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The purpose of this paper is to explore the conditions that create a “good” prison visit, focussing on the role that a dedicated third sector-run prison visitors’ centre plays in creating a supportive environment.

This paper draws on a synthesis of empirical data gathering conducted over a decade at a voluntary sector-managed prison visitors’ centre based at a male prison in Northern England. The paper draws specifically on qualitative data gathered through four independent evaluations of the centre over a ten-year period.

An important point to emerge from the research is the unwavering importance of the prison visit in the life, well-being and regime of a prisoner. Prison visitors’ centres are shown to be an important part of creating positive visits experiences offering a space for composure and for support for families.

Many voluntary sector organisations are unable to commission large research and evaluation studies, but are often able to fund smaller pieces of work. Pooling qualitative evidence from smaller studies is a viable way to potentially strengthen commissioning decisions in this sector.

Family life can be seriously disrupted when a mother is imprisoned. The separation changes and often reduces the type, frequency and quality of contact that can be achieved between family members, and especially for children when their mothers were their primary carers and living with them before her imprisonment. In England and Wales, prisoners are permitted contact with children and families through prison visits, telephone contact and letter-writing through the post, and in some prisons via email. Despite the recent policy interest in supporting prisoners' family ties, research has highlighted the challenges that families and prisoners face using these communicative mechanisms. Building on this, the chapter contributes new knowledge by shifting the lens to explore how family members construct and adjust their practices to promote mother–child contact during maternal imprisonment.

The empirical study draws on semistructured interviews with mothers in prison and family members (caregivers) to children of female prisoners. Guided by a ‘family practices’ theoretical framework (Morgan, 2011), the findings show innovative adjustments, a willingness to make sacrifices and alternative routes to improve contact utilised by mothers and caregivers to prioritise mother–child contact. We see the strength, resilience and autonomy shown by family members to promote their relationships in spite of communicative barriers. There are important lessons to be learned from the families' lived experience for policy and practice, which, without due and genuine consideration, might further hinder opportunities for mother–child contact during maternal imprisonment.

The chapter centres on a practitioners' experience of supporting children affected by maternal imprisonment for over a decade in Liverpool, Merseyside in the United Kingdom.

Using the data derived from my PhD ‘Bubbles, Brick Walls and Connectivity’, I offer ‘whole families’ experiences of support systems including their experience of statutory services, nonstatutory services, family and friends and ‘Good Practice’ suggestions are proffered.

Consideration is given to what support can look like, the successes and the challenges. Attention is paid to how to help children who have contact with their mothers and how this help might differ to children for whom contact has been severed.

The chapter also focusses on supporting children and families post release and the challenges of engaging the mother in the service. Stories which highlight how the mother/child relationship can become fragmented/disrupted, either prior to or owing to imprisonment, are shared.

The title of this chapter was inspired by Martin, a prisoner the author met while conducting fieldwork. Martin remarked that, despite the common rhetoric around prisoners ‘maintaining’ their family ties, the reality was that during imprisonment it became more about trying to cling on to them. Imprisonment is perhaps one of the most brutal disruptions a family can undergo, leaving them little choice but to adapt to this enforced transition. Immediately, the spaces where family life can happen narrow severely and become dictated by the prison environment and the plethora of rules that regulate it. The immediate physical separation, onerous restrictions on physical contact and the heavily surveilled nature of family contact during imprisonment constricts space for emotional expression, often rendering romantic relationships clandestine and fatherhood attenuated. Further, the temporal space for family is reduced as limited opportunities for visits lead prisoners to eschew contact with wider family members and prioritise their ‘nuclear’ family. Drawing on empirical research conducted at two male prisons in England and Wales, this chapter then, will detail the complexities of how families navigate this transition and the limitations on what family can mean in the prison environment. The chapter will conclude with the implications of these restrictions for the ultimate transition when prisoners return ‘home’.

