ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at what happens to the children of incarcerated women and explores how women in prison maintain their links with their children. It also looks at the key issues women face on their return to the community in terms of their family connections and parenting role. The chapter draws on a major study undertaken in Victoria, Australia over 2003–04 which interviewed women leaving prison and at intervals after prison (Trotter and Sheehan 2005). It draws also on a subsequent study of the experiences of children whose mothers had been in prison; they were children whose mothers had participated in the major study of women leaving prison (Flynn 2005). The chapter will present some background material on what is known about the extent to which women prisoners are parents with dependent children, drawing on Australian figures. What happens to the care of these children will be explored, so too will be issues of access between women and their children, views about maintaining family ties — from the families and professionals, and how policies support or hinder this, and at programmes available to women in prison that concentrate on parenting skills and maintaining family relationships.
