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ABSTRACT
Social science researchers as well as legal practitioners in India are yet to explore how imprisonment of a person affects his or her entire familial set-up. The existing literature suggests myriad problems associated with the imprisonment of a family member, categorized under social, economic and psychological arenas. Methodologically, the present paper is based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted from March 2012 to February 2013 in Central Jail, Srinagar, with prisoners and their families. This paper primarily attempts to explore how imprisonment affects the families of prisoners? It also attempts to explore how families respond to the imprisonment of their family member, their coping patterns, their encounter with the wings of criminal justice system and other collateral damages. The study yielded multiple results ranging from disturbances in socio-economic affairs to disputes in inter-familial and intra-familial relationships and weakening of community ties besides other socio-economic disturbances.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 This paper is part of my doctoral research conducted at the Department of Sociology, Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi, New Delhi, India. The paper was presented at the 45th All India Sociological Conference organized by Indian Sociological Society held at the Department of Sociology, University of Kerala, India from 27–29 December 2019.
2 ‘Criminal behaviour’ is considered as the ‘number one indicator’ among children having a parent imprisoned. (See: Furio, Citation2002, p. 175).
3 The first phase was conducted in the Central Jail, Srinagar, after the researcher gained procedural access to prison and interacted and interviewed prisoners lodged in three blocks of the jail. Interview schedule was used to collect information concerning the families of prisoners. It is pertinent to mention here that only under-trial prisoners were interviewed and observed during the field work and no other category of prisoners was considered for this study.
4 The term prisoner is used in this study to refer to under-trial prisoners and includes both male and female under-trial prisoners.
5 The north zone comprises three districts i.e. Baramulla, Kupwara and Bandipora; the central zone comprises Srinagar, Ganderbal and Budgam districts; while as Pulwama, Shopian, Kulgam and Anantnag are in the south zone.
6 The four districts visited in Jammu province are Jammu, Udhampur, Kishtwar and Rajouri.
7 The concept half widow, half wife has been borrowed from the report “Half Widow, Half Wife? Responding to Gendered Violence in Kashmir” authored by Association of Parents of Disappeared Persons (APDP), a member organization of the Jammu and Kashmir Coalition of Civil Society (JKCCS) and released in July 2011.
8 There was yet another single case where children with imprisoned mother had to spent time in neighbour’s house till their father returns from the day’s work.
9 In fact, while I moved for the first time inside the prison, I didn’t know I was one like the visitors and had to undergo the same procedure. I was stopped at the metal detector installation and asked to surrender the keys of the car and take them back while I left.
10 There were around seven families in one of the districts of the southern zone (Kulgam district) whose one or two family members were facing criminal charges. Although there were others also from the same locality who were imprisoned, being rival groups, they planned to visit prison with their own group members.
11 I also faced humiliation and disrespect during my first visit to prison. I was looked upon with suspicion as an outsider. However, following confirmation from the executive staff of prison, I received a different treatment from the prisoners’ visitors.
12 High security block is not a category of prisoners but a prison block among the three prison blocks in Central Jail, Srinagar. the other two being the special block and women’s block.