Making children visible: Children’s rights and their role in parent-child contact within the prison system

In this chapter, the multiple reasons which lead to children with a parent in prison being invisible are highlighted. This invisibility does not refer to recognition of children in this position as existing, their totemic visibility, but rather it refers to the failure to hear their voices and to recognise them as rights holders. The argument is made that children’s visibility is in fact obscured by overlaying priorities and dominating perspectives that, at best, see children as in need of adult protection and at worst, see them as an intervention in the lives of their imprisoned parent. In challenging the current position, good practice is noted in the context of Ireland’s prison system while more general recommendations for positive change are offered that could ensure children are heard and seen in the context of familial imprisonment in all jurisdictions.