Journal of Security and Sustainability Issues

The family is a basic society unit, which provides a sense of security, love and belonging for all its members, especially children. The responsibility for the development and upbringing of the children lies with the parents. However, in a situation when a parent is incarcerated for various reasons the threats for personal emotional security increase due to disruption of contacts with relatives which is typical consequence both for parents and children. The parent’s stay in penitentiary isolation results in a significant weakening or breaking of the parental bond and contacts with the closest relatives. It is therefore stressed that maintaining contact with the family is important both for persons deprived of their liberty themselves and for their loved ones. Maintaining contact with the children is considered to be one of the most important protective factors against committing another offence and the consequent incarceration. Children brought up in families where one parent is in prison experience social and emotional disorders. Author stress that the separation of a parent and child as a consequence of parent incarceration lowers the level of self-esteem, self-acceptance, evokes a sense of shame and leads to social isolation of the child. In order to improve family relations and maintain contacts, the Prison Service should provide a number of programmes for incarcerated parents, whose main objective is to strengthen parenting skills.