Prisoners Once Removed


Book Description

Addresses the issues of parenting behind bars and fostering successful family relationships after release.




In the Shadow of Prison


Book Description

This book provides an up-to-date, accessible introduction to the relationship between families, prisons and penal policies in the United Kingdom. It explores current debates in relation to prisoners and their families, and introduces the reader to relevant theoretical approaches. Interdisciplinary in nature, the book incorporates perspectives drawn from criminology, sociology, social work and law. The book includes: a current exploration of key aspects of the consequences of imprisonment for prisoners and their families an assessment of the role of current prison policies and practices in promoting and maintaining family relationships a summary of the current law in relation to prisoners and their families, with reference to the relevant legislation and recent case law.




Prisons, Punishment, and the Family


Book Description

Every year millions of families are affected by the imprisonment of a family member. Children of imprisoned parents alone can be counted in millions in the USA and in Europe. It is a bewildering fact that while we have had prisons for centuries, and the deprivation of liberty has been a central pillar in the Western mode of punishment since the early nineteenth century, we have only relatively recently embarked upon a serious discussion of the severe effects of imprisonment for the families and relatives of offenders and the implications this has for society. This book draws together some of the excellent research that addresses the impact of criminal justice and incarceration in particular upon the families of offenders. It assembles examples of recent and ongoing studies from eight different countries in order to not only learn about the secondary effects and 'collateral consequences' of imprisonment but also to understand what the experiences and lived realities of prisoners' families means for the sociology of punishment and our broader understanding of criminal justice systems. While punishment and society scholarship has gained significant ground in recent years it has often remained silent on the ways in which the families of prisoners are affected by our practices of punishment. This book provides evidence of the importance of including families within this scholarship and explores themes of legitimacy, citizenship, human rights, marginalization, exclusion, and inequality.




Behind the Walls


Book Description

Written by a Texas inmate trained as a reporter, this book gives practical advice on how inmates live, eat, play, work, and die in the Texas prison system. It spotlights the day-to-day workings of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice--what's good, what's bad, which programs work and which ones do not, and examines if practice really follows official policy. "While the book is meant to be a primer for those with loved ones in prison, it should be required reading for any attorney involved in criminal law."--Texas Lawyer de Novo Magazine




The Palgrave Handbook of Prison and the Family


Book Description

This handbook brings together the international research focussing on prisoners’ families and the impact of imprisonment on them. Under-researched and under-theorised in the realm of scholarship on imprisonment, this handbook encompasses a broad range of original, interdisciplinary and cross-national research. This volume includes the experiences of those from countries often unrepresented in the prisoner’s families’ literature such as Russia, Australia, Israel and Canada. This broad coverage allows readers to consider how prisoners’ families are affected by imprisonment in countries embracing very different penal philosophies; ranging from the hyper-incarceration being experienced in the USA to the less punitive, more welfare-orientated practices under Scandinavian ‘exceptionalism’. Chapters are contributed by scholars from numerous and diverse disciplines ranging from law, nursing, criminology, psychology, human geography, and education studies. Furthermore, contributions span various methodological and epistemological approaches with important contributions from NGOs working in this area at a national and supranational level. The Palgrave Handbook of Prison and the Family makes a significant contribution to knowledge about who prisoners’ families are and what this status means in practice. It also recognises the autonomy and value of prisoners’ families as a research subject in their own right.




Contemporary Research and Analysis on the Children of Prisoners


Book Description

In March 2017, researchers, advocates and NGOs from twelve countries came together in Rotorua, New Zealand, for the first conference of the International Coalition for the children of incarcerated parents. The Coalition had been formed the previous year to recognise that similar issues faced the children of prisoners all over the world. From the first arrest until release from prison, the system is stacked against the child. Justice systems are all about punishing individuals, and are, as one conference speaker noted, ‘child blind’. The papers in this collection cover many of the themes in the wider literature on the children of prisoners. Advocacy themes include moving towards child-friendly prison systems, using mass incarceration to influence wider social change, the effects of pre-trial detention on families, the particular issues in Hawaii, and how arrest and detention procedures harm children. A set of papers reflect contemporary research and analysis on the children of prisoners. One paper sets out ‘12 guiding principles’ for working with children and families of the incarcerated. Others look at how babies and young children react to parental imprisonment, as well as children who are resilient in the face of it. Two papers consider women: one on mothers involuntarily committed to psychiatric hospital and the other examining the difficulties in maintaining family ties when a mother is sent to prison. Another contribution looks at an initiative between university and community set up to ‘expand knowledge and inspire change’ for the children of prisoners. One paper examines the difficult issue of supporting families where a parent has been convicted of a sexual offence. Also discussed in this volume are the Tyro programme that works to break the cycles of self-destruction for the children of prisoners and case studies of prison staff ‘making a difference’ in child and family visiting.




