sometimes I cry on the way home.  The teachers don’t know my Dad’s in prison and I don’t want to tell them." (Alan, age 7)

"I was worried he’d change once he went to prison but it was not so.  He’s still protective and concerned for us and rings to check we’ve arrived home safely after a visit." (Jenny, age 14)

"I've got a photo of me with my sister, my Mom and Dad when we went on a Family Visit.  They took it on a Polaroid camera so we could see it straight away and they took another one for my Dad.  I look at it every day and I think about when we’ll all be together again." (Shirley, age 10)

"My Mom and Dad have always been honest with me about what has happened and I’d rather have that than them lying to me, telling me he was working away or something.  It's been hard and sometimes my brother and I can talk about it but sometimes he just stays quiet and keeps it all inside.  I think I’m better at talking about it." (Mike, age 13)

Although the children's responses did not fit into neat categories, (they deferred in age, gender, family composition, school and life experiences, and developmental stages) it was apparent that all were affected by the loss of their father to imprisonment.

All the children would have preferred not to be in the situation they were in. Most of them appreciated the opportunity for contact, and would have liked more if it were available.  Not surprisingly, the children all had to deal in some way with their fathers' imprisonment with respect to their school experiences.

There was a mixture of hopes and fears for their future relationships with their fathers. While visits constituted the major way of continuing father-child contact, other means of contact, such as letters, photographs, presents, phone calls and videos also served the important purpose of reminding children that their absent fathers continued to think of them between visits.

In light of the findings, the author discussed implications for sentences, prison visiting, school and social support systems:

a) To consider the needs and wishes of children when weighing sentencing options for offender fathers

b) To aim for greater consistency across prisons in respect to inmate-family contact

c) The need for schools to develop clear strategies in providing both support and trusted teacher-confidantes to children in this situation

d) For formal support services to be more integrated with families and their informal support groups during and after sentence, in order to support the rehabilitation process. Prison family support programs can enable families and children to deal with isolation and shame; to make sense of their own feelings about their father; and be equipped with knowledge about imprisonment and the law.

e) To develop more research in this field of parenting

References:

1. Boswell, Gwyneth (2002), Imprisoned Fathers: The Children's View. Howard Journal of Criminal Justice, Vol. 41, No. 1, pp. 14-26

About the Author: The Dads for Life Resource Team comprises local content writers and experts, including psychologists, counsellors, educators and social service professionals, dedicated to developing useful resources for dads.