31/01/2022
Police Oracle
Work with offenders on new research into an old problem
This month’s issue of the Prison Service Journal focuses on the issue of care leavers and the criminal justice system. The lead article shares the findings of a substantial study into the experiences of looked after children in prison.The article: “After Care, After Thought?: The Invisibility of Care Experienced Men and Women in Prison” is based on qualitative interviews with 94 care experienced men .and women in prison.
The researchers, Kate Gooch, Isla Masson, Emmy Waddington and Amber Owens, reflect on the fact that despite concerns about the connections between care and custody for several generations, we still don’t have an accurate figure for the number of people in prison who have been in the care system. In 2002, the Social Exclusion Report (a powerful and influential report which drove much social policy in the New Labour years) suggested that 27% of the prison population had been in local authority care as a child, compared with just 2% of the general population. In the last twenty years, different studies and reviews have estimated that as many as 24%-50% of those in youth custody or prison have been in care.
The researchers says that we still know relatively little about the true number of care experienced people in prison and why such a disproportionate number continues to be imprisoned (sometimes repeatedly). To date, much of the focus has been on the criminalisation of children in local authority care (regular readers will be familiar with the long-running and successful campaign by the Howard League to tackle this) and the transition from care to youth justice settings.
However, we know relatively little about how care experience might shape transitions to, responses to, and behaviour within, prison long into adulthood.
Invisibility
This research reveals the invisibility of care experienced individuals in prison. The researchers highlight the fact that there is regular acknowledgement of the specific needs of care experienced prisoners in official strategy, policy documents and reviews, but that this has not yet filtered down to consistent good practice within prisons. They argue that there are structural obstacles that prevent identification of care experienced prisoners with the barriers falling into two distinct but overlapping categories:
The researchers argue that overcoming these barriers to develop our knowledge and understanding is crucial. They found that some individuals are unable to access local authority support to which they are legally entitled. The different categories of care sometimes make recording difficult and contradictory.
Importantly, the research team also found that peoples’ experiences prior to, and during, local authority care often continues to structure their relationships, interactions with professionals, perceptions of authority, identity, and perceptions of safety into adulthood. While some of the people interviewed for this research had had positive experiences of care, most described their experiences in negative terms.
We know, of course, that many people who enter prison do so with histories of trauma, abuse, drug and alcohol problems, poor mental and physical health, insecure housing and low levels of education. However, the research team found that such problems were not only typically exacerbated for those with care experience, but were compounded by multiple layers of loss, disruption, dislocation, severed relationships, rejection, instability and bereavement.
Experiences of placement instability, frequent changes of social worker, and separation from siblings were common in the research interviews. These experiences were hugely damaging, creating little consistency or predictability during children’s formative years. They also engendered feelings of rejection, abandonment, and conflicted relationships with parents.
The research chronicles how people’s life histories and negative experiences of the care system can lead them to respond in a number of different damaging ways, ranging from self-harm and suicide to fighting the system (sometimes literally). Many people who have been in care develop a lack of trust in professionals and have low expectations of proper help and support.
Conclusions
The researchers make three main recommendations: