Imprisoned Fathers

“I’ve Got Too Much Out There to Come Back to Places Like This”: the Hopes and Experiences of Young Imprisoned Fathers

Emily Smith, from the University of Manchester, made a contribution to the 2012 Annual Conference of the European Society of Criminology, in the category “Punishment and its alternatives,” under the title ““I’ve Got Too Much Out There to Come Back to Places Like This”: the Hopes and Experiences of Young Imprisoned Fathers”. Here is the abstract: This paper provides preliminary findings from an ESRC funded qualitative study. The research investigates imprisoned young men’s perceptions of fatherhood and experiences of being a father before prison, in prison and upon their return to the community. Drawing on theories of desistance and reintegration (Sampson and Laub, 1993; Maruna and Immarigeon, 2004) this work addresses men’s hopes for the future (in terms of fatherhood and offending) when they are in prison and then considers what happens in reality on release. Following this the research considers factors that influence the success or failure of their plans, focusing on the importance of formal and informal support. Early findings presented here focus on the reintegration process to look at what the young fathers’ aims are at the point of release and what has influenced these and then examines how easy/ difficult young men find it to fulfil their aims to stop offending and be ‘good’ fathers.[rtbs name=”criminology”]

Resources

See Also

Further Reading

• ““I’ve Got Too Much Out There to Come Back to Places Like This”: the Hopes and Experiences of Young Imprisoned Fathers”, by Emily Smith (Proceedings)