I was invited to speak at the 3rd International Conference on Global Criminology and Victimology, organized by the Think Justice Foundation India and hosted by the Parul Institute of Law at Parul University in Vadodara, India. Unfortunately, I was unable to obtain a visa to attend. Although I could not participate in person, I have prepared this presentation to share with the conference participants and a broader audience.
My presentation examines the criminalization of poverty and social issues. It invites us to look at safety from a different perspective and challenges the way current systems, in many cases, fail to protect children in the first place.
When parental incarceration occurs—regardless of the nature of the offense—we expect systems to protect children from all forms of violence, safeguard their rights to life, survival, and development, and, whenever it is in the child’s best interests, preserve their relationship with their incarcerated parent.
Hearing this statement, you may think of existing laws and policies that require law enforcement officers, prosecutors, and judges to prioritize the rights of children affected by parental incarceration or, at the very least, give significant consideration to a defendant’s parental status in order to protect the rights of innocent third parties. A growing body of research has examined these laws through a children’s rights perspective, calling for their reform where necessary and for their implementation where they already reflect the best interests of the child. Many scholars and practitioners argue that the greatest challenge is not the absence of legal protections, but the failure to consistently apply them in practice.
My purpose, however, is not to focus on rewriting laws or improving their implementation—although both are essential to protecting children with incarcerated parents. Instead, through two case studies, I examine how children’s rights to life, survival, development, protection from all forms of violence, and the principle of the best interests of the child were not safeguarded in the first place. Rather than addressing poverty (Sustainable Development Goals 1 and 2), gender-based violence and inequality (Goals 5, 8, 11, and 16), and broader social vulnerability (Goals 3 and 8), systems responded through criminalization. These examples are not isolated incidents tied to a particular country or region. Instead, they reflect broader global patterns of class inequality, gender discrimination, and systemic failure to address the root causes of vulnerability before families come into contact with the criminal justice system.
Let us begin with a young mother in prison. At the time of her arrest, her young child was left alone at home. Later, the child was placed in the care of a state welfare organization. Six months after the mother was released, she had lost custody of her child. She had also lost track of where the child had been placed, lost her home, and was unable to find employment—not only because of inequality in the labor market, but also because of the stigma and consequences of having a criminal record.
For a moment, I invite you to focus only on the child. How did the system fail to protect this child’s rights? If we had the power, what would we change?
You may argue that institutional care has long been criticized by experts and that the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has repeatedly called on states to replace institutional care with family- and community-based alternatives whenever possible. You may also argue that law enforcement officers should consider the child’s situation at the time of arrest and ensure the child’s immediate protection. We have documented cases in which children left alone because of parental incarceration were abducted or subjected to abuse for months before receiving assistance. We could continue discussing how to better protect children’s rights and well-being once a parent enters the criminal justice system.
But let us take one step further back and ask a different question: Why was this mother arrested in the first place?
This mother—one of hundreds of similar cases around the world—was arrested for shoplifting. She had stolen a few cans of food to feed her hungry child. She had been denied educational opportunities because of gender discrimination (Sustainable Development Goals 4 and 5), and she was unable to secure decent work in an unjust labor market (Goal 8). Instead of addressing the poverty, inequality, and discrimination that placed a child’s family in such desperate circumstances—problems that states have committed themselves to address—the system responded by criminalizing poverty rather than confronting its root causes.
Let me offer another example. A mother had been on death row for more than three years. A few months before her scheduled execution, she was separated from her two-year-old son, who had been born in prison. The child was transferred to a state welfare institution. Several weeks before her execution, she pleaded for one final visit with her son. The prison authorities refused her request, and she was executed without ever seeing him again.
Let us pause for a moment and reflect on this story. Based on this limited information alone, what violations of children’s rights can we identify? Even if the death penalty has been abolished or is not practiced in your country, many of the same issues arise for children whose parents remain on death row for years without a scheduled execution, as well as for those whose parents are serving life sentences.
Beyond the concerns surrounding institutional care, you may question whether keeping the child of a person on death row in prison during the first two years of life was ever in the child’s best interests. You may also agree with the prison authorities’ decision that a final visit before execution would not have benefited the child, even if it was the mother’s final wish and right.
But once again, I invite you to take a few steps back and consider the full story.
This mother was a survivor of a child marriage and years of domestic violence. Patriarchal laws and social norms neither protected her nor allowed her to obtain a divorce. While in the early stages of pregnancy, she attempted to kill her abusive husband in an act of self-defense. Because she had been denied access to education as a result of gender discrimination (Sustainable Development Goal 4), she had little knowledge of her legal rights. Financial dependence—a consequence of gender inequality (Goals 5 and 10)—prevented her from hiring legal representation. Following her arrest, she was abandoned by her family because of the stigma attached to the imprisonment of women. She faced severe financial hardship while the prison system failed to meet the basic needs of both her and her newborn child.
Rather than protecting a woman who had survived years of violence and discrimination, the state ultimately sentenced her to death, depriving her not only of her life, but also of her rights as a mother and as a human being. Through this case, once again, we see a system that responded to profound social injustice through criminalization instead of addressing the structural inequalities that had placed her in such circumstances in the first place.
I would like to conclude by recalling the report of the Seventieth Session of the Commission on the Status of Women, adopted in March 2026. The Commission emphasized that barriers to justice continue to entrench inequality for women and girls. It reaffirmed that ensuring equal access to justice for all is a fundamental responsibility of states under the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, particularly Sustainable Development Goals 5 and 16. Women and girls continue to face discriminatory laws, inaccessible justice systems, weak implementation of legislation, and restrictive patriarchal norms. As a result, mothers and pregnant women in prison are too often judged as “bad,” “unfit,” or “inadequate” mothers.
The report further states that:
“Laws that disproportionately affect the poorest, such as those criminalizing informal work, begging, homelessness or the non-payment of fines, have an especially adverse effect on women and girls, who are overrepresented among the poor.”
I would add “war on drugs” policies to this list, as they often disproportionately target the most marginalized communities and further criminalize poverty and social vulnerability.
Although we must continue to advocate for legal reforms that better protect children with incarcerated parents and ensure that existing child-centered laws are fully implemented, I believe we must also look further upstream. We need to address the conditions that place families on a path toward criminalization in the first place. Protecting children’s rights to life, development, equality, and freedom from all forms of violence should begin long before a parent enters the criminal justice system. Only by addressing the root causes of poverty, inequality, discrimination, and social exclusion can we truly uphold the best interests of the child.