By Brendan Sweeney
It is estimated that in Denmark alone there are around 4,000 children who experience parental imprisonment, while the corresponding figure for the whole of the EU is approximately 700,000. This creates a host of social problems which have an impact on children’s welfare, schooling and emotional development.
In order to uncover these problems, the Danish Institute for Human Rights decided to carry out a comparative study with four European partner organisations to investigate the problems encountered by children of prisoners in the EU. The study, which is carried out with Financial Support from the European Commission: Fundamental rights and citizenship Programme DG Justice, Freedom and Security marks a continuation of a major research programme on children of prisoners – funded by the Danish Egmont Foundation - which the Institute started in 2007.
Representatives from partner organisations in Northern Ireland, Italy, Poland met at a seminar which took place at DIHR on the 5-6 October in order to kick start the study. The group included participants from the University of Ulster, Associazione Bambinisenzasbarre in Italy, the Second Change Foundation in Poland, an external expert from the Netherlands, Dr Lucy Gampell from Eurochips, and a number of experts from DIHR. A trip to a Danish prison was organised to illustrate how the Danish prison service treats the children of prisoners.
The object of the study is to produce a report with concrete recommendations for changes in legislation as well as practical matters affecting the children of imprisoned parents. These recommendations will focus on a number of actors who are directly involved with prisoners’ children, e.g. the police, social welfare officers and prison staff.
Ultimately, the partners are working to harmonise judicial rights and administrative procedures in the EU to ensure the rights and welfare of the children of prisoners across all member states.
The partners have decided to meet again at a strategy seminar in Paris in May 2010, while the final report will be handed in to the EU in Brussels in March 2011.
One of the participants at the seminar, Dr Linda Moore, University of Ulster, spoke about the importance of the project to her work:
“This study is important for us in Northern Ireland because we’ve historically had high rates of imprisonment throughout the conflict, and we still have large numbers of people in prison, so obviously issues around the rights of the children of prisoners affect a lot of families. Unfortunately we don’t know how many, because the research hasn’t been done yet but we’re hoping that once we have the facts and figures, and once we find out how children experience visiting a prison and what this means to them we’ll be able to campaign, lobby and put pressure on the authorities to meet children’s rights.”
Another participant, Tomasz Kowalski, Director of the Second Chance, the Foundation for Prevention and Rehabilitation in Poland was also keen to stress the relevance of the study to conditions in his home country:
“My hope is that this study will show the conditions of children of imprisoned persons in Poland and show the truth about how they are treated and maybe this will lead to a recommendation to the Polish authorities about what is needed to change [the current situation].”
Mr Kowalski went on to describe the lack of welfare provisions available to released prisoners and their families in Poland. “There are very few organisations helping prisoners in Poland, just five NGOs for a country with 35 million citizens and 85,000 prisoners, and 8,000 prisoners being released every month. Nobody wants to get involved with this and there is no government support.”
The DIHR is very happy to be able to help organize and carry out this project.
“When doing research on children of imprisoned parents in Denmark we became aware of both the many problems facing these children but also the lack of focus on their rights. But it was also obvious from the start that many different actors from both civil society and the state wanted to change this. Now we will be able to take this work into the EU and hopefully use this opportunity to create standards for children of imprisoned parents all over Europe,” stated Peter Scharff Smith, Research Director at DIHR, and an expert in prisons and human rights.
For further information, please contact Brendan Sweeney at