Secondary narratives in the aftermath of crime: Defining family members’ relationships with prisoners
| Author | Leslie W. Kennedy,Johnna Christian |
| Published date | 01 October 2011 |
| Date | 01 October 2011 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1462474511414781 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Punishment & Society
13(4) 379–402
!The Author(s) 2011
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DOI: 10.1177/1462474511414781
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Article
Secondary narratives in
the aftermath of crime:
Defining family
members’ relationships
with prisoners
Johnna Christian and Leslie W. Kennedy
Rutgers University, USA
Abstract
In the research presented here, we apply the storyline framework of the criminal event
to the secondary narrative of prisoners’ relationships with family members before and
during incarceration, and their plans for life upon release from prison. Analyzing 29
in-depth interviews from 13 inmate/family dyads and one inmate/family triad, we exam-
ine multiple views of the impact of incarceration and its consequences for the incar-
cerated individual, the family member, and their connections to each other. We
demonstrate that these relationships follow three distinct yet intersecting secondary
narratives – disrupted, transforming, and precarious – characterized by different qual-
ities of pre-incarceration relationships, impacts on family members’ lives, and plans for
the future. Defining the characteristics of these narratives is important because each
narrative has specific implications for the family member’s willingness and capacity to
support the prisoner and potentially limit future offending behavior.
Keywords
family, prisoners, relationships, secondary narratives
In recent work on the storylines of criminal behavior, Agnew (2006) offered an
insightful extension of the criminal event perspective, setting crime incidents in a
spatial/temporal context that highlights precursors, transactions, and aftermath
Corresponding author:
Johnna Christian, Associate Professor, School of Criminal Justice, Rutgers University, 123 WashingtonStreet,
Newark, NJ 07102-3094, USA.
Email: johnnac@andromeda.rutgers.edu
(Kennedy and Forde, 1999; Meier et al., 2001; Sacco and Kennedy, 2002). This
work asserts that the individual’s personal narrative of what has happened draws
from both history and immediate circumstances. The narrative sets a broad context
for the ways in which the criminal event is viewed by the offender and is inserted
into his or her life circumstances (Gadd and Farrall, 2004; Maruna and Matravers,
2007; Presser, 2009). Storylines might be considered the primary narrative of the
criminal event, focused on the offender and the contextual factors influencing his or
her behavior (Agnew, 2006). But, this primary narrative cannot be viewed as the
only story that is told about the event. It is clear that significant others around the
offender are affected by the offender’s actions and punishment, needing to accom-
modate for this behavior and its consequences, and thus creating their own story-
lines (Arditti, 2005; Braman, 2004; Comfort, 2008; Fishman, 1990; Hagan and
Dinovitzer, 1999; Hairston, 2004). The primary narrative, then, is only one of a
competing set of stories that get told (Fiese et al., 1999; Presser, 2008), and in the
content of the secondary narratives we find important clues about how others
manage and influence the offender’s actions and their aftermath.
We explore the idea that each primary narrative has a concurrent secondary
narrative centered on the effects of the criminal event and its aftermath for the
individuals in the offender’s social network. While this secondary narrative is con-
structed throughout all stages of criminal behavior, it takes on greater salience at
different points in the offending process. For example, the points of apprehension,
prosecution, incarceration, or release from prison may have particular relevance to
individuals, such as the offender’s family members, who are often called upon to
provide support to him or her (Martinez and Christian, 2009; Naser and Visher,
2006; Nurse, 2002). Throughout the process, then, the offender’s life histories inter-
twine with those of their family, friends, and neighbors as these individuals too face
consequences related to the crime.
If we see narratives as both accounts but also prescriptions for how individuals
manage their environments, we can see the usefulness of looking for competing
storylines in explaining the offender’s experiences and others’ descriptions of how
they are coping with this experience (Fiese et al., 1999; Maruna and Copes, 2005;
Presser, 2009). At the same time, the offender’s storyline, including the potential to
change criminal offending, may be influenced by the content and form of the sec-
ondary narratives, which is why understanding the various dimensions of the sec-
ondary narrative, at different points in offending, is important.
Storylines and the criminal event
In his discussion of the criminal event perspective, Agnew (2006) explains that
criminologists have used two different forms of explanation to describe why indi-
viduals engage in crime. The first involves background factors, which include per-
sonal characteristics, levels of self-control, association with delinquent peers, and
poor socialization. The second approach looks at situational factors, identifying
the social and physical context in which offenders operate, including the
380 Punishment & Society 13(4)
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