contact with a child or deal with a matter in which a child is involved. Therefore, prison officials, police officials and justice officials would fall within the ambit of this provision. Lastly, Article 4(1) requires that the best interests of the child be the primary consideration in matters involving children. Therefore persons dealing with matters involving children, within the ambit of the African Children‟s Charter, should ensure the best interest of the child as the final outcome. 23. The best interests of the child must be the primary consideration in relation to all actions that may affect children whose parents are in conflict with the law, whether directly or indirectly, in accordance with Article 4. States should create and implement laws/policies to ensure this at all stage of judicial and administrative decision-making during the criminal justice process, including arrest, pre-trial measures, trial and sentencing, imprisonment, release and reintegration into the family and community. 24. To meet this obligation it demands that States Parties have in place procedural guarantees. States Parties are urged to put in place policy, legislative, administrative and judicial measures to ensure that the best interests of the children whose mothers are in carceral institutions are safeguarded. Such measures, among others, should include the following: (a) As a general rule, States Parties should ensure that alternatives to custodial sentences for expectant prisoners or those with children. In this regard, States Parties should undertake both legislative and administrative measures to ensure they give priority consideration to non-custodial measures when courts sentence or decide on pre-trial measures for a child‟s sole or primary carer, subject to the need to protect the public and the child and bearing in mind the gravity of the offence.8 This necessarily entails that States Parties should ensure that where protection of the public is not at issue, and subject to the seriousness of the offence, an alternative to imprisonment should be applied; 8 A similar obligation is imposed on States by the UN General Assembly Resolution 63/241. See UN General Assembly, Resolution: Rights of the Child, A/RES/ 63/241, para 47; and United Nations Human Rights Council resolution 19/37 on the rights of the child, para 69. 11