In French-speaking Belgium, the number of mothers imprisoned with their children was unknown up to now. In our country, women can keep their child with them until it is three years old. What is this experience like and what becomes of the child afterwards? Little is known about these children whose mothers are imprisoned. Given this fact, the Houtman Fund (part of ONE) sponsored an enquiry into children aged from 0 to 6 years whose mothers are imprisoned. This was conducted by two researchers at the University of Liege, Stephanie Linchet and Salim Megherbi, under the supervision of Marie-Thérèse Casman, Laurent Nisen (Family Demographics Panel) and Frédéric Schoenaers (Center for research and Sociological Intervention).
![Enfant prison]( "Enfant prison.")
In Belgium three prison establishments accept the children of imprisoned mothers: Lantin, Mons and Berkendael. From a legal point of view, it is stipulated that family relationships must be preserved. Yet there is no legal framework that specifically states the conditions under which this should happen.
The study (1), sponsored by The Houtman Fund (part of the public service body ONE), took place between October 2011 and December 2013 and covered three aspects: sociological, psychological and legal. From a sociological point of view, the first consideration was the fact that there is an absence of data concerning the number of children imprisoned with their mothers.
“The previous studies focussed particularly on the fathers because they are more numerous but there was no data concerning the number of children”, explains Stephanie Linchet of The Panel for Family Demographics “When a woman enters prison, she is asked if she has children but this is purely informative; there is no verification”, states Salim Megherbi of the Center for Research and Sociological interventions (CRIS).
In Belgium, 83% of children whose fathers are in prison are cared for by their mothers while 25% of children whose mothers are in prison live with their father.
The researchers went into the three prisons that accept children and had the women answer a questionnaire. Given the fact that this was the first time a count took place, the researchers took advantage of the situation to interview all the mothers who had children aged 18 or under. Eighty-three mothers answered the questionnaire.
39 mothers
Then the researchers continued their work with mothers who had children aged 0 to 6 years at the time of the study. Some of them accepted answering the questionnaire, but refused interviews that aimed to establish information about their careers or their thoughts on prison motherhood. Finally, 39 mothers took part in the survey. These women had a total of 56 children. Eleven of these children lived in prison.
“We obtained a 56% answer rate. This was quite positive considering that prisoners are somewhat suspicious of those who would wish to interview them. But we went door to door to explain our approach to them”, explains Salim Megherbi. “We explained that we were not doing this to check up on them. We also had a visitor’s badge which differentiated us from the prison personnel. Some of them felt that the survey could improve their situation but we put this into perspective by telling them that there would be consequences in the mid to long-term”, says Stephanie Linchet.
