Letters
| Author | Peter Wedge,Gwyneth Boswell,Brendan O’Keefe |
| Published date | 01 September 2002 |
| Date | 01 September 2002 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/026455050204900326 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
263
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Imprisoned Fathers and their
Children
Dear Editor,
We were saddened to read the review of
our book, ‘Imprisoned Fathers and their
Children’ in the June 2002 Special Issue
of the Journal. Authors cannot complain
if readers hold different opinions or
interpretations from their own – and we
don’t. In this case, though, your reviewer
not only mis-reports part of our research
approach and misquotes findings, she fails
to point out that our explicit focus is on
the children of prisoners. She appears to
criticise us for not undertaking a different
piece of research. For us, it feels rather as
if, having written a book about vegetarian
cooking, we are then criticised for not
including a recipe for steak and kidney
pie!
It seems axiomatic that good
child-parent relationships should be
fostered, as embodied in the UN
Declaration on the Rights of the Child,
and the (UK) Children Act 1989. Clearly,
where a parent is separated from their
child because of imprisonment, then there
are some dilemmas to be addressed. On
the one hand, there is the need for
retribution and punishment of lawbreakers,
coupled with the protection of the
community and justice for victims. On the
other hand, are the rights and needs of
children to sustain contact and, by that
means, loving, meaningful relationships
with their incarcerated mothers and
fathers, most of whom will be returning
home on release. Obviously, some children
will have previously suffered damaging
experiences at the hands of their parents,
but children whom we interviewed for our
research welcomed contact with their
absent fathers and wanted better
opportunities to relate to them more
meaningfully.
For your reviewer to write that we
“fail to address the issue of father
culpability in separating families” and that
we give “justification for men in prison to
view themselves as victims” misses the
point. Regardless of what has to be done
about the offending behaviour itself, any
children of the offender’s family have
needs and rights. Society has to
accommodate those as well – and in large
measure, it fails to do so.
Professor Gwyneth Boswell
Professor Peter Wedge
De Montfort University
Accredited Programmes
Dear Editor,
Jeremy Cameron begins his letter
(Probation Journal 49 (2), June 2002,
p.192) by assuring readers he seldom
replies to criticism as he believes people
are entitled to “have their go”. Ironic
then that Jeremy sees fit to respond to
criticism in simultaneous issues of
NAPO News and Probation Journal. One
wonders what constitutes “seldom” in
Jeremy’s world!
Jeremy seeks to discredit accredited
programmes by stating that they must be
matched against straight probation orders
before a comparison can be made. This is
a false premise as a population of
offenders on a probation order with
conditions will be markedly different from
a population on straight probation orders.
As an experimental and control group,
they would be poorly matched. Unless of
course Jeremy is advocating
the random allocation of offenders to
experimental and control groups. He is
perfectly aware that this will never
happen. The courts would not allow it
and it raises issues of natural justice.
Back in the real world, pure control
matching is rarely possible in the social
LETTERS
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