The children of male prisoners are being made to suffer because of a scheme that restricts them from visiting their fathers, a new report has claimed.
The report, by children's charity Barnardo's, said changes to the Incentives and Earned Privileges scheme (IEP), used to regulate behaviour in prisons, have meant that a number of male prisoners have seen their family visitation hours dramatically cut, with some only being allowed to see their families for "up to two hours a month".
Barnardo's found that the number of male prisoners only being granted "basic" level privileges under the IEP has risen by 52% since the system was reviewed in 2013. Under such "basic" privileges, male prisoners have up to eight hours less visitation time with their families than those with "enhanced" privileges – who are generally given access to weekend visits and family visitation days if their prisons offer them.
There are currently just under 84,000 prisoners in England and Wales with IEP statuses, according to the government's most recent statistics, nearly 3,000 of whom have the most basic level of privileges in prison.
In its report, the charity recommended that visitation rights in male prisons should become the same as in women-only prisons, where visit entitlements are separate from the privileges scheme.
"In particular, family visit days should not be restricted to 'enhanced' prisoners," the report said. "Children have a right to contact with their parents, including in circumstances where they are separated from a parent through imprisonment."
The report also highlighted cases where prisoners have been moved to jails far away from their homes, making family visits difficult, and where they have been granted visits but in settings that are “unsuitable for children”.
These include instances where young children have been intimately searched and forced to take off small pieces of jewellery. In one case, a 1-week-old infant was strip-searched.
"Some search procedures sounded disproportionate," the report said. "One woman told us that her week-old granddaughter was strip-searched and her daughter's sterilised bottle of expressed breast milk was opened and sniffed, a distressing experience for the newborn and humiliating for the mother."
Barnardo's advised prisons to recognise children's right to visit parents under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child – according to its research, child visitations can help reduce reoffending by 39%.
"Children with a parent in prison are the innocent victims of someone else's crime," said Barnardo's chief executive Javed Khan. "They struggle with the heartbreak of having their parent suddenly taken away, and often don't understand why. Intensifying that loss by taking away precious hours with their parent, or making visits unnecessarily uncomfortable, will only punish the children.
"Having a parent in prison can leave children more likely to develop mental health issues, underperform at school, and tragically go on to offend themselves. ... It's time for a sea change in the way these overlooked and isolated children are treated. "
According to Barnardo's, around 20,000 children in the UK have a male relative in prison, and around 17,000 children visit relatives in prison every year.
Prison charities such as the Howard League for Penal Reform have also expressed concerns over the impact long distances have on families with relatives who have been imprisoned.
"We have received a large number of calls about prisons increasingly imposing 'closed visits', which prevent children from having any physical contact with the parent they have come to see," said Andrew Neilson, director of campaigns at the Howard League for Penal Reform.
"Building nine new out-of-town prisons, as the government has proposed, is likely to make the situation worse as, in many cases, families will face longer journeys."
Seventeen-year-old Emily, who did not want to disclose her full name, told BuzzFeed News: "I only get to see my dad for a few hours each month."
"He's been in prison for four years, on a 25-year sentence," she said. "The prison he's in is quite rough, so at the beginning it was difficult to keep his head down. There would be times when he wouldn't be allowed to call home for longer than a few minutes, and when I came to visit him, he wouldn't be allowed to move around or even hug me more than once or twice during the visit. It's a little better now that we are more used to the situation, but it's had a big effect on my younger brother, who's only 10.
"He doesn't have that connection with Dad because of the separation ... so he doesn't have that father-and-son relationship that so many of his friends have. I'm very worried about what will happen to him when he grows older. So many problems involving crime and gangs often have some root in people not having male role models or fathers to guide them."
Other families who spoke to BuzzFeed News said having family members living in prisons far away from their homes had also caused problems.
"Distances between families and prisons can be a huge strain on relationships," said Mary, whose father has been in prison for three and a half years.
"He used to live in a prison nearby our house, so it was easy to manage visits on weekdays or weekends. But last year he was told he was moving to another prison much further away, because it was the only one with space available. Now it takes about three hours each way to visit him, so you have to book a day off in order to accommodate that."
She added: "It's not just the travelling either. When you arrive at the prison, you're searched, regardless of how young you are. Sometimes, if you're not early, you have to queue up in the rain for hours, just waiting to be allocated a time to visit. It's very hard on my younger brothers who don't know much about prisons or how the system works ... and the whole experience makes it very difficult for them to have a normal relationship with their dad."
Sue Beere, whose husband is in prison, told BuzzFeed News she has had to "hold everyone's emotions together" due to long periods of separation between her children and their father.
" [My husband] was moved to a maximum security prison in the Midlands. It takes up to five hours to reach it. ... We used to visit on weekends, which was at least a bit manageable. But since they cut visiting hours on weekends, it's now much harder for the kids to visit their dad.
"The whole process was physically and emotionally draining, and because of [the nature] of the prison, the kids had restricted physical contact with their dad too. At one point, my youngest son, who's only 9, asked whether his daddy didn't love him any more, because he wasn't allowed to hug and kiss him. ... I found that I had to hold everyone's emotions together because it was so draining for them.
"It's hell for families. Families and children are innocent and don't deserve to be treated as criminals."
A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said the department was considering how to strengthen family relationships as part of its "wider prisoner reforms".
"Less than one in 20 prisoners are on the basic regime, which limits the number of visits to the minimum entitlement," the spokesperson said.
"We absolutely agree that maintaining family ties, including through visits, plays a vital role in helping prisoners turn away from crime. We are carefully considering how family ties can be strengthened as part of our wider prison reforms."