Doing Time Together


Book Description

By quadrupling the number of people behind bars in two decades, the United States has become the world leader in incarceration. Much has been written on the men who make up the vast majority of the nation’s two million inmates. But what of the women they leave behind? Doing Time Together vividly details the ways that prisons shape and infiltrate the lives of women with husbands, fiancés, and boyfriends on the inside. Megan Comfort spent years getting to know women visiting men at San Quentin State Prison, observing how their romantic relationships drew them into contact with the penitentiary. Tangling with the prison’s intrusive scrutiny and rigid rules turns these women into “quasi-inmates,” eroding the boundary between home and prison and altering their sense of intimacy, love, and justice. Yet Comfort also finds that with social welfare weakened, prisons are the most powerful public institutions available to women struggling to overcome untreated social ills and sustain relationships with marginalized men. As a result, they express great ambivalence about the prison and the control it exerts over their daily lives. An illuminating analysis of women caught in the shadow of America’s massive prison system, Comfort’s book will be essential for anyone concerned with the consequences of our punitive culture.




Prisoners' Families, Emotions and Space


Book Description

This original study of the lives of prisoners’ families adds a feminist perspective on the understanding of carceral geography. She relates the testimonies of families as they navigate new challenges, and measures the impact of imprisonment on their emotions, relationships, identities and experiences of spaces, both inside and outside prison.




Prisoners and their Families


Book Description

Originally published in 1965, and reissued here with a new foreword, this study, as far as was known, was the first attempt in this country to look at the problems of the families of prisoners on a national scale. It took over three years and is based upon a survey of a representative national sample of prisoners and their dependants, together with an intensive longitudinal study of a smaller sample. The survey attempts to portray objectively the conditions of life for the families of a wide range of men in prison at the time, and covers stars, recidivists, and civil prisoners. Too often in prison work, the family is thought of as some external appendage, remote and irrelevant to the process of treatment and training, rather than as a continuous influence upon the man in custody, and the report aimed to correct this impression. The primary object of this research was to elicit facts upon which penologists and administrators might base future policies. There are three principal issues upon which specific recommendations are made: (1) the financial provision for prisoners’ families, (2) the improvement of social casework in prisons, and (3) the improvement of facilities for contact between the prisoner and his family. In a field in which there was much distress and concern, this study at last offered a real insight into the facts and definite suggestions for progress.




Prisons, Punishment, and the Family


Book Description

Every year millions of families are affected by the imprisonment of a family member. Children of imprisoned parents alone can be counted in millions in the USA and in Europe. It is a bewildering fact that while we have had prisons for centuries, and the deprivation of liberty has been a central pillar in the Western mode of punishment since the early nineteenth century, we have only relatively recently embarked upon a serious discussion of the severe effects of imprisonment for the families and relatives of offenders and the implications this has for society. This book draws together some of the excellent research that addresses the impact of criminal justice and incarceration in particular upon the families of offenders. It assembles examples of recent and ongoing studies from eight different countries in order to not only learn about the secondary effects and 'collateral consequences' of imprisonment but also to understand what the experiences and lived realities of prisoners' families means for the sociology of punishment and our broader understanding of criminal justice systems. While punishment and society scholarship has gained significant ground in recent years it has often remained silent on the ways in which the families of prisoners are affected by our practices of punishment. This book provides evidence of the importance of including families within this scholarship and explores themes of legitimacy, citizenship, human rights, marginalization, exclusion, and inequality.