Abstract
Abstract Children of prisoners are often negatively affected by their parents’ incarceration, which raises issues of justice. A common view is that the many negative effects associated with parental imprisonment are unjust, simply because children of prisoners are impermissibly harmed or unjustly punished by their parents’ incarceration. We argue that proposals of this kind have problems with accounting for cases where it is intuitive that prison might create social injustices for children of prisoners. Therefore, we suggest that in addition to the question of whether children of prisoners are impermissibly harmed, we should ask whether the inequalities that these children endure because of their parent’s incarceration are objectionable from a social justice perspective. To answer this latter question, we examine the negative effects associated with parental imprisonment from the perspective of luck egalitarianism. We develop a luck egalitarian account that incorporates insights from the philosophy of childhood. On our account, children of prisoners might endure two different types of objectionable inequalities, since they are often deprived of resources that are important for ensuring fair equality of opportunity in adulthood, but also because they are likely to suffer inequalities in terms of childhood welfare. After defending this account, we explore its implications for policy.
Highlights
2.1 million children have at least one parent in a European prison on any given day.1 These children are often negatively affected by their parents’ incarceration
To answer this latter question, we examine the negative effects associated with parental imprisonment from the perspective of luck egalitarianism
In applying our account to the case of children of prisoners, we argue that they are likely to suffer two forms of inequality, since children of prisoners are both at risk of being deprived of resources that are important for ensuring fair equality of opportunity in adulthood and likely to suffer an objectionable inequality in terms of childhood welfare
Summary
2.1 million children have at least one parent in a European prison on any given day. These children are often negatively affected by their parents’ incarceration. Perhaps most importantly, being able to provide a plausible philosophical account for why the negative effects associated with parental imprisonment are unjust would confirm that the current state of affairs is unjust, but would provide an explanation for why that is so. In order to answer this question, we propose that the negative effects associated with parental imprisonment should be assessed from the philosophical perspective of liberal egalitarianism, and in particular the family of views commonly referred to as luck egalitarianism. Inequalities that are the result of factors beyond individuals’ control are objectionable and ought to be corrected or mitigated In making this argument, we develop a luck egalitarian account that incorporates important insights from the philosophy of childhood. After outlining and defending our account, we explore its implications for policy.
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