This paper examines the social and institutional context of barriers to drug service throughcare and aftercare for prisoners in England and Wales, including those that specifically affect Black and minority ethnic prisoners. A research project in 2004 reviewed relevant literature and statistical data, mapped prison drug services, and sought the perspectives of relevant stakeholders: in total, 334 individuals were recruited to the study. The methodology facilitates analysis of the structure of services and the agency prisoner in accessing them. Recommendations are made for changes to the structure and delivery of prison drug services.

Relevant literature was searched using MEDLINE, PsycINFO and Google in addition to Arabic search engines for information. Due to the shortage of scholarly articles on the subject, we broadened our search to publications from human rights organisation and articles in the mainstream press. We estimated the total carceral population in the member countries of the Arab league at 338,500 prisoners, over 46,000 of whom could be suffering from severe mental illness. We relied on indirect indicators of mental health services such as the quality of medical care in general, accounts of prison conditions by prisoners and their families, and the abundant literature on human rights abuses. Despite a grim overall picture, we highlight signs of improvement in recent years. Psychiatrists working in Arabic prisons face a number of challenges.We comment on directions for the future in the field of correctional psychiatry in the Arab countries including from the perspective of research.

The aims of this paper are to determine the state of visiting for women in the English prison system and to explore the relationship between women's mental health and visits in prison.

For the purpose of this paper the authors conducted a review of the literature. All literature published from 1983 onwards was included to coincide with the introduction of Pat Carlen's (1983) campaigning group Women in Prison (WIP). The review focused on all literature from England and Wales to reflect the National Criminal Justice System and used an inclusion criteria to achieve this.

The review revealed key themes including visit rejection, the importance of visits for maintaining identity and the contradicting emotions that women in prison experience when visited.

Social relationships and family ties are protective factors for prisoners' mental wellbeing, yet the number and frequency of visits to offenders in custody has declined. The potential role for prison visiting schemes to improve the mental wellbeing of women in custody is explored, including the implications for the education and training of staff and visitors involved in the visiting process.

The purpose of this paper is to present the characteristics of incarcerated women in two prisons in Java, Indonesia and discuss the specific problems and needs incarcerated women with children face with regard to mothering.

A cross-sectional survey using a semi-structured questionnaire was administered to 399 incarcerated women in two prisons. Focus group discussions provided additional information on mother’s experiences in prison.

This research finds that children’s welfare was an important concern for mothers while in prison and that they faced various problems in maintaining family ties during their incarceration, including distance, costs and time for family to visit (49.3 percent), and challenges to being able to communicate with family and children (26.6 percent).

This study contributes to the limited research on incarcerated women in Indonesia, broadly, and on mothering and incarceration, in particular, and suggests that women’s needs as mothers have not been taken into consideration by prisons and the criminal justice system.

From June 2017 to May 2018, the Prison Reform Trust partnered with Families Outside to identify the particular impacts on children of a mother's involvement in the criminal justice system. This included a literature review and extensive consultations with 25 children and 31 mothers with lived experience. This chapter presents the main findings of the research, which identified five key themes: ‘Children with a mother in prison are invisible within the systems that are there to protect them’; ‘Every aspect of a child's life may be disrupted when a mother goes to prison’; ‘Children feel stigmatised when a mother is involved in the criminal justice system’; ‘Children affected by imprisonment face many barriers to support’ and ‘With the right support, children can become more resilient and develop the skills they need to thrive’. The material presented in this chapter constitutes a compelling case for reform. The chapter concludes with recommendations for action at local and national levels to protect children from the harm caused by maternal imprisonment.

Investigates 1999/2000 health promotion activities in prisons in England and Wales and documents the range and quality of health promotion occurring in prisons, against which future activity might be measured. Finds that health promotion is under‐resourced and the concept and practice poorly understood. Health needs assessment tended to be analysis of and for health‐care services and, except in a minority of cases, did not include consultation with staff, prisoners or their families. Where responsibility was shared and the work based on multi‐disciplinary approaches, it seems more likely to have been reported accurately as health promotion activity. The official policy of a healthy settings/whole prison approach was not understood by many and its application was limited. The findings have informed the development of a new health promotion strategy for the prison service in England and Wales.