The Joint Committee on Human Rights tabled five new clauses to the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill last week, in its report, ‘Children of mothers in prison and the right to family life: The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill’.
The new clauses would require judges to consider pre-sentence reports including information about any children concerned before sentencing a mother. Judges would be required to take into account the best interests of the child, consider the impact on a child of a custodial sentence, and consider the impact on a child of not granting bail.
There would also be a requirement on the Home Secretary to gather and publish data on how many children are born in prison and how many children are separated from their mother in prison.
The committee criticised the failure of government to capture basic data about primary carers in prison and their dependent children as a ‘blatant disregard’ for the rights of the child and their parents’ right to family life. It had called on the government repeatedly to collect this data yet the government did not have it.
Harriet Harman MP, chair of the committee, said: ‘A young child’s separation from its mother when she’s sent to prison risks lifelong damage to that crucial relationship.
‘Yet, too often, the child is invisible in the court process. This must change. Most mothers who are in prison have committed non-violent crimes. And it’s appalling that there’s so little concern for children that the government doesn’t even know how many children are suffering separation from their mother by imprisonment.
‘There will be much backing from MPs from all parties for these law changes proposed by the Joint Committee on Human Rights.’
The committee highlighted that, when a parent with a dependent child is sentenced, the Art 8 rights of both parent and child is engaged therefore the court should ensure the child’s right to a family life is interfered with to the extent that is both necessary and proportionate. The committee said it failed to see how the bets interests of the child were being sufficiently considered if they were not prioritised when a parent was sentenced.
