A confined encounter: the lived experience of bereavement in prison
Keywords:
Bereavement, disenfranchised grief, prison inmatesAbstract
AbstractBereavement, due to the loss of a significant person through death, presents imprisoned persons with a unique challenge, yet so very little is known about the experience of bereavement behind bars. This paper, based on a qualitative practitioner-research study, explores the experience of bereavement in prison through drawing on the author's counselling work with bereaved male inmates of a Scottish prison and focussing on the bereavement experience as lived and described by one client in his own words. The paper depicts the experience of bereavement behind bars as deeply distressing and despairing. It portrays how the powerful sociocultural prescriptions of the prison environment can cause the grief of prison inmates to be profoundly disenfranchised and demonstrates how this can impact hugely negatively on their coping ability. The paper calls for the development of support systems to ensure a level of bereavement care more attuned to the needs of imprisoned persons.
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