It is time to act and commit to our children.

The imprisonment of parents and caregivers can have a significant effect on children. Research has found that imprisonment can lead to relationship breakdown, financial hardship, reduced psychological wellbeing, increased criminality, as well as perpetuate and exacerbate existing social inequalities. Many countries experience high imprisonment rates and have large prison populations but how criminal justice polices and the use of imprisonment may affect children, their outcomes and key development challenges is not often considered. This project begins to address this gap by raising awareness of these issues and creating a network of people who want to work together to promote change.

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More specifically, this project aims to:

• Establish a network of practitioners, policymakers and researchers to increase awareness of how parental imprisonment and the imprisonment of caregivers may affect children, their outcomes and key development challenges.

• Identify gaps in current knowledge, policy and practice and work towards addressing these gaps to improve children’s outcomes.

• Share knowledge, skills and experiences to build capacity to undertake research on this topic and advance our understanding of how different socio-political and economic contexts may influence the effect of parental/caregiver imprisonment on children and their outcomes.

• Work collaboratively to co-design a long-term research strategy in this area and maximise the use of research evidence to inform policymaking and practice.