This thesis examines the social accommodations made by prisoners' wives as their husbands pass through various stages in the criminalization process. A combination of methods--in-depth interviews with wives, structured interviews with married prisoners, systematic examinations of prison records, summaries of women's "rap sessions," and a variety of other sources of data--were used to construct an ethnographic account of the social worlds of thirty women married to men incarcerated in two prisons in Vermont. / Wives' accounts are quite consistent with other data sources. Prisoners' wives display considerable ingenuity in devising explanations and interpretations of their husbands' criminal behavior which allow their marriages to continue. The effect of these definitions is to "normalize" this behavior and to buffer the wives from external definitions of the situations in which they find themselves. While wives vary these interpretations--and the attendant normalization strategies they employ--depending on circumstances, five major techniques emerge: (1) nurturing, (2) "pain-in-the-ass" behavior, (3) passive distance, (4) co-deviance, and (5) reluctant co-deviance.

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abstract: The United States prison population is rapidly rising. Consequently, more families are losing loved ones to the system. While many researchers have focused on women of incarcerated men and children of incarcerated parents, none have looked at the partners of incarcerated women. This paper explores the issues and challenges of prison visitation for the significant others of women incarcerated at Perryville Prison in Goodyear AZ. It is known that prison visitation is important for supporting and maintaining romantic relationships. It is also beneficial to the prison institution. Visitation assists in social control and high inmate morale; both of which lower the instances of violent acts. However, it has been reported that visitation is a daunting task for the visitors. Many sources of information and data were used for this study; formal and informal interviews with family members and others with prison visitation experience, government websites that contain visitation policies, online forums for family and friends of inmates to discuss their concerns, existing research literature, direct observations, and discussions with scholar experts and prison activists. These resources act as a window to visitation at Perryville. With insights derived from symbolic interactionism and previous research guiding the project, it was found that visitation is a good experience for the significant others, incarcerated women, and Perryville. However, the troubles the significant others have with money, the institution and social support strongly suggest that these men encounter hurdles that make the positive act of visitation at times nearly impossible. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.S. Justice Studies 2011