As Ireland’s prison population grows, more children are having to cope with the stigma and loneliness of a parent in jail

THE ONLY memory Noel has of his son’s First Communion is posing for a Polaroid photo with him the day after the ceremony – in a corridor of the Midlands Prison in Portlaoise.

“He came up with my father and he looked stunning in his suit. I had to hold back the tears,” says the former heroin addict from west Dublin, who was refused a day release for the Communion because he still had two years to serve.

The first to acknowledge that “it was my fault I was in prison”, Noel says missing the day was “very hard”, but he was out for his son’s Confirmation last year.

Sitting in a small room off the welcoming reception area at the Clondalkin Addiction Support Programme (Casp), Noel talks about how it is only now, three years after his release, that he is building a relationship with his 13-year-old son Alan. He is struggling to make up for the lost years when his only contact was through phone calls and sporadic visits.

Alan was four when Noel was sentenced to seven years in prison for supplying drugs. He had lost his job after starting to take drugs – “the worst mistake of my life” – and became involved in selling them to make money.

At the time of his sentencing in 2002, he was on the sixth month of a rehabilitation programme with the Coolmine Therapeutic Community. But on his first day in Mountjoy, a cellmate, who had also just been admitted, offered him drugs and Noel was back to square one.

“Me worst time on drugs was throughout prison,” he says.

It was a way of coping with prison life but “my plan when getting out was to leave it all behind”.

Noel’s relationship with Alan’s mother had broken down and initially the boy did not know his father was in jail. “Eventually he was sat down and told.”

As a sentenced prisoner he was entitled to one 30-minute visit a week, but he saw his son only about three times a year. “On some of the visits he would have been awkward. I was the adult so I made as much as I could out of the visit,” says Noel.

The main form of contact was phone calls. He was allowed to make one call a day, lasting no more than six minutes, and he tried to speak to his only child every second day. “He would tell me what he was up to, but you can’t get into deep conversation in six minutes.”

Once Noel got out, both father and son faced much readjusting in their relationship. “I am trying to set ground rules. I would not be an authority figure for him.” He had a friend in prison who was visited by his two children every week and he sees how much easier it was for them to be reunited on his release.

Children such as Alan are the invisible victims of crime and the penal system. They have done nothing wrong but the emotional and practical consequences of having a parent in prison can be profound.

As Ireland’s prison population continues to grow, more families are having to cope with the stigma, financial hardships, relationship and parenting problems that often arise from having a family member in jail. (Although it has to be said that imprisonment can come as a relief in some cases.)

The latest annual report of the Irish Prison Service recorded a 13.6 per cent increase in the number of committals to prison in 2008, at 13,557, compared with 11,934 the previous year. The vast majority were men, with 11 per cent being women.

For every high-profile court case which grabs national media attention, there are hundreds more involving lesser offences and resulting in short sentences. In the first 10 months of last year, for instance, 3,300 people were jailed for non-payment of fines.

“Families of prisoners are often treated with the same level of disrespect as the prisoners and that is a very traumatising experience,” says Maria Finn, the manager of Casp in Dublin. They need access to family supports, without fear of further stigmatisation. Children of prisoners “sometimes have a lot of weight on their little shoulders”, she says.

“Parental imprisonment, even for short periods, can have a devastating effect on family relationships, and contact between parents in prison and their children should be facilitated to the greatest possible extent,” says the executive director of the Irish Penal Reform Trust, Liam Herrick.

“Research shows consistently that positive involvement of families supports successful re-settlement of prisoners on release. It has also been shown to reduce re-offending and to reduce the risk of suicide and self-harm among those in custody.”

Ian O’Donnell, professor of criminology at UCD, also stresses there is very clear evidence “that if you promote the bonds prisoners have with their families and communities while they are inside, it promotes law-abiding behaviour post-release”.

Breaking the cycle, in terms of both re-offending and inter-generational crime, is foremost in the minds of professionals and volunteers working with prisoners’ families.

“This is not just a humane debate but a common sense, economic debate,” points out Janie Walthew, director of the Prisoners’ Families Infoline (PFI) and a former manager of the visitors’ centre at Cloverhill Remand Prison in Dublin.

But like many voluntary groups, this confidential phone and e-mail information service, which also hosts a weekly support group in its office in Tallaght, struggles to fund its work.

Since Christmas, the PFI has lost 70 per cent of its income and had to lay off its three staff. It is now run entirely by volunteers and is dependent on small charities and trusts for income.

