In Victoria, more than 4,000 children have a parent in prison.
At present there are very few laws or policies that protect or even
acknowledged these children while their parents are arrested, sentenced
and imprisoned.
VACRO is working to improve the experiences of children undergoing
these traumatic events through the project ‘Children: Unintended Victims
of Legal Process’. This project has completed a thorough review
of the policy and legislative gaps pertaining to children with imprisoned
parents, and has conducted a broad series of interviews with mothers
in prison and post-release, as well as with police, solicitors, judges
and carers of children. A Discussion
Paper detailing the findings from the research and review, and an
Executive Summary are available
in PDF format.
The project has now completed its second phase, which involved
consultations with stakeholders and interested parties about ways to
improve the entire process for any children involved. These
consultations have contributed to the formation of recommendations
to achieve this, with the focus on a system-wide, interdepartmental
set of policies and protocols. An Action Paper has been
published and is available in PDF format.
Further developments with the Action Paper and its Recommendations
will be posted here.
No policy or procedure on how to deal with the children of criminals
or alleged offenders - The Law Report - 17 April 2007
