A Family Cell: Visual Ethnography in a Prison 'Mothers' Section'

Quality & Quantity, 2013

Living in and living out: a qualitative study of incarcerated mothers' narratives of their children's living condition Nahid Rahimipour Anaraki & Dariush Boostani 1 2 3 Your article is protected by copyright and all rights are held exclusively by Springer Science +Business Media Dordrecht. This e-offprint is for personal use only and shall not be selfarchived in electronic repositories. If you wish to self-archive your article, please use the accepted manuscript version for posting on your own website. You may further deposit the accepted manuscript version in any repository, provided it is only made publicly available 12 months after official publication or later and provided acknowledgement is given to the original source of publication and a link is inserted to the published article on Springer's website. The link must be accompanied by the following text: "The final publication is available at link.springer.com".

2017

This thesis may be made available for consultation within the University Library and may be photocopied or lent to other libraries for the purposes of consultation with effect from……………….

The Open Criminology Journal, 2015

Over the past 15 years, people in the the Association of Penitentiary "Patronat" have helped families of persons detained (most often the wives and children). This article describes what is done and what should be done in the area to help people in this situation, as well as the most common problems families who are trying to maintain the bonds of closeness "in spite of walls and barriers".

2017

1 Issue 233 Mothers enter prison already disadvantaged, judged, excluded and most often in pain. Prison magnifies challenges to mothering and mothering identity. This paper reflects on the described experiences of previously incarcerated mothers. The paper focuses particularly on the emotional aspects of the mother’s experience, how being an imprisoned mother challenges her mothering identity and the mothering role; both during incarceration and long after release. The paper draws on the authors ongoing doctoral research, the purpose of which is to ‘understand more about the impact of prison on mothers who experience custody’, as well as the author’s previous research in this important area. The data is drawn from indepth interviews which took place with 21 released mothers between January 2016 and October 2016. All participants volunteered to take part and gave appropriate informed consent. The mothers had been out of prison for periods ranging from one to 26 years since their last...

The goal of the present article is the study of perceptions, and meanings of motherhood inside a specific context such as the prison. This exploratory study is based on nine interviews conducted on imprisoned mothers already condemned. The results were analyzed with ATLAS.ti, a software specialized for qualitative analysis. They show the presence of three family codes which capture different aspects of mother-child relation: in particular it was visible that motherhood and children emotional closeness, during prison term, act as protective factors for those women, mitigating pain, fail and frustration connected to the everyday experience in prison.

Prison is a challenging place for most women but this emotional space is magnified when it is a mother who is incarcerated. The maternal experience for mothers in prison is often at best disrupted, at worst destroyed, by the location. This paper considers how maternal emotions and the maternal role are assembled and challenged through carceral space, and more specifically, how mothers themselves assimilate this experience whilst navigating motherhood post incarceration. The data presented is based on twenty recorded in-depth individual interviews with released mothers across England and Wales. The research findings highlight the significant emotional harm and turmoil felt by mothers themselves and on mother-child relationships, experienced during incarceration and long after their release. Furthermore , the findings emphasise the significance and value of compassionate and thoughtful management of carceral space in relation to mothering emotions. The paper concludes with reflections on the findings of the study and recommendations for future research and practice.

2019

Imprisonment can severely alter, disrupt or even terminate mothering. Yet, often seen by society as giving up on or abandoning their children, women in prison tend to invoke less empathy or tolerance than women whose mothering is disrupted through other means, such as illness. Therefore, whilst many women in prison attach great significance to the role and responsibilities of motherhood, the restrictions of the prison environment impacting the ability to participate in mothering, compounded by a sense of guilt, failure, stigma, shame and role strain can pose a direct threat to the mothering identities of women in prison. Central to the research from which this chapter has developed was the challenge of making sense of the constructed meaning of motherhood for women in prison. Drawing on feminist narrative approaches, significance is placed not only on the content of stories but equally on the social role of the story told (Plummer, 1995). Three key and interrelated narratives are highlighted; 'Difficult Disclosures'; 'Double Edged Sword' and 'Who Cares'. This chapter concludes by considering the implications of the research for policy and practice and how through exploring the stories of mothers in prison we are able to hear about and value a diversity of mothers' lives, so these mothers do not have to inhabit the margins of motherhood.

