Release and Adjustment: Perspectives From Studies of Wrongly Convicted and Politically Motivated Prisoners (From The Effects of Imprisonment, P 33-65, 2005, Alison Liebling and Shadd Maruna, eds. -- See NCJ-211241)

• NCJ Number: 211242
• Author(s): Ruth Jamieson; Adrian Grounds
• Date Published: 2005
• Length: 33 pages
• Sale Source: Willan Publishing
• Publication Format: Book Chapter
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This chapter summarizes three studies of the trauma, loss, and life changes experienced by individuals who have been imprisoned and the implications of the findings for penology.

Abstract

Although the three studies involve different groups of ex-prisoners, they are linked methodologically and in the framework of interpretation used by the authors. The studies focus on postrelease experience and its implications for how researchers and policymakers view imprisonment effects. The first study involved one author's psychiatric assessments of a few individuals who had been released from prison on appeal following miscarriages of justice. This has become an ongoing descriptive clinical study of responses to chronic psychological trauma. The second study stemmed from a request of both authors to advise and assist a nonaligned support group for predominantly Republican ex-prisoners in Ireland and Northern Ireland who planned to research the postrelease adjustment of released prisoners and their families. The interview schedules for this study drew on the biographical, phenomenological framework of clinical interviewing used in the first study. The third and most recent study was jointly developed by one of the authors and colleagues in the United Kingdom and Canada. It used the same approach as the previous two studies in interviewing a sample of released Canadian life-sentence prisoners. These three studies of the outcomes of long-term imprisonment among three different groups of men across different correctional contexts found a consistent and shared set of psychological effects. The unifying theme among the men was time, i.e., the loss of time and life history, the dislocation in time and reduced future after release, and the enduring effects of changes in close affective relationships with others. These findings should change the views of researchers and policymakers that imprisonment is a time limited experience of pain and loss. 11 notes and 69 references