While you were locked up: an empirical study on the characteristics, social surroundings and wellbeing of partners of prisoners in The Netherlands

Abstract

While it has been established that imprisonment can have unintended consequences for prisoners, the unintended consequences of imprisonment for others, e.g. their romantic partners, have been severely neglected in the academic discourse. Consequently, there is a lack of knowledge on prisoners’ partners and the ways that imprisonment may affect their lives. Using data from the Prison Project, this dissertation outlined a detailed profile of a population of female partners of male Dutch prisoners by studying their demographic, socioeconomic, behavioural and criminal characteristics. When we compared the characteristics of the prisoners and their partners, we found strong partner similarity. Prisoners and their partners are similarly educated and have a high similarity for a history of drug addiction and arrest. The largest partner resemblance was found for drug use and religion. This dissertation, moreover, examined the consequences of imprisonment for the social surroundings and wellbeing of partners of prisoners, using a longitudinal quantitative design. Firstly, it was found that most partners of prisoners experience negative reactions about the imprisonment and that they most often experience them from neighbours and family and least often from friends and family in law. Partners of prisoners experience more negative reactions if the prisoner was imprisoned for an offence from the least serious category, if the prisoner was previously imprisoned, and if the partner has a second stigmatising quality, such as receiving welfare or being in debt. Secondly, it was found that most partners of prisoners experience a change in social contacts after the start of the imprisonment. The changes in social contacts differ between network groups; while prisoners’ partners’ contact with their family most often increases, their contact with family in law, friends and neighbours most often decreases. These changes in social contact are related to the experienced negative reactions by partners of prisoners. If partners of prisoners experience negative reactions from family, family in law, friends or neighbours, their contact with these groups decreases. Moreover, cross-relationships were found; if partners of prisoners experience negative reactions from family, their contact with their friends increases and vice versa. This points to the importance of contact with family and friends in difficult times. Finally, this study identified factors that determine how imprisonment affects the development of the wellbeing of partners of prisoners. This dissertation examined the effects of factors from its previous empirical chapters, such as experiencing negative reactions, on the development of the wellbeing of prisoners’ partners. It was found that for partners of prisoners, experiencing a deterioration in their financial situation has a negative effect on the development of their wellbeing. Moreover, experiencing an improvement in their financial situation and experiencing more peace and quiet at home positively affect the change that partners of prisoners experience in their wellbeing. This study thereby shows that changes in the wellbeing of partners of prisoners are not only a matter of changes in economic circumstances.