Tayside: Families Outside, 2004

Our knowledge of the experience of prisoners' families, and in particular children, in Scotland is very limited. Greater knowledge would allow for the development of more appropriate services and could aid in the reduction of the stigmatising nature of the experience. In general, research is required on the emotional, social, physical and financial effects of imprisonment on partners and children at different stages in the course of a prison sentence (Peart and Asquith 1992) 1.1 Over a decade after Peart and Asquith's research, we know little more about prisoners' families in Scotland as potential users of social care services in their own right. This applies as much to the number and distribution of these families as to an understanding of their distinct needs. Reports into the social and economic costs of imprisonment often overlook the consequences of imprisonment on families completely (for example Brand and Price 2000). 2 1.2 However, as a result of collaboration between Families Outside, its member agencies, and the Scottish Prison Service (SPS), more is now known about the impact of imprisonment of a family member on the children of these families. The report, More Than a Box of Toys (Buist 1997), highlighted the experiences of children visiting prison and led to development of a set of standards for prisons to use to improve their facilities and approach. Teenagers with a Family Member in Prison (McCulloch and Morrison 2001) evidenced the exclusion of young people with a relative in prison and the distress experienced throughout the process from arrest through to custody. 1.3 Many of these families remain hidden within larger populations of marginalised groups in local communities, such as single mothers. Some do not wish to be identified, not least because of the stigma attached to them in the public mind and its practical consequences; the stigma of a custodial penalty passes on to the family, with a number of labels, stereotypes, and assumptions materialising in the daytoday lives of prisoners' relatives (Social, Health and Family Affairs Committee 1997). 1.4 The profile of these families that has emerged so far from research and from the experience of agencies that work in this area is: • The experience of imprisonment of a relative is traumatic for the rest of the family and carries huge emotional and financial costs, including the cost of maintaining contact through prison visits (Families Outside 2003); • All need emotional and practical help to cope; • Most live in deprived areas, are poor, and have childcare responsibilities. Families living in rural areas face pressures due to greater exposure in their communities and difficulties in accessing support services and maintaining contact with their relative; • For many, the experience of imprisonment aggravates underlying problems that are already putting strains on family life including financial hardship, social isolation, poor selfesteem, childcare problems, health problems, relationship difficulties, domestic violence, substance misuse, and the threat of homelessness; and • The impact on children and teenage members of the family is significant and enduring. This profile remains partial, fragmented, and inadequate as a basis for a coherent, strategic response to the needs of prisoners' families as a whole. The continuing tendency is to view their problems from the perspective of the prisoner and from the legitimate but narrower concerns of Scottish Prison Service. This pays scant attention to the diversity of these families, to their different needs, and to the need for an integrated approach to meeting these. This is essential so that families, especially children, are disadvantaged as little as possible by the imprisonment of a relative, so the imprisoned relative is able to maintain their parenting role effectively within their family, and so the family can play their part (where desired) in supporting their family member in the process of resettlement and reintegration on release. 1.5 The wisdom of experience from agencies working with these families in the community has not been systematically collated and tested from the perspective of service users. As a consequence, policy makers and service planners have not been in a position to make informed decisions about how to respond to the needs of these families through initiatives rolling out from the Scottish policies for Inclusion, Criminal Justice, and Children and Young People. 1.6 New responsibilities for Local Authorities in relation to these families as part of criminal justice throughcare strategies has stimulated discussion of this proposal between the Tayside Criminal Justice Partnership, the Childcare Division of Dundee City Council, and Families likely to vary with the length of imprisonment and the type of offence (Shaw 1987). This section examines the impact of imprisonment on the families of people in custody, first looking specifically at the effects on children, then at the pressures families face as a whole. Impact on children 2.3 The Home Office consultation paper in England and Wales, Every Child Matters, states: The bond between the child and their parents is the most critical influence on a child's life. Parenting has a strong impact on a child's educational development, behaviour, and mental health…. We need to pay more attention to the critical relationships between children and their families and provide them with better support. We should recognise the vital role played by fathers as well as mothers.

2014

3.3.10 Children interviewed alone; with siblings; or with parents/carers 89 3.3.11 Reflections on interviews 91 3.4 Developing a thematic analysis 93 3.4.1 Analysing interview data 93 3.4.2 Triangulation 94 3.4.3 Interpretation of Interview data 95 3.4.4 Categories and patterns 96 3.4.5 Narratives and key themes 97 3.5 Ethical and practice issues 3.5.1 Ethical approval 3.5.2 Practice issues arising from interviews 3.5.3 Participants' reaction to interviews 3.6 Researcher's Gaze: participants seen, and timings of interviews 3.6.1 Participants seen; and other children and relatives not seen 3.6.2 Timing of Interviews 3.7 Notes on pseudonyms and terms used 4. Children's experiences of parental imprisonment: resilience, trauma and recovery. 4.1 Children's resilience and vulnerability: a preliminary overview 4.1.1 Demographic analysis 4.1.2 Home stability and domestic violence 4.1.3 Children's welfare: future prospects 4.1.4 Intelligence, school progress and behaviour problems 4.1.5 Emotional intelligence 4.1.6 Needing and receiving help 4.1.7 Schools and Agency support 4.1.8 Main findings from Table 3 4.2 The trauma of separation; and survival 4.3 Recalling Arrest and Imprisonment 4.4 Impact of parental offences 4.5 Children's experience of stigma 4.6 Multiple loss; multiple problems 4.7 Impact of separation on children 4.8 Factors linked to emotional harm experienced by children 4.9 Children's recovery from the impact of parental imprisonment 4.10 Children's emotional intelligence: handling feelings about imprisonment 4.10.1 Children trying to handle their feelings 4.10.2 The significance of parents' example for children's adjustment 4.10.3 Children's ambivalent responses 4.10.4 Learning disabilities and emotional intelligence 4.10.5 Holding feelings in check: and the use of understatement 4.10.6 Importance of privacy and caution in handling parental imprisonment 4.10.7 More open approaches to handling parental imprisonment 4.11 The "steeling effect"; and adaptive distancing 4.11.1 The steeling effect 4.11.2 Adaptive distancing 4.12 Children's contact with their imprisoned parent 4.13 Parental imprisonment and the significance of gender 4.13.1 Girls with their mother in prison 4.13.2 Girls with their father in prison 4.13.3 Boys with their mother in prison 4.13.4 Boys with their father in prison 4.13.5 Main themes emerging about gender 4.13.6 Like father, like son? 4.14 Family Structure: implications for children of prisoners 4.14.1 Findings from previous research 4.14.2 Experiences of 'Only' children 4.14.3 Experiences of Siblings 4.14.4 Relationship between children's age and their vulnerability 4.14.5 Main themes emerging relating to family structure 4.15 Dominant themes in this chapter 5. Care giving parents: roles, support and family policy.

2009

Firstly, to my interviewees and the mothers of Prison Talk who shared with me with your personal stories, I am sincerely grateful. I have been inspired by your loving dedication to your children and your compassion for each other. This project would not have been possible without ...