Striving for a “good” family visit: the facilitative role of a prison visitors’ centre

Woodall, James; Kinsella, Karina

doi:10.1108/jcp-03-2017-0011

Cited by 7 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…Consequently, visitor centres are now available in most prisons in Scotland (Families Outside, 2017). Such facilities are key to creating a more welcoming and supportive environment (Woodall and Kinsella, 2018); and are a critical resource for reaching some of Scotland’s most vulnerable families. However, the emotional response to visits often remain long after exiting the prison boundaries, with some children isolating themselves or struggling to reintegrate back into their normal routines.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For parents in custody, visits are often valued as a means of preserving relationships with their children yet can equally reinforce feelings of guilt and shame and their inability to interact with their children. Unable to reconcile imprisonment with good parenting, some parents adopt a protective mechanism of not allowing their children to visit (Lockwood, 2018; Woodall and Kinsella, 2018). However, for some families, prison visits can provide ‘rare moments of sobriety and reflection’ and ‘an idealised version of interpersonal interaction’ (Moran and Disney, 2019: 275).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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A double-edged sword: Children’s experiences of visiting a parent in prison in Scotland

Lockwood¹,

Long

Loucks³

et al. 2021

Probation Journal

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Prison visits are recognised as an important feature of a humane prison system, providing important benefits for prisoners and their family in maintaining ties (McCarthy and Adams, 2017). Scotland has a history of penal welfarism and a right-based agenda in relation to visits (McCarthy and Adams, 2017); however, there is a lack of research that focuses on visits in the context of Scottish prisons. Equally, there is limited research that considers the perspective of children visiting a parent in custody. This paper explores the experiences of children visiting a parent in prison in Scotland, highlighting lessons for policy and practice.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A double-edged sword: Children’s experiences of visiting a parent in prison in Scotland

Lockwood¹,

Long

Loucks³

et al. 2021

Probation Journal

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“…public sector versus private sector prisons). Although research has been conducted from the perspective of what constitutes a good prison visit for families [7,9,24], the literature lacks perspectives on how prison staff interpret their roles in family-centric visiting environments. The nature of these unanswered questions calls for a methodology that offers breadth and depth in understanding what Yin [25] offers as the how and why things occur.…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Prison Staff and Family Visits: United Kingdom Case Study

Hart-Johnson¹,

Johnson²

2020

HSS

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Recent studies have illuminated how families are affected by prison staff engagement during prison visits. Prison staff, by virtue of their positions, exercise power and authority over families during prison visits processes and potentially play a vital role in shaping inmate-family experiences. Although some interactions with prison staff may be cordial, others have been reported as stressful for visitors, especially families with children. Yet many family visitors endure stressful encounters since visits can serve as portals for bonding between inmates and their families. Over the past two decades, some prisons in the United Kingdom (UK) have invested in developing family-oriented practices and visits protocol, where prison staff oversee the visits process. This is in contrast to prison staff who tend to take on a police-officer mentality whereby policing behaviors or personal philosophies are aligned with implied suspicion, mistrust, and apprehension towards inmates and families. Given such, prison staff interpretation of their roles and engagement with families is of research interest. The purpose of this qualitative multiple case study was to understand how UK prison staff interpreted their roles during family visits and determine why this evolution towards family-focus visiting took place. To answer the research inquiry, a heterogeneous sample of prison staff from private and public sector prisons and advocacy center contractors employed at two prisons in the United Kingdom were recruited to provide broad perspectives on staff roles during the process of the visit. Within these facilities, we interviewed a total of 13 (n=13) staff members. Data collection and semi-structured interviews occurred at two prison facilities and two advocacy centers. Three researchers conducted cross-case analyses and applied triangulation methods to establish a clear chain of evidence documented through step-by-step processes: audit trails; flexible and parallel data analysis during data collection, and first-and second-order coding processes. Findings from this study indicate that prison staff perceives their roles during the visiting processes as an evolution from traditional corrections-based punitive practices (i.e. policing) to a visiting program capable of accommodating three goals: low-stress family visits, inmate conformance, and reduced recidivism. This study adds to the literature on detailing how prison staff dichotomous roles were interpreted as balancing tensions between institutional controls and minimizing traumatic experiences for visiting families through prison-based interventions.

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“…Existing literature explores penal voluntary organisations’ work (Tomczak ), for example with prisoners (Abrams et al . ), prisoners’ families (Woodall and Kinsella ) and in resettlement (Thompson and Thomas ). Peer mentoring by (ex‐)prisoners is a growing area internationally (Buck ), and commentary has explored peer interventions co‐ordinated by voluntary organisations: in young offender institutions, prisons and community supervision (see, for example, Fletcher and Batty ; Jaffe ; South, Bagnall and Woodall ).…”

Section: Voluntary Organisations: Not Directly Organised By State Agementioning

confidence: 99%

The Criminal Justice Voluntary Sector: Concepts and an Agenda for an Emerging Field

Tomczak

Buck

2019

Howard J Crime Justice

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Volunteers and voluntary organisations play significant roles pervading criminal justice. They are key actors, with unrecognised potential to shore up criminal justice and/or collaboratively reshape social justice. Unlike public and for-profit agents, criminal justice volunteers and voluntary organisations (CJVVOs) have been neglected by scholars. We call for analyses of diverse CJVVOs, in national and comparative contexts. We provide three categories to highlight distinctive organising auspices, which hold across criminal justice: statutory volunteers, quasi-statutory volunteers, and voluntary organisations. The unknown implications of these different forms of non-State, nonprofit justice involvement deserve far greater attention from academics, policymakers and practitioners.

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Striving for a “good” family visit: the facilitative role of a prison visitors’ centre

Cited by 7 publications

References 32 publications

A double-edged sword: Children’s experiences of visiting a parent in prison in Scotland

A double-edged sword: Children’s experiences of visiting a parent in prison in Scotland

Prison Staff and Family Visits: United Kingdom Case Study

The Criminal Justice Voluntary Sector: Concepts and an Agenda for an Emerging Field

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