A double judgment

Having a child in prison can be a source of stress for the mothers. “If the child cries, they are automatically branded as bad mothers”, points out Stephanie Linchet. “They are already under surveillance as inmates, which is normal, but they are also under the spotlight as mothers”, confirms Salim Megherbi. They are being judged not only by the prison staff, but by their fellow inmates.

Fortunately, some measures have already been taken to offer some respite to mothers. For this purpose, places have been reserved for the children of inmates at Lantin and Berkendael in the creches of ONE. The removal of children from the prison environment is strongly recommended both for the well-being of the mother and that of the child.

Parenting support

Elsewhere, a support service for mothers exists in order to help them to manage their parenting. This is known as Relais-enfants-parents. This is a support service financed by the Wallonia-Brussels Federation. “The members of this service have a parenting support role. They organize visits by the children to the prison on Saint Nicolas day, Christmas or Mother’s Day, for example. They also organize visits between parents and children and provide support where needed”, explains Stephanie Linchet.  The problem is that there are only 8 or 9 of them for the entire Wallonia-Brussels Federation and they work with the fathers as well as the mothers of children in prison.  “There are not enough of them. As is the case with all associations, this one lacks means. Also, their subsidies are likely to decrease in proportion to the increasing number of inmates.  Ten staff members for all the parents in prison is not enough”, states Salim Megherbi.

This is not enough to facilitate personalised support. “All imprisoned parents are entitled to support during group visits but for individual visits there is are waiting lists”, states Stephanie Linchet.

Considering the lack of an established procedure for monitoring pregnancy and childbirth, the poorly-defined conditions for accommodating children in prison and the lack of support care for imprisoned mothers does not paint a very positive picture.

Recommendations

The research team hopes that their study will force decision-makers to take stock of the plight of mothers and children in prison. In order to help them in their decision-making, they make the following recommendations.

With regard to pregnancy and childbirth, the authors consider that “if there were a clearly-defined and well-understood procedure in prisons (taking account of factors such as the level of dangerousness of the inmate), general conditions and equality of treatment would be greatly improved.” It should be noted that such a procedure already exists at Lantin.
For the moment, expectant mothers often have to fight for their rights.

Researchers also argue for the creation of specific accommodation quarters in prisons where children are present. It is clear that safety considerations take precedence in prisons, but these are often in direct contradiction with welfare concerns. Creating specific quarters of this kind would provide more space for mother-child relationships.

Efforts have already been made to improve the prison environment which is particularly unsuitable for children (detention, noise, other inmates, hours, etc.). But these efforts are insufficient, as the researchers have been able to show.   

Another factor: the unpredictable nature of imprisonment (sentence duration, transfer, etc.) complicates the psycho-social support that mothers and children should be able to avail of. Transfers can interrupt bonds that have been formed and information about the children is not always communicated from one prison to another. This means that support personnel often have to start from scratch.