GUILTY WITHOUT GUILT: HOW INPRISONMENT AFFECTS FAMILIES

Abstract

The public debate with regard to criminals and crime primarily deals with the crime and the perpetrator at the time of the crime, but hardly with its development, and little with his family and the impact of detention on them, above all. Especially if the perpetrator still has young children, their development can be significantly negatively affected by the detention of a parent, usually the father. In the last few years, more and more institutions have been created in Germany to take care of the families of the detainees, but there is still a lot of work to be done. In many cases, NGOs are also active in this field. The chapter provides a brief overview of the national andinternational discussion of the topic. The empirical research clearly shows the negative effects of separating (small) children from their parents. In the case of the detention of a parent, the stigmatisation of the related, especially the children, still plays an essential role. The detention of the mother usually has even more serious negative effects on the children than when the father is in custody. According to German legal provisions on prison sentences, negative effects of a prison sentence should be avoided as far as possible. Much more should be done here, for example through large-scale regulations on the visits of prisoners by relatives. However, in the Russian Federation, this issue is not known, there are no scientific research on this topic. In general, the prevailing opinion in Russian is that the criminals should have thought about the punishment and consequences, including the inability to conceive a child, as well as about the psychological pressure to family, before he or she began a criminal career.