200,000 children a year have a parent in prison

Methodology

These statistics have been compiled by extracting info from 5 totally different HMPPS information sources which relate as to whether a person has kids. Along with extracting info from structured information, information science strategies have been used to extract info from free-text case notes which comprise info from jail and probation officers throughout contact with a person. To validate the findings, the MoJ established a data-matching pilot with HMRC who linked a pattern of HMPPS information to Little one Profit data.

The methodological strategy concerned three steps:

A direct rely of prisoners with kids in at the least one of many 5 linked HMPPS administrative information sources;Adjustment for undercount to create an estimate of prisoners with kids;Conversion of this determine to an estimate of the variety of kids with a mum or dad in jail based mostly on a easy multiplier.

The HMPPS information sources used had been:

Jail contact lists in p-NOMIS – contacts who had been underneath the age of eighteen on 1 October 2022 and listed as son, daughter, stepson or stepdaughter.The Fundamental Custody Screening Software, which is a part of OASys and is carried out inside 72 hours of reception into custody. The BCST asks what number of kids underneath eighteen the prisoner has caring tasks for.Private circumstances flags within the probation nDelius system – flags might be added to a person’s probation document to point whether or not they have caring tasks underneath the class “Has dependents”.

Along with these three information units, the research additionally examined unstructured free-text information within the jail (p-NOMIS) and probation contact notes (nDelius).

‘Undercount’ is the variety of prisoners with kids estimated to be lacking from the direct rely and is recognized based mostly on the outcomes of analysing the free-text case notes and the HMRC data-matching pilot.

Statistics are in mixture kind solely, offering general figures on prisoners and kids, and weren’t used to establish particular person kids or prisoners.

Findings

Utilizing information from these 5 HMPPS information sources, the MoJ instantly counted 74,275 prisoners with kids who hung out in jail throughout the interval 1 October 2021 and 1 October 2022 – equal to 53% of the 139,562 prisoner cohort between these dates.

After making changes for prisoners with kids anticipated to be lacking from the direct rely, it was estimated that the variety of prisoners with kids to be 108,990 – equal to 78% of the prisoner cohort.

Taking the estimate of the variety of prisoners with kids and mixing this with the typical variety of dependent kids per household, the MoJ estimate that between 1 October 2021 and 1 October 2022 there have been 192,912 kids with a mum or dad in jail.

Conclusion

That is the primary time now we have had an official determine for the (staggering) variety of kids who’re affected by having a mum or dad in jail. The MoJ is dedicated to refining its methodology to make future publications much more correct.

In fact, realizing the variety of particular person kids affected is nugatory except it turns into a set off for providing them ongoing assist.

Because of Andy Aitchison for variety permission to make use of the header picture on this publish. You’ll be able to see Andy’s work right here