Government statistics, using data from five HMPPS sources, have revealed significant insights into the number of prisoners with children in England and Wales. Directly counted, 74,275 prisoners with children were identified as having spent time in prison between 1st October 2021 and 1st October 2022. This figure represents 53% of the total 139,562 prisoner cohort during this period.
However, after adjusting for prisoners with children who were likely missing from the direct count, the estimated number of prisoners with children rises to 108,990, or 78% of the prisoner cohort. Combining this estimate with the average number of dependent children per family, it is estimated that there were 192,912 children with a parent in prison during the same timeframe.
The report, produced by linking His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) data with a data-matching pilot from His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC), aims to provide a comprehensive estimate of the number of children with a parent in prison in England and Wales. Children with an incarcerated parent are often considered a hidden population, with their data spread across various government services. This report marks the first instance of HMPPS data covering the entire prison population in England and Wales being linked to produce aggregate numbers of prisoners with children on a national scale.
Previous research, according to the Office for National Statistics (ONS), indicates that children who experience parental imprisonment are at a heightened risk of offending themselves. The report underscores the importance of understanding the scale of parental imprisonment to better address the needs of these vulnerable children.
The methodology revealed some limitations, such as the reliance on self-disclosure and the restriction of free-text analysis to prisoners aged 35 and under. Consequently, some prisoners with children may be missing from the count. Of the 139,592 prisoners in the cohort, 74,275 (53%) were counted as parents. Of these, 25,373 (34%) were identified solely from structured data fields, 27,967 (38%) solely from free-text notes, and 20,935 (28%) were found in both.
The greatest number of parents were identified in probation contact notes (46,901 prisoners aged 35 and under), followed by the Basic Custody Screening Tool (25,423 prisoners) and contact lists (24,629 prisoners). Despite the limitation of including only free-text notes for individuals aged 35 and under, probation contact notes identified the greatest number of parents not captured by other data sources (14,076 prisoners aged 35 and under). This suggests that if the model were applied to all ages, the numbers would likely be higher.
