Forgotten Victims: Recommendations for Social Care on the Impact on Children of their Parent’s Incarceration

In the wake of parental incarceration, remains the plight of children who are hidden and seldom appreciated victims. In this article, findings of a novel study into key dimensions of the impact of parental incarceration on children will be presented, including socioemotional and behavioral harm, and disenfranchised grief. The study employed a critical literature method which applied in-depth thematic analysis to a sample of twenty peer-reviewed international publications. Findings reveal that due to direct and indirect harm caused to children arising from parental criminality and the ineptitude of the criminal justice system, children are being punished despite no fault being assigned to them. Findings demonstrate a multi-layered and detrimental impact on children spanning socio-economic losses such as related to income and residential status, relationship deprivation and stigma. Five key recommendations are presented from the study for social care practitioners, policy makers and scholars. These recommendations specifically refer to harm reduction for children whilst their parent or parents are in prison. Recommendations point to policy improvement within educational policy, prison policy and regarding children’s rights. Recommendations around the use of non-custodial sentences as well as future roles for social care in this area are discussed.