Ground breaking research underway

Media release: 14 May 2009

Ground breaking research underway

Groundbreaking research on the effects of imprisonment on children with a parent in prison is to be undertaken over the next three years - the first of its kind in New Zealand.

PILLARS was one of the first recipients of the funding through the Lottery Community Sector Research, a new fund established by the New Zealand Lottery Board, to further its aim of fostering the development and application of knowledge in and for New Zealand communities.

PILLARS is a community-based organisation that supports prisoners’ children and their families through volunteer mentors, social workers and other support services.

The research which will survey 250 prisoners and 40 families in its first year is a joint partnership between PILLARS and Network Research. It will also engage with policy makers and community organisations.

Chief executive of PILLARS, Verna McFelin, is excited about the three-year project and looks forward to receiving the results.

“We know that children of prisoners are more likely to suffer poor education and social outcomes, to be poorly adjusted, and to become offenders themselves,” Verna says.

To back up her comments, Verna cites recent research from Canada where 59.7 per cent of adult inmates are children of prisoners and a recent report from the United States cited this figure at 48 per cent.

New Zealand does not even have statistics available about how many children have parents who are in prison, Verna says.

“This concerns us because changing Government policies have seen an increase in the number prisoners, and an expected growth from 9000 prisoners to 14,000 in the next eight years.”

“We are looking forward to filling the gaps in our knowledge about these high risk prisoners’ children so that we can provide effective services based on the New Zealand environment and not on international research.”

The study will be managed by Dr Liz Gordon, Director of Network Research who will lead the research.

“We want to know whether these children saw their parents arrested, do they have on-going contact with them and how do they interact with their parent,” says Liz Gordon.

“The study will also look at the social, health, family and educational needs of the prisoners so we can understand the impact of parental imprisonment on the child and family.”

The end result will be the development of a framework for action which will provide the basis for agency intervention to prevent poor child outcomes and inter-generational imprisonment.

“We are very excited to receive funding for this ground-breaking research project and know that at the end of the day children throughout New Zealand will benefit from the results,” says Verna McFelin.

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