Homecomer: Reconstruction of relations in families of former prisoners

Angelika Cieślikowska-Ryczko

doi:10.18778/0208-600X.78.04

Authors

Angelika Cieślikowska-Ryczko MA, Katedra Pedagogiki Społecznej i Resocjalizacji, Wydział Nauk o Wychowaniu, Uniwersytet Łódzki, ul. Pomorska 46/48, 91-408 Łódź https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5270-2739

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18778/0208-600X.78.04

Keywords:

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

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.

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