Almost two million Americans are incarcerated in state and federal prisons, juvenile corrections facilities, and local jails. While many studies have examined the impact of mass incarceration on the daily lives of wives and children, little is known about support groups for families of incarcerated loved ones. Throughout 2021, I conducted virtual interviews with 13 respondents across the United States who created their own support groups for families of incarcerated individuals or are executive leaders in these organizations. I find that support groups provide space for families to grieve without judgment, can help re-frame the grief experience, and provide tools and community for coping with a loss that is not typically acknowledged by the public.

Pocinki, Allegra. 