ABSTRACT

This chapter aims to provide an overview of the challenges encountered by incarcerated mothers, their infants and families. It illustrates the complexity of the issues experienced by mothers in custody and discusses the potential for programmes within the prison system to support them. The chapter focuses on the issues experienced by incarcerated mothers during pregnancy and the postnatal period, and the impact on the mother and her infant and young children. Parenting programmes are discussed and implications for practice and research explored. While this study had a limited sample, it demonstrated the benefits that could occur from children being placed within a safe environment where the mother felt supported by prison staff and benefited from regular contact with nurse who assisted in developing maternal sensitivity and enhancing the mother-infant relationship. In the United States of America (USA) people from minority groups are also at high risk of incarceration due to reduced family resources, further compounding these families' disadvantage and vulnerability.