‘He is a New Man, a Proper Family Man’: The Impact of a Specialist ‘Family Wing’ on the Quality of Family Relationships and Paternal Identity among Imprisoned Fathers
| Published date | 01 March 2021 |
| Author | ANNA CLANCY,MIKE MAGUIRE |
| Date | 01 March 2021 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/hojo.12395 |
The Howard Journal Vol60 No 1. March 2021 DOI: 10.1111/hojo.12395
ISSN 2059-1098, pp. 101–121
‘He is a New Man, a Proper Family
Man’: The Impact of a Specialist
‘Family Wing’ on the Quality of
Family Relationships and Paternal
Identity among Imprisoned Fathers
ANNA CLANCY and MIKE MAGUIRE
Anna Clancy is Research Fellow and Mike Maguire is Professor of
Criminology, University of South Wales
Abstract: The article examines the operation and impact of a specialist wing in a male
prison, which aims to repair and enhance family relationships. It outlines the damag-
ing effects of parental imprisonment on children and on paternal identity, and explores
whether, and how, residence on the wing and prisoners’ joint participation with children
and families in extended visits and family-focused activities and interventions, mitigate
such damage. The findings are overwhelmingly positive, demonstrating improvements in
well-being among children and family members, enhanced family relationships, and a
stronger sense of paternal identity among prisoners. It is argued that these activities set in
motion processes akin to those postulated by Burke (1991) as necessary for maintenance
and renewal of identity: namely,the ‘verification’ of ‘identity standards’ through ‘reflective
appraisal’ by key referent groups (here,families and children). There is also evidence that
positive changes in prisoners quite frequently persist after release.
Keywords: family wing; parental imprisonment; paternal identity; prisoners’
families; prisons
The last two decades have seen the accumulation of a substantial inter-
national body of research demonstrating the damaging effects of parental
imprisonment. These include the effects of separation on the incarcerated
parent, the partner (or other family members) and the children as indi-
viduals, as well as the overall impact on family relationships, finances, and
in some cases the survival of the family as a unit (for recent overviews, see
Condry and Scharff Smith 2018; Hutton and Moran 2019). They also in-
clude an elevated risk that children of prisoners will themselves go on to
become involved in crime – the so-called ‘intergenerational transmission of
offending’ (Farrington, Coid and Murray 2009).
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2020 The Howard League and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd, 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK
The Howard Journal Vol60 No 1. March 2021
ISSN 2059-1098, pp. 101–121
A more specific issue that has received increasing attention, and will be
one of the main focuses of this article, is the effects of imprisonment on
the ‘paternal identity’ of male offenders with children (Chui 2016; Dyer
2005). As will be explored further below, barriers to meaningful commu-
nication, exacerbated by unfavourable conditions and cultures, including
during family visits, often do not allow male prisoners to express this iden-
tity and ‘actively perform fathering’ (Bartlett and Eriksson 2019), resulting
in frustration, stress, and sometimes withdrawal from contact.
The need to do more to support prisoners’ relationships with their chil-
dren and families is, however, being recognised more widely in policy cir-
cles, often justified by reference to research which suggests that prisoners
who maintain stable family relationships and/or receive regular family vis-
its are significantly less likely to reoffend after release than those who do
not. Of particular note in the UK is an influential review on the impor-
tance of prisoners’ family ties, led by Lord Farmer which stated: ‘Consis-
tently good family work, which brings men face-to-face with their enduring
responsibilities to the family left in the community, is indispensable to the
rehabilitation culture we urgently need to develop in our penal system and
has to be integral to the changes sought. It helps them forge a new identity
for themselves, an important precursor to desistance from crime’ (Farmer
2017, p.7).
An increasing number of prisons, in the UK and elsewhere, have taken
some steps in this direction, for example through the introduction of par-
enting programmes, extended family visits, family support workers based
in visitor centres, and/or more child-friendly conditions on visits. However,
delivery of such provision has generally been inconsistent and piecemeal. It
has also attracted relatively little research, and there are few independent
evaluations of its impact (though see Crawford-Smith et al. 2015: Hansen
2017).
In this article, we describe and assess the impact of the work of a spe-
cialist residential wing for prisoner fathers, the Family Intervention Unit
(FIU) in HMP Parc, Bridgend, in Wales. This constitutes a central ele-
ment of a comprehensive family support programme, Invisible WallsWales
(IWW), which aims to repair and improve relationships between male pris-
oners and their children and families through delivery of a range of family-
focused interventions, parenting programmes and extended family visits
in comfortable surroundings (Clancy and Maguire 2017a, 2017b). Based
on findings from observational research, interviews with 82 residents of
the wing and many of their partners, and focus groups with some of their
children, we provide a qualitative account of the effects of residence on the
wing on the men and their family relationships, with special attention to
issues around their paternal identity.
The article begins with an overview of previous research on the impact
of imprisonment on prisoners’ children and families, and on their family
relationships. It takes a particular look at the concept of paternal iden-
tity and the consequences of barriers to its expression. Next, we briefly
describe the core elements of the family-focused regime in HMP Parc, and
outline the methodology used in the present study. We then present the
102
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2020 The Howard League and John Wiley & Sons Ltd
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