'My family inside...', says a prisoner

摘要

In the past 70 years, many studies have been made on the effects of incarceration. One factor which proved to be important in mediating the process of adaptation to prison life is the establishment between prisoners of informal primary relationships. For the specific of Romanian prisons, an interesting research question is 'What happens when these relationships are actually formed between family members?'. In each Romanian prison we can find cases where family members are serving time together. The paper presents the results of a qualitative analysis (The research is part of the project 'Deculturation as effect of detention. Resocialization in the context of the regressive and progressive regime of prison sentence execution', directed by Professor Petronel Dobrica and financed by the National Council for Scientific Research in Higher Education in Romania, for the period 2009-2013.) based on interviews with prisoners executing their sentences together with other family members. It also highlights further research questions that need attention in the future.