Homecomer: Reconstruction of relations in families of former prisoners

Abstract

The article focuses on the family relations of people sentenced to imprisonment. The aim of the project is to study the relations between former prisoners and their family members, particularly to define various strategies of rebuilding family relations, applied by former prisoners in the process of social adaptation. Based on the reconstruction of biographies of adult people who experienced the imprisonment of a parent during their childhood, adolescence and early adulthood, the author characterised various strategies of rebuilding relations, as well as difficulties and setbacks connected with breaking and losing the bond. The study made use of qualitative strategies of sociological analyses (biographical method). 31 narrative interviews with people who experienced penitentiary isolation of their parent (adult children of prisoners, aged between 18 and 70) were conducted as part of the study.

Keywords

• prisoners’ families
• parental imprisonment
• social readaptation
• biographical methods
• autobiographical narrative interview