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This article is focused on the Irish criminal justice system but the analysis and conclusions are relevant to a wider context. Taking a children's rights perspective throughout, the researchers explore case law from South Africa and England and Wales which demonstrates how courts have taken the impact on children into account when sentencing offenders with parenting responsibilities. It looks at how child impact statements could be incorporated into the Irish sentencing process and explores the barriers to this being done through exisiting pre-sanction reports completed by Probation. The article concludes that Probation services, with their offender-focused practice, are not the best party to gather child impact information for courts, however the preference for an independent advocate role to do so is also problematic in the current Irish context.
Read more about introducing child impact statements into the Irish sentencing process below:
