Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts
Year: 2023
DOI: https://www.doi.org/10.33422/5th.icsha.2023.12.104
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Experiences of Parenting while Serving a Prison Sentence
Marijana Majdak, Sara Dželalija, Silvija Pavlinić
ABSTRACT:
Parents who serve prison sentence are a vulnerable and neglected population exposed to various challenges in achieving their role, and most of all in achieving a stable relationship with the child. As maintaining a relationship of closeness and connection is of great importance for the well-being of both parents and children, it is necessary to point out to experts the perspective of prisoner parents. This paper will present the results of a qualitative research aimed at gaining a deeper insight into the experiences of parenting while serving a prison sentence from the perspective of parents former prisoners who have minor children. The study involved parents former prisoners (N=10) who are currently involved in the probation system. The research was conducted within the official premises of the Probation Offices responsible for the city of Zagreb and Zagreb County and the data were collected using the method of semi-structured interview. The results of the research showed that parents face various challenges, from obstacles in achieving contact with the child, inappropriate conditions and limited rights and opportunities to fulfill the parental role in prison, insensitivity of the system to their needs, etc. Parents’ proposals related to improving parenting in prison are mostly aimed at improving prison conditions for maintaining parental-child contact, exercising rights on a larger scale (such as more frequent visits of children, better financial support), as well as investing greater effort of professionals in working with prisoners.
keywords: children, challenges of incarcerated parents, parents in prison, rights