Thesis (M. Sc.)--University of Canterbury, 2010. / Typescript (photocopy). Research supervisors: Dr. Steve Dakin, Dr. Simon Kemp. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 76-82). Also available via the World Wide Web.

Thesis--University of Florida. / Description based on print version record. Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 108-112).

Thesis (M.A.)--The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2009. / Directed by Sandra Westervelt; submitted to the Dept. of Sociology. Title from PDF t.p. (viewed May 6, 2010). Includes bibliographical references (p. 184-193).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Texas at Dallas, 2007. / Includes vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Th.--Aix-Marseille. / Bibliogr. p. 327-355.

This thesis explores what it is like for families when a person is sentenced to a period of imprisonment in Scotland. Drawing on interviews with men and women in custody, family members in the community and relevant professionals this thesis will argue that the family relationships affected by imprisonment are many and varied: just as in wider society there is no one model of “prisoners’ families”. Despite the restriction of liberty inherent to a prison sentence, these families find creative ways to maintain relationships through active, embodied ‘displays’ and ‘practices’ such as physical affection, revisiting shared memories and traditions and the sharing of food, routines, family time and other ‘home comforts’. It is these displays that define and characterise family relations, rather than strict categories of blood or marriage. Yet imprisonment imposes a number of barriers to reciprocal family relationships and maintaining these active displays takes considerable effort on the part of the family outside. This division of emotional and practical labour is highly gendered, and as a result supporting a family member in custody can serve to entrench both gendered caring roles and the social marginality already experienced by participants. Finally, this thesis will argue that the complexity of family life is often not fully reflected in criminal justice policy or practice, yet the ways in which families are seen and responded to have implications for the overall legitimacy of the system. Together, these claims should cause us to reflect critically on the wider costs of imprisonment.

The purpose of this exploratory study is to examine the reintegration experiences of Black men who were transferred to adult court and served time in adult prison as teenagers. Twenty-one semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted with 21 Black men who served prison time when he was a teenager. At present, we know little about the long-term effects of waiver and sentencing practices. Hence, my question and main purpose for this research is this: Does the "ex-convict" label affect the reintegration experiences of Black males after serving time in an adult prison as a youth? I focus on Braithwaite's reintegrative shaming to explore how these men reintegrate and experience shaming. The men reported feeling unprepared to subsist in the workplace. The main reasons for these feelings were because the men spent their youthful years in prison, with very little to no job skills training, leaving them highly unskilled. I also test Braithwaite's (1989) ideas regarding shaming and cultural homogeneity among Black men while exploring how "ex-convicts" re-enter the community through personal interviews in this dissertation. I explored whether Black men experience shaming by their reference or intimate groups (family, partner, and friends), the community and potential employers. I also consider masculinity thesis and Anderson's (1999) "Code of the Streets" thesis, which posits that Black's may have culturally defined perceptions regarding feelings of shame. Findings revealed that there were differences in the shaming felt when the men were in their distinctive environments versus outside of the community. Feelings of shame were felt deeper outside of the community rather than vice versa as Braithwaite (1989) theorize. These findings provide a good test of Braithwaite's (1989) cultural homogeneity thesis. Findings from my research discredit the thesis as the sample reported feeling more shame when they left their communities (distinctive environments) even when cultural homogeneity was high in their distinctive environments.

Current theoretical research focusing on prison violence suggests that staff culture might influence inmate behavior. Correctional officers have the most interaction with inmates, and a crucial aspect of achieving staff and institutional legitimacy involves treating inmates in a procedurally just fashion. Literature suggests that procedural justice in prisons relies on comprehensive care; inmates require dignity, respect, safety, and individualized treatment focused on successful community reentry. Since correctional officers vary in their capacity to convey legitimacy, individual characteristics such as officer gender might influence inmate perceptions, thereby affecting inmate behavior. The presence of women may symbolize a representative bureaucracy, and women may perform job duties differently based on preconceived attitudes, socialization, and predispositions to avoid violence. This project utilizes four waves of the Census of State and Federal Correctional Facilities (1990-2005) to examine the relative effects of the percentage women correctional officers on inmate-on-inmate and inmate-on-staff violence, assess whether these effects take time, and evaluate interactional effects between gender and institutional characteristics. Although some models are supportive of the argument that women officers affect prison violence, findings indicate that other factors are more important determinants.

