The research study
The empirical, qualitative study underpinning this book used in-depth interviews to explore the lives and perspectives of caregiving kin with first-hand experience of maternal imprisonment. The fieldwork was conducted across four female prisons serving England and Wales in 2015. Two cohorts were interviewed: the first one consisted of 15 mothers serving a custodial sentence; and the second one consisted of 24 caregiving kin from another 15 families. The second cohort was larger as in most families there was more than one person providing care to the mothers’ children, the significance of which is discussed in Chapter Three. Eligibility criteria ensured that in all the families, the imprisoned mother was convicted and sentenced, and had at least one child under 18 years of age. These criteria were decided, first, so that all the families had experienced the mother’s court proceedings and were able to reflect on this process and, second, because the age of 18 coincides with most legal thresholds of adulthood in England and Wales, as well as the cut-off point for the parental responsibility of dependants – though it is appreciated that mothering is not just limited to this age category. Findings from interviews with the mothers are published elsewhere (Booth, 2017a, 2018a, 2018b, forthcoming), while the experiences of the caregiver cohort are the focus of this book. Caregivers’ names have been changed to anonymise the data, and care has been taken at all stages to truthfully account for, and communicate, the voices of the caregivers.
Access and recruitment
In accordance with Prison Service Instruction (PSI) 22/2014 (NOMS, 2014), permission to undertake the research was granted from the National Research Council (NRC) and subsequently from the governors managing the four establishments chosen as research sites. Accessing the caregiver cohort involved a flexible recruitment approach and several different avenues were explored (see Chapter Eight). Thirteen caregiver families were identified via prison visitors’ centres, while the remaining two (Miriam’s, and Derek and Madeline’s) were signposted to the study by prison family engagement workers. On making contact with the families, care was taken to ensure that ethical issues were mitigated as far as possible (see also Chapter Eight). For instance, to ensure that participants were well informed about the research purpose and process before they gave their consent to take part, detailed descriptions were given on information and consent forms, as well as communicated verbally to all potential participants. On agreeing to be interviewed, caregivers were asked to select a date, location and time convenient to them. Most interviews were conducted in the caregiver’s own home, while three were conducted in a public place, including a prison visitors’ centre.
The recruitment approach shaped the sample as all of the caregivers interviewed were relatives or friends of the mother and in contact with her, and 14 were experiencing maternal imprisonment for the first time. Therefore, the insights achieved in this study must be read with these particular characteristics in mind, appreciating that their experiences may not be representative of all families during maternal imprisonment, for example: there are many reasons that women might not have contact with their family and friends during a prison sentence (Masson and Booth, 2018); 14 per cent of children are looked after in social care during maternal imprisonment (Caddle and Crisp, 1997); and only one quarter of all women are in prison for the first time (PRT, 2016). Nevertheless, there is much to be learned from the caregivers interviewed across the 15 families as the 24 caregivers were responsible for 30 children under 18 years of age whose mothers were in prison.
Data collection and analysis
‘Prison’ is a word imbued with stigma and prejudice, and so research with prisoners’ families needs to be conducted with great care and sensitivity. In-depth semi-structured interviews were chosen because they ensured a more intimate environment for disclosures of potentially upsetting and sensitive issues. Data collection using the interview tool is premised on a dialogue and exchange between the interviewer and interviewee, and is well suited to research projects that focus on acquiring knowledge from experience (Braun and Clarke, 2013). Its methods are well equipped to allow the researcher to manage the exploration of preselected themes, while also responding to the emotionality of sensitive research topics by being reactive and flexible. The interviews carefully explored family life before the mothers’ imprisonments – their living arrangements, childcare arrangements, relationships and daily routines and practices – before asking them to reflect on these same areas since the conviction. Interestingly, this enabled a fuller understanding of the responses within families when the mother was imprisoned, including the point at which caregiving responsibilities changed or transferred. The interviews also examined the caregivers’ perspectives and experiences of establishing and maintaining contact, including visits and telephone calls.
The interview did not explicitly ask participants to disclose the offence for which the mother had been convicted. From the prison placement (see the Preface and Chapter Eight), the researcher learned how an upfront question about the offence could hamper the building of rapport and trust between interviewer and interviewee. Given the aims of this study, it was much more important to explore caregivers’ thoughts, feelings and experiences of their familial circumstances than to learn of the mother’s crimes. Nevertheless, most caregivers shared information of the mother’s offence in the interview when they believed this held importance to their experiences. For this reason, it is known that the offences included perverting the course of justice, drug-related crimes, fraud and grievous bodily harm (GBH).
All the interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed. Thematic data analysis was used to organise and identify patterns and themes in the data (Braun and Clarke, 2006), which aligned with the social-constructivist epistemology and family-centred approach of the research as it prioritised the participants’ descriptions of their lives and experiences. The analysis was carried out manually but triangulated against the researchers’ fieldwork diary, which contained notes from undertaking a six-month placement in a women’s prison (see the Preface and Chapter Eight) and during fieldwork for the study. Triangulation is important to corroborate the analytical interpretations and improve the validity of these by relying on different sources (King, 2000). Consequently, it was also relevant to judge the interview data against fieldwork observations during the placement in order to verify what had been gleaned and confirm the dependability of the findings (Cohen et al, 2011).
The caregiving kin
Twenty-four family members and family friends from 15 families were interviewed as part of this study, which was composed of nine joint interviews conducted with two caregivers and six individual interviews undertaken with one caregiver (see Table 2.1). All those interviewed self-identified as having a caregiving role to the children. However, to meet the eligibility criteria, at least one family member interviewed had to identify as the children’s primary kin caregiver. For the purpose of this research, the primary kin caregiver was defined as an adult who lived with at least one child under 18 years of age whose mother was in prison, and who was performing the majority of the childcare responsibilities. This is why the first column in Table 2.1 identifies just the primary kin caregiver(s). In line with the social-constructionist epistemology underpinning the study, the demarcation between