It faces “a tremendous image problem”, says Walthew. Even supposedly enlightened people, she suggests, cannot get their heads around the value of its work and why prisoners’ families should be supported. “They see prisoners, they don’t see families. They see people with hoods over their heads – not a father or a brother.”

To those who believe that a criminal has forfeited the right to be a parent, she asks: “What about the child? Has he or she forfeited the right to have that parent?”

The Bedford Row Family Project in Limerick aims to give prisoners’ families “a sense of belonging,” says its manager, Larry de Cléir. It tries to ease their distress and to assist with parenting issues.

The project offers counselling at its centre and a play therapist comes in once a week. It also runs a hospitality centre in Limerick Prison, where project staff can meet visitors and offer support, particularly to those on their first visits.

What to tell the children and whether or not to bring them on prison visits are questions frequently asked by parents. Quite often families do not tell the children the truth, says Walthew.

“Sometimes they are told daddy is working in a big factory and can’t come out, or he is working in a hospital or he is working on something very secret.”

If parents want to tell the children, one approach she suggests is to say: “He did a silly thing, but he is not a bad person.” Reassure them by stressing: “It is not your fault. He loves you and we will be able to go to see him.”

Many parents say a prison is no place to take a child and they are right, comments Walthew. “On the other hand, there are ways for prison visits to be mediated and explained. It is in the interest of children that they be brought to visit their imprisoned parent.”

Ireland is generally lacking in the provision of child-centered visits, which have been successfully introduced in the UK, says Herrick.

“The purpose of child-centred visits is to provide an opportunity for fathers in particular to bond with their children in a way and in an environment that is not available during regular visits. This includes organising the visits in a specially prepared area, where children can feel comfortable, away from the general prison facilities.”

Opportunities presented by active, positive involvement of families and children with prisoners are too important to be missed, he adds. “The prison system in Ireland needs a radical change of its policies and practices relating to the support it offers to prisoners and families alike.”

Former prisoners need to be accepted back into the community, stresses Finn. “People do have the capacity to change and are we as a society open to that possibility?” she asks. “I have evidence in my work every day that people can turn their lives around and be amazing.”

Noel is critical of the lack of preparation for his release he received inside prison after serving five and a half years. The refusal to put him on methadone, he says, meant he had to go on a waiting list for a drug addiction programme when he got out.

After some months, he decided his only option was to buy methadone on the streets and stabilise himself. He has since attended programmes at Casp, worked on a community employment scheme there and keeps himself busy. Last month, he started a parenting course and says he has already picked up some useful tips.

Noel had gone to live with his mother on release, but has recently moved into a place of his own and is now able to have Alan to stay at weekends.

That is a big help in strengthening their bond because it means, at last, they have unhurried time to talk.

He is acutely aware of the environment in which the boy is growing up. “It is horrible when your son is talking about people fighting in your area and having guns.”

Noel is not only determined to do his best for Alan, but also acknowledges how his son has helped him.

“If I hadn’t got my son, I would not have cared about a lot of things. He is the reason I am stable and where I am today.”

*Names of former prisoner and his son have been changed

For more information see: pfi.ie; bedfordrow.ie; casp.ie

swayman@irishtimes.com

IMAGINATIVE STEPS: MAKING A BIG DIFFERENCE

A father reading a book to his child is a simple, bonding activity, which is being conducted at one remove in Castlerea Prison in Co Roscommon.

In a pilot “DVD Dads” programme, imprisoned fathers can be filmed reading a book out loud; the disk and book are then sent to their children. It is an initiative supported by the Outreach Roscommon project, which opened a family and visitors’ resource centre outside the walls of the prison in 2006.

As well as providing tea and coffee in a relaxed environment, the centre also offers visitors counselling, a monthly nurse service and workshops for families on anything from flower arranging to personal development.

Last year, more than 10,000 visitors passed through the centre, where all services are free.

Few of the inmates at the medium-security prison, which has a capacity for 351 men, come from the local area, so some visitors are travelling hundreds of miles to be there.

Accompanying children are invited to “adopt a doll” (or an action man), which they name, keep with them during the visit and place back in its own cubby hole when they leave. Every time the child returns, the doll is there for them, which helps to make the visit a positive experience.

Imaginative steps, such as those being taken in Castlerea, can make a big difference to prisoners and their families.

One person involved with the project, who asked not to be named, said they had been “lucky with the personalities” they were dealing with at that particular prison.

The former governor, who retired last December, was “very forward thinking” and all the signs are that the current governor is in the same vein.