News

By Gwyneth Boswell and Peter Wedge.
Jessica Kingsley Publishers
£15.95, ISBN 1 85302 972 6

This book draws upon research involving interviews with 201 imprisoned fathers, 127 partners or carers, 25 children and 10 staff responsible for delivering programmes for fathers in prison and young offender institutes.

It presents the findings from this comprehensive survey under several headings: the characteristics and perceptions of imprisoned fathers; the effects of father imprisonment on children; existing provision for father-child contact and the effectiveness of formal and informal support systems; and families' experience of father-child contact.

An introductory chapter sets the scene with a comprehensive review of literature that locates the issues around imprisoned fathers in a broader context of absent fathers and summarises debates on the place of fatherhood in child rearing.

The authors argue that policy and practice in relation to imprisoned fathers should be grounded, as legislation requires, in a children's rights perspective and more needs to be done. As they say: "The time is overdue for the children of prisoners to receive a higher priority and for the prison system to adjust accordingly."

In a rational world, governments would act on quality research such as this, but we shall see.

David Porteous is lecturer in applied social studies, University of Luton.