Prisoners’ Families, Penal Power, and the Referred Pains of Imprisonment

Abstract

This chapter develops the analysis of the ‘punishment beyond the legal offender’. It illustrates how parental imprisonment was experienced differently within and across families, and while not all experiences were negative, there were common experiences of hardship. The chapter considers these personal and social hardships ‘referred pains of imprisonment’. Its analysis shows how these experiences were shaped by the direct contact families had with criminal justice agents, the strength of the relationship with the imprisoned parent, and the anticipated and actual response of others within the local community. The chapter introduces a distinction between ‘acute’ pains that were experienced in the early stages of engagement with the criminal justice process (the arrest, trial, and removal of the father from the family) and ‘chronic’ pains that persisted and burdened family members over the longer term.

‘Time … lost time’: Exploring how partners of long-term prisoners experience the temporal pains of imprisonment

“…This confirms much of what we already know about the challenges of visiting prisoners (e.g. Condry, 2007;Lanskey et al, 2018;Condry, Kotova and Minson, 2016). What has not yet been carefully discussed in relation to prison visits is what these conditions mean for the quality of family time and emotional intimacy.…”

Mother-infant separations in prison: Why does context matter?

“…Families affected by imprisonment are often socially disadvantaged and living in poverty (Jardine, 2018), and invisible in prison policy (Codd, 2013). The wider impact of imprisonment on families is described as the 'referred pains of imprisonment' (Lanskey et al, 2018).…”

Prisoners’ Families’ Research: Developments, Debates and Directions

“…Research has documented too the punitive reach of penal power into the lives of families beyond the prison (Comfort, 2007, Lanskey et al, 2018, Kotova, 2014, Touraut, 2012. Lanskey et al (2018 conceptualising the hardships that families experience as a result of the parent's prison sentence as 'referred pains of imprisonment.'…”

“…Critiques of the criminal justice system's narrow focus on offence and offender have been made across several jurisdictions e.g. Germany (Römer,1967), the US (Comfort, 2007), Denmark (Smith, 2014) and the UK (Lanskey et al, 2018).…”

“…These attitudes may be seen as part of the wider 'populist punitiveness' that Bottoms (1995) identified and the associated concept of 'responsibilisation' (Garland 1996) of the offender: 'It must surely be the father's responsibility to think of the consequences of his actions' (Shaw, 1991:27). Aware of their social stigmatisation and faced with the potential of hostile social responses many prisoners' families have kept themselves away from the public eye and have not actively sought support for fear of ostracism and victimisation (Lanskey et al, 2018). In response to anticipated and actual hostility from others, prisoners families as a group have been little inclined to catch the attention of policy makers or researchers.…”