But these fates are often ignored by society and in many prisons. For example, visiting times are offered in the morning when the children are at school. Or there is only the option of seeing the imprisoned parents during regular visits, isolated behind a glass partition.
Children cannot talk to anyone about fear and sadness
Hilde Kugler is working to change that. The director of “Treffpunkt eV” in Nuremberg has set up the “Children of Inmates” network. In her more than 30 years of working with relatives, she has repeatedly seen how a child’s world collapses when their father or mother goes to prison. Their everyday lives are turned upside down overnight and they believe they cannot talk to anyone about their fears, grief and worries.
For two years, Kugler has also been the head of a cross-state project in Bavaria, Berlin, Hamburg, Hesse, Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania and North Rhine-Westphalia to promote better cooperation between youth welfare services, the judiciary, schools and other actors for the benefit of the children. “We supported the prisons in introducing and continuing a family-oriented system by, for example, setting up father-child groups and child-friendly family visiting rooms with toys,” she reports. There were also training courses for prison specialists and child and youth welfare employees.
Rethinking required
Judith Feige, research associate in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child Monitoring Unit of the German Institute for Human Rights, says:
“While some prisons, for example, are generous with telephone and internet contact, others count video communication towards visiting hours. There is still a long way to go before every affected child in Germany has the opportunity to maintain contact with their imprisoned parent in a way that complies with children’s and human rights.”
Kugler says that a rethink is urgently needed. Article 9 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in Germany states that every child is guaranteed a regular, personal relationship and direct contact with both parents – provided this does not conflict with the child’s best interests. The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child is therefore calling for more frequent visits and nationwide standards that ensure sufficient offers and support for children and parents.
“Another shortcoming is that there is no proper data collection of the families affected,” criticizes Kugler. The number of 100,000 children of prisoners every year is therefore only a rough estimate. When a prisoner is imprisoned, they are not automatically asked whether they have biological children, live in a patchwork relationship or are social parents. This means that social workers, youth welfare office employees, teachers or community networkers often have no idea whether they should take action to support children or affected family members.
Father without partition
Stephanie Schmidt from Treffpunkt eV, who looks after the father-child groups in the Nuremberg prison, accompanies eight children to the prison’s family room every two weeks – a room bathed in warm, sunny yellow that almost seems cozy with its play corner. Julian (name changed), whose father is in prison for fraud, said in an interview with the Evangelical Press Service (epd):
“The first time we visited Dad, it wasn’t through the father-child group. We were two brothers with our mother for a regular visit that only lasts 45 minutes – with a maximum of eight or ten people in the room receiving visits from their families. When my father came in, I was really shocked. Because I could only see him behind a pane of glass and not directly in front of me.”
Today, says the ten-year-old, things are different: “We have now been in the group for six months. And seeing our father without a partition is much better and more personal.”
