“Direct harms and social consequences: An analysis of the impact of maternal

imprisonment on dependent children in England and Wales” by Shona Minson

Shona Minson in the paper interviews a set of children and caregivers of incarcerated mothers. It
is essential to talk about the harmful acts of the state that claims to protect child rights. States
that take children away from them if they believe the house is abusive for the children or if the
parents are radicalising the children too much, shy away from their responsibilities to care for
children of incarcerated parents when in this case the suffering stems directly from an action of
the state. As is pointed out in almost all readings for the week, it is almost accepted that the
children and families of incarcerated people are collateral damage and it is acceptable to have a
few of them suffering or to be misbehaving with them.

A significant part of the shame and suffering that “secondary prisoners' ' face stems from the
stigma and shame that the society enforces on people. I wonder if society would ever empathise
with prisoners enough instead of alienating them to even care about the families of people in the
prison. Some of the instances mentioned that people did to the families or children of the
prisoners are straight up bullying and social abuse and once again it is almost an accepted
behaviour.

It was interesting to note that isolation is a common theme across most forms of state sanctioned
or personal abuse. This isolation in this case didn’t affect just the incarcerated parent but also
their children and children’s caregivers. Isolation coupled with misbehaviour from the society
must be a terrible situation to be in for children who barely even have a parent around.

The article even though highlighted the class angle significantly, did not touch upon race and
minority groups in general and that was quite odd. Most of our discussions have evolved enough
to acknowledge the systematic oppression certain racial or religious communities face in
comparison with the rest especially when it comes to incarceration and an acknowledgement on
those lines would have been better. Especially considering that the paper specifically interviewed
children of incarcerated mothers, race should have been a point of contention that was missing.
The paper largely felt incomplete without any analysis of the intersection of race and maternal
incarceration. Credit where credit is due, because Minson in the other group paper did bring in
race and other intersections in her analysis.
The most striking part of the paper was that the paper talked to the children and their caregivers
and most of the caregivers were not their father as I would have hoped. It was an aunt or a
grandmother and rarely a father. In a system that already is extremely skewed for women, the
least fathers of young children with incarcerated mothers could do was be around and be the
primary caregiver. This also makes me think about the caregivers who are taking care of these
kids. Who asks them to do this? Or are they just supposed to do it because they are women and
they should have empathy? What happens if they are expected to take care of the child and
refuse to because they know they cannot provide the level of commitment and resources it would
need? What happens if they take up the task of caregiving and the caregiving they provide is of
subpar quality that affects the child’s best interests? What if they take up the responsibility but
the burden makes them abusive? Or what if they were abusive from the beginning? Who is there
to take care of the children if not the one relative who stepped up? Does the atae care to
intervene in situations that they messed up?

This situation is quite similar to the discussion the class had on surrogacy by family member
women and how it is almost assumed that the woman would of course empathize and go ahead
and do something extremely life consuming and large without taking out space for herself or
even having the space to say no because it was for someone else who was in a terrible place. A
woman could have a normal life going on, her daughter or sister could be incarcerated and the
children would fall in her custody because the father didn’t stand up. Now a person who could
barely make ends meet for oneself has to do so for a few children in addition to providing the
person in the prison with a little money as well. They cannot refuse without the children getting
on the streets completely or being with someone who wouldn’t take care properly.

Shone Minson does a good job highlighting the larger and smaller effects of maternal
incarceration on children and their caregivers. Her theory on that front seems well researched
and cohesive. That said, this paper did not even mention the intersection of race or any other
minority group and it was unexpected for a paper on incarceration, especially considering that
the author is from a developed, white majority country. This paper massively fell short on quite a
few obvious and chronological questions that I was expecting it to flag as well. The excerpts
from the conversation with the children definitely strengthened her observations on the
incarceration system and its consequences.