Victorian MPs have called on the government to reform the state’s bail laws in an effort to reduce the harm caused to children as a result of their parents being imprisoned.
The final report from an inquiry into children of imprisoned parents, tabled in parliament on Thursday, found parental incarceration can interrupt childhood development and have detrimental impacts on emotional and social wellbeing, exposing children to greater risk of poor mental and physical health outcomes.
In turn, this can lead to intergenerational trauma and incarceration.
There is no clear figure for the number of children affected by parental incarceration in Victoria, though researchers have estimated about 7,000 have a parent in jail at any time, and that 45,000 will have a parent in prison at some point during their childhood.
Estimates for Aboriginal children are higher than for non-Aboriginal children. About 20% of Aboriginal children will experience parental incarceration, compared to 5% of non-Aboriginal children.
“Changes to Victoria’s bail laws mean that more people are being put in prison. This in turn means that more parents are incarcerated,” the report found.
“Women, particularly Aboriginal women, are the fastest growing cohort in Victoria’s prisons. The reverse onus provisions of the Bail Act 1977 (Vic), which has led to increases in remand rates, are contributing to this rise.”
It is the second time this year that the Legislative Council’s legal and social issues committee has recommended an overhaul of bail laws.
Its inquiry into the justice system, released in March, found the current bail system has a host of negative effects on persons charged with an offence and has disproportionately affected women, Aboriginal Victorians, children and young people and people living with a disability.
Bail laws were reworked after the Bourke Street massacre in 2017 to make the threshold for bail much higher, placing the onus on the accused to prove they are not an unacceptable risk to the public and to give a compelling reason or exceptional circumstance why they should be freed from custody.
“Our bail and parole systems have become dysfunctional, and have led to an ever increasing number of women in particular, and men, entering our prison system,” the committee’s chair, Reason party MP Fiona Patten, wrote in Thursday’s report.
Among the inquiry’s 29 recommendations is the establishment of a dedicated unit, branch or agency within the Department of Families, Fairness and Housing to respond to children and families of people affected by parental incarceration.
It also wants the government to implement systemic data-collection processes to identify the number of children affected by parental incarceration to monitor and respond to their wellbeing.
There should be legislative change, the committee recommended, that would reduce the number of people in prison.
These changes included addressing the social determinants of offending behaviour, making presumptions against bail more targeted to serious offending and risk, allowing a person’s circumstances to be considered when deciding whether to grant bail or parole, and using non-custodial sentencing options where appropriate.
In an interview with Guardian Australia, the state’s attorney general, Jaclyn Symes, conceded she had “unfinished business” she hoped to continue if re-elected, including the possibility of bail reform
Symes said she continued to speak with organisations such as the Victorian Aboriginal Legal Service, and expected the coronial inquest into the death of Yorta Yorta, Gunditjmara, Dja Dja Wurrung and Wiradjuri woman Veronica Nelson would examine the issue.
“Law reform is always ongoing but I’m particularly engaged in this issue with stakeholders,” Symes said.
