4.1.14 Children Visiting Adults in Prison

Introduction

The Prison Service Order (ref no 4400) sets out a range of measures to reduce the risks that certain prisoners especially those convicted of, or charged with offences against children may present to children whilst in prison.

This order imposes a number of mandatory actions on prison governors which includes:

To identify all prisoners who present a potential risk to children;
To ensure that details on children visiting all convicted prisoners are included on the Visiting Order;
To ensure that convicted prisoners identified by this instruction are allowed to receive visits only from their children - these would include the prisoner’s birth children, step-children, adopted children and children of their partners provided the prisoner and partner were residing together prior to imprisonment.
To draw to the attention of prison staff, material which if sent to or received from a child, which might place his or her welfare at risk.

Definition

Contact with a child includes correspondence, prisoner’s telephones (PinPhones) or social visits. Telephone contact will include any access to office telephones where permission has been granted. It will also include any contact with children who have been invited to visit the prison as part of a group.

Contact Requests

If a prisoner wishes to apply to have child contact, the enquiring Prison Officer must provide an application form for the prisoner to complete. A separate request must be made for contact with each individual child.

It is possible that a request for contact could be made by a parent or from the child directly. If such a request is received the prisoner will be informed and asked if s/he wishes to submit a request for contact.

Parental Support For Contact

The parent of the child will be asked whether s/he supports contact or not. The wishes and the feelings of the child should be ascertained by Children’s Social Care during a home visit. The person who has Parental Responsibility and is currently caring for the child must support any contact.

In cases where the parent does not support contact Children’s Social Care should be contacted and informed of the parents’ decision.

Looked After Children

When a Prison establishment contacts Children’s Social Care as part of the multi-agency assessment , it may become apparent that a child is Looked After by the Local Authority. In such cases the Local Authority’s view about the appropriateness of contact must be obtained in writing. The test is, always whether contact is in the child’s best interest.

If the Local Authority share Parental Responsibility in respect of children visiting a risky adult in prison then prison staff must inform the Local Authority to ensure that an assessment is undertaken to safeguard the child.

If the Local Authority does not share Parental Responsibility their advice should still be sought and then the Governor is expected to make an informed decision on the basis of all relevant information.

Normally any request for such advice will be made through the Safeguarding Children Service and once received the Safeguarding Children Service Officer will process the request by:

Checking any information across all electronic and manual records held by the Children’s Social Care Service
Establishing which Children’s Locality Service is responsible for the children involved;

Within one working day of receipt of the Prison request, the Safeguarding Children Service will notify the relevant Children’s Social care Service to action an assessment and respond with a report to the Safeguarding Children Service within 10 working days. The views of the child should be an important element of the assessment.

Where appropriate, the NSPCC may be contacted for additional information.

Some prison establishments who have developed a relationship or a partnership with the NSPCC have negotiated an arrangement where the NSPCC will search their database for information relating to a child’s risk. There is no obligation for the NSPCC to do this check, but it would enhance the assessment if such an arrangement were in place.

The Safeguarding Children Service will forward the Assessment Report to Prison Authorities within 2 working days.

In addition where there is evidence that a child may be at risk by correspondence between the Children and a Risky Adult, the Governor of the prison has a duty to notify Children’s Social Care Services the parents of that child can be advised.

In such instances, Prison staff will forward the concerns to the Safeguarding Children Service who will pass the information to the appropriate Children’s Locality Service for enquiries to be made to safeguard the child.

Monitoring

The level and frequency of monitoring will be proportionate to the risk identified. Monitoring should focus on whether the prisoner is attempting to contact children inappropriately and what references about children are made in general correspondence i.e. grooming or manipulation of a child or a parent.

Monitoring of prisoners who present a risk to children in the visits area is required to establish if appropriate contact is taking place between an offender and a child where child visits have been permitted. Other prisoners who present a risk to children and have not been permitted contact with a child must be supervised in such a way that contact is not possible.

Recorded and electronic information needs to be monitored e.g. audio cassettes, CD ROMs and Video CDs, because it affords an easy disguise for inappropriate information.

Reviewing Contact Decisions

Where a decision has been made to restrict contact the decision will be reviewed when there is reason to believe that circumstances have changed. Reviews can be made at any time on the initiative of prison staff or at the request of the prisoner. It is good practice to review decisions every six months.

Any decision to change the level of contact permitted must be based on what is best for the child. The child’s welfare is paramount at all times. The decision must take into account the views of the Police, Probation and local Children’s Social Care Service, via the Safeguarding Children Service.

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