The walking dead? Assessing social death among long-term prisoners

A phenomenon known as "social death" often occurs to individuals entering the penal system and is exacerbated for long-term inmates. In the current study, men who had been incarcerated for seven or more years ranked their feelings of connectivity with the outside world and offered informat...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inCorrections: policy, practice and research Vol. 4; no. 3; pp. 153 - 168
Main Authors Stearns, A. Elizabeth, Swanson, Rick, Etie, Stephanie
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Routledge 03.07.2019
Subjects
Long-term prisoners
prison visitation
social death
social isolation
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Summary:A phenomenon known as "social death" often occurs to individuals entering the penal system and is exacerbated for long-term inmates. In the current study, men who had been incarcerated for seven or more years ranked their feelings of connectivity with the outside world and offered information about their contact experiences (e.g., visits, letters, phone calls, and consumption of media). Findings suggest that visits from friends, visits from other family members, and an inmate's age all exert a positive and significant force upon feelings of connection with the world outside of the prison gates. This exploratory study concludes by calling for more attention to long-term inmates, the forgotten prisoners.
ISSN:2377-4657
2377-4665
DOI:10.1080/23774657.2017.1396196