Prisoners and Their Families [antikvár]

il FOREWORD AND RECOMMENDATIONS This study, as far as is known, is the first attempt in this country to look at the problems of the families of prisoners on a national scale. It was spread over three years and based upon a representative sample of prisoners and their dependants. The experience of imprisonment does not occur in isolation for a man with a family, and the prison wall can never be a complete barrier to the emotional currents which flow between a man and his wife and children. Too often in prison work, the family is thought of as some external appendage, remote and irrelevant to the processes of treatment and training, rather than as a continuous influence upon the man in custody. For the family, the sense of isolation from the prison world is often greater than the isolation of the prisoner from the world outside. He has newspapers, radio and often television to keep him in touch; wives and children see little of the prison world save what is glimpsed during brief . visits. pij'l' The importance of the family in pre-sentence investigations has already been recognized by the Streatfeild Committee : our survey , reinforces these findings and illustrates the need to bear in mind the man's relationships with his wife and children throughout the sentence and after discharge. The survey has been both descriptive and analytic. We have attempted to portray objectively the conditions of life for a wide range of families of men in prison, first offenders, recidivists, and civil prisoners. The catalogue of their problems is considerable, and not all can be directly attributed to imprisonment, but there seems |i little doubt that many are aggravated by it. Some are undoubtedly intractable, and of the sort that would resist the most competent social work; others are capable of solution by relatively straightforward administrative action. The primary object of this research has been to elicit facts upon which penologists and administrators might base future policies, and the main findings of the survey are to be found in the summaries which form the substance of Chapter XIII. There are, however, three principal issues upon which we have specific recommendations to make: (1) the financial provisions for prisoners' families, (2) the improvement of social casework in prisons, and (3) the improvement of facilities for contact between the prisoner and his family. (1) There is little doubt that the majority of prisoners' families, by being wholly dependent upon the National Assistance Board, are living in conditions of considerable poverty. The Board ensures that these families do not starve, and that they normally have a roof over I ¦i I » ¦ ! ' 1 , , M'V ''ft