This thesis explores the experiences of imprisonment of men held in HMP Stafford, an English medium-security prison for men convicted of sexual offences. Sex offenders constitute a significant proportion of the prison population – almost one in five sentenced adult men have been convicted of a sex offence – but they have been consistently overlooked by prison researchers. In this thesis, I redress this imbalance by exploring the experiences of a hitherto overlooked group, and generate some theoretical insights which will be of relevance to wider studies of imprisonment. The thesis is based on an in-depth ethnographic study conducted over a five-month period. It included 42 long semi-structured interviews with prisoners, 12 shorter semi-structured interviews with prison officers, and extended periods of participant observation of day-to-day life in the prison. It focuses on three areas which were of particular salience to these men, all of which have been explored in detail in existing studies of mainstream imprisonment: first, the ways in which they adapted to their sentence; second, the sorts of social and moral communities they formed amongst themselves; and third, the relationships they formed with staff and the way the prison’s power operated on them. All three of these areas – adaptation, moral community and power – were inflected by two issues of even greater significance: the fact that they were serving sentences for sexual offences, and their resulting social identities as ‘sex offenders’. By drawing attention to this issue, I hope to move on from the conventional mode of understanding the prison, as a disciplinary institution structured solely by power, to one which takes more seriously the moral functions and effects of the prison as a condemnatory institution.

Orientador: Cristiano Amaral Garboggini Di Giorgi / Banca: Luiz Percival de Leme Britto / Banca: Maria Peregrina Fátima Rotta Furlanetti / Resumo: Esta pesquisa está vinculada à linha de pesquisa "Políticas Públicas, Organização Escolar e Formação de Professores" e discute a relação entre as políticas públicas educacionais para o sistema penitenciário, suas implicações e contribuições no processo de reinserção social de pessoas que cumprem pena restritiva de liberdade. Assim, tivemos como objetivos compreender, em um dado sistema penitenciário, quais são as contradições objetivas do ponto de vista da aprendizagem e da promoção humana neste sistema, como essas contradições se materializam e se desdobram na prática, dentro de uma Unidade Prisional do interior do Estado de Mato Grosso do Sul. E ainda, quais são as possibilidades, e os limites, dentro do sistema penitenciário, de se oferecer uma educação que recupere o sentido histórico da EJA, e o que é necessário para que essas possibilidades de concretizem. Para alcançarmos nossos objetivos elaboramos um estudo de caso qualitativo devido ao contato direto com o ambiente e com a situação que está sendo investigada, bem como pela possibilidade de analisar como o objeto analisado teoricamente se manifesta na prática através das atividades, procedimentos e interações cotidianas na penitenciária de Três Lagoas-MS. Contudo, nos esmeramos em manter o distanciamento necessário entre o pesquisador e o servidor, evitando assim uma análise tendenciosa na forma que os dados obtidos foram descritos. Concluimos que uma educação que colabore efetivamente na reinserção social do preso é possível, mas enfrenta enormes dificuldades dentro do sistema atual. / Abstract: This research is linked to the research line "Public Policy, Organization and Training of School Teachers" and discusses the relationship between the educational policies for the prison system, its implications and contributions in the social reintegration of persons who are in prison. Thus, we aimed to understand, in a prison system, what are the objective contradictions in terms of learning and human development in this system,how such contradictions are materialized and unfolds in practice, within a unit within the Prison State of Mato Grosso do Sul. And yet, what are the possibilities and the limits within the prison system, to provide an education to recover the historical meaning of adult and youth education and what is necessary for these possibilities to come true. To achieve our goals, we make a qualitative case study due to direct contact with the environment and the situation being investigated, and the opportunity to examine how the object is analyzed theoretically expressed in practice through the activities, procedures and interactions in daily Prison of Três Lagoas-MS. However, we maintain the necessary distance between the researcher and the server, thereby avoiding a biased analysis as the data were described. We conclude that an education to work effectively in the social rehabilitation of the prison is possible, but faces enormous difficulties in the current system. / Mestre