Like the United Kingdom and New Zealand, all eight Australian jurisdictions have legal provisions for the full-time accommodation of young children with their mothers in prison. Whether and how these laws are enacted varies, and there are no national or international norms. This article integrates a review of policies, principles and operating models with findings from a qualitative study, to describe the current landscape in residential programmes for mothers and children in Australian prisons. It demonstrates how current ideologies limit the system’s ability to meet the needs of imprisoned mothers, their children and prison staff. Three issues emerge as problematic: the separation of the rights and interests of mothers and children; over-reliance on attachment theory as both rationale and evidence base; and the individualization of responsibility and risk. The study is of international relevance because these themes and concepts are recognizable elsewhere, including the United Kingdom, New Zealand and some European countries.
AIHW (2015) The health of Australia’s prisoners 2015. Cat. no. PHE 207. Canberra: Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.
4.
AinsworthMDSBellSM (1970) Attachment, exploration, and separation: Illustrated by the behavior of one-year-olds in a strange situation. Child Development41(1): 49–67.
5.
BaldryE (2010) Women in transition: From prison to…. Current Issues in Criminal Justice22(2): 253–267.
6.
BarnacleH (2001) Don’t Let Her See Me Cry: A Mother’s Story. North Sydney: Random House Australia.
7.
BBC (2017) PM urges prison rethink for mothers with babies. British Broadcasting Corporation. Available at: http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-35515003 (accessed 16 August 2018).
8.
BowlbyJ (1988) A Secure Base: Clinical Applications of Attachment Theory. London: Routledge.
9.
BowlbyJAinsworthMDS (1951) Maternal care and mental health. Geneva: World Health Organization.
10.
CarlenP (1998) Sledgehammer: Women’s Imprisonment at the Millennium. Houndmills: Macmillan.
11.
CarltonBSegraveM (2016) Rethinking women’s post-release reintegration and ‘success’. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology49(2): 281–299.
12.
CashmoreJCastell-McGregorS (1996) The child protection and welfare system. In: FunderK (ed.) Citizen Child: Australian Law and Children’s Rights. Melbourne: Australian Institute of Family Studies, 113–143.
13.
ClayCBurfittA (2000) Do children and prison go together?Women in Corrections: Staff and Clients Conference, Adelaide, 31 October–1 November.
14.
CSMC (2012) Standard Guidelines for Corrections in Australia. Victoria: State of Victoria.
15.
CunneenCBaldryEBrownD, et al. (2013) Penal Culture and Hyperincarceration: The Revival of the Prison. Farnham: Ashgate.
16.
DodgeMPogrebinMR (2001) Collateral costs of imprisonment for women: Complications of reintegration. The Prison Journal81(1): 42–54.
EnroosR (2015) From invisibility to protection: Children in prison with their parent in Finland. Children & Society29(5): 399–409.
19.
EpsteinR (2014) Mothers in prison: The sentencing of mothers and the rights of the child. Coventry: Howard League.
20.
GarlandD (1996) The limits of the sovereign state: Strategies of crime control in contemporary society. British Journal of Criminology36(4): 445–471.
21.
GiddensA (1999) Risk and responsibility. The Modern Law Review62(1): 1–10.
22.
GiordanoPCSeffrinPMManningWD, et al. (2011) Parenthood and crime: The role of wantedness, relationships with partners, and SES. Journal of Criminal Justice39(5): 405–416.
23.
GlaserBGStraussA (1969) The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research. Chicago, IL: Aldine.
24.
HaneyC (2006) Reforming Punishment: Psychological Limits to the Pains of Imprisonment. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
25.
Hannah-MoffatK (2000) Prisons that empower. British Journal of Criminology40(3): 510–531.
26.
Hannah-MoffatK (2006) Pandora’s box: Risk/need and gender responsive corrections. Criminology & Public Policy5(1): 183–192.
KennyD (2012) Meeting the needs of children of incarcerated mothers: The application of attachment theory to policy and programming. Sydney: Corrective Services NSW.
30.
LoyM (2000) A study of the mothers and children’s program in the NSW Department of Corrective Services. Adelaide: Women in Corrections: Staff and Clients.
31.
MinsonSCondryR (2015) The visibility of children whose mothers are being sentenced for criminal offences in the courts of England and Wales. Law Context: A Socio-Legal Journal32: 28–45.
32.
MnookinRH (1975) Child-custody adjudication: Judicial functions in the face of indeterminacy. Law and Contemporary Problems39(3): 226–293.
33.
PösöTEnroosRVierulaT (2010) Children residing in prison with their parents: An example of institutional invisibility. The Prison Journal90(4): 516–533.
RobertsonO (2008) Children imprisoned by circumstance. Geneva: Quaker United Nations Office.
36.
SCSI (1997) A report into children of imprisoned parents. Standing Committee on Social Issues, Legislative Council, Parliament of New South Wales. Sydney, NSW: Parliament of New South Wales.
37.
SFCIPP (2018) Children of Incarcerated Parents: Bill of Rights. San Francisco Children of Incarcerated Parents Partnership. Available at: https://www.sfcipp.org/ (accessed 27 March 2018).
38.
ShlonskyARoseDHarrisJ, et al. (2015) Literature review of prison-based mothers and children programs: Final report. Melbourne: The University of Melbourne School of Health Sciences.
39.
SmithPS (2015) Children of imprisoned parents in Scandinavia: Their problems, treatment and the role of Scandinavian penal culture. Law Context: A Socio-Legal Journal32: 147–168.
40.
StraussALCorbinJM (1990) Basics of Qualitative Research: Grounded Theory Procedures and Techniques. Los Angeles, CA: SAGE.
UmamaheswarJ (2013) Gendered representations of parents behind bars: An analysis of newspaper reports. Punishment & Society15(3): 274–303.
43.
YuleCParéP-PGartnerR (2014) An examination of the local life circumstances of female offenders: Mothering, illegal earnings, and drug use. British Journal of Criminology55(2): 248–269.
