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"This book examines what it means to be a family within the restrictive and distressing context of imprisonment. It sheds new light on the barriers to family life experienced by prisoners, and on our understanding of wider issues such as poverty and social marginalisation, the role of family relationships on desistance from crime, and legitimacy"--
List of contents
1. Theorising Families Affected by Imprisonment; 2. Difference; 3. Sameness; 4. Being a Family; 5. Entrenching Marginalisation; 6. Beyond the Family: Prisons and Legitimacy; 7. Conclusion
About the author
Cara Jardine joined the School of Social Work and Social Policy at the University of Strathclyde in 2017, after completing her doctorate at the University of Edinburgh. Her research interests include imprisonment, punishment, inequalities, gender, and poverty, and she has a particular interest in qualitative and feminist research methods. Cara was recently awarded a Leverhulme Early Career fellowship to develop new research into people’s experiences of community from within prison, the permeability of the prison wall, and the resulting implications for citizenship, legitimacy, and reintegration.
Summary
This book examines what it means to be a family within the restrictive and distressing context of imprisonment. It sheds new light on the barriers to family life experienced by prisoners, and on our understanding of wider issues such as poverty and social marginalisation, the role of family relationships on desistance from crime, and legitimacy.
Additional text
"In this important and innovative work Cara Jardine extends and deepens our understanding of the consequences of imprisonment. Prisons disrupt lives, not only of those whom we punish by sending there, but of families, friends and sometimes whole communities. Jardine's meticulous and empathic research illuminates these wider impacts, and in so doing subtly urges a searching reappraisal of the social uses of the prison."
Richard Sparks, Professor of Criminology, University of Edinburgh, UK
"Families, Imprisonment and Legitimacy" is an intimate portrayal of the experiences of families who are affected by incarceration and offers sound remedies for rolling back the reach of the penal system in Scotland and abroad. Using the voices of the imprisoned and their relatives, Jardine’s qualitative analysis reveals the gendered costs of imprisonment as well as how incarceration intensifies marginalization and poverty for families interfacing with the criminal justice system. Her research demonstrates that while there is no singular type of family impacted by incarceration—mass imprisonment has dramatic consequences for us all.
Joyce A. Arditti, Ph.D, Professor of Human Development and Family Science, Virginia Tech, and author of Parental Incarceration: A Family Perspective.
