Maternal imprisonment: a family sentence

This chapter critiques the ways in which penal arrangements remain prisoner-centric and fail to acknowledge a women's maternal status and familial responsibilities. Viewing these women in isolation from their maternal status fails to recognise how they are embedded in social and familial networks, relationships, and responsibilities, and generally perform a primary caregiving role to their dependent children. Not only does this have implications for female prisoners as they attempt to remain connected to motherhood, but it also has a substantial effect on the large number of innocent children and family members left behind during maternal imprisonment. Prisoners' children have been called the ‘hidden victims of imprisonment’ and the ‘orphans of justice’ because they, and their family members, are continually disregarded within the political and policy sphere, academic studies, and society more generally