Maternal incarceration, child protection, and infant mortality: a descriptive study of infant children of women prisoners in Western Australia

Table 3 Maternal incarceration exposure in infancy (birth to age 2-years) for Western Australian children born 2001–2011

	Indigenous		Non-Indigenous
Characteristics	n	%	n	%
Child experience of maternal incarceration
Mother imprisoned in infancy (not pregnancy)	561	69.8	289	73.2
Mother imprisoned in infancy and pregnancy	243	30.2	106	26.8
Number of maternal imprisonments in infancy, per child
1	509	63.3	297	75.2
2	170	21.1	65	16.5
3	66	8.2	20	5.1
4+	59	7.3	13	3.3
Percentage of child’s infancy mother was imprisoned
0–5%	428	53.2	202	51.1
6–25%	203	25.2	104	26.3
26–50%	114	14.2	70	17.7
51–75%	47	5.8	14	3.5
76–100%	12	1.5	5	1.3
Length of maternal prison stays^a
Up to 2 weeks / 0–14 days	620	46.7	234	43.0
2–4 weeks / 15–30 days	154	11.6	63	11.6
1–3 months / 31–90 days	186	14.0	80	14.7
3–6 months / 91–180 days	138	10.4	61	11.2
6–12 months / 181–365 days	147	11.1	68	12.5
Greater than 1 year / 366+ days	82	6.2	38	7.0
Sentence type^a
Unsentenced – remand	683	51.5	265	48.7
Sentenced – default of fine	250	18.8	91	16.7
Sentenced – other	394	29.7	188	34.6
Offence type^ab
Against the person	361	29.3	87	16.6
Theft and related	389	31.6	162	30.9
Fraud and related	39	3.2	59	11.3
Drug offences	12	1.0	45	8.6
Public order	45	3.7	12	2.3
Traffic and related	173	14.0	59	11.3
Breach of justice procedures	213	17.3	100	19.1

^a1871 maternal prison records in infancy (1327 Indigenous and 544 non-Indigenous)
^b115 prison records missing offence type (95 Indigenous and 20 non-Indigenous)

ISSN: 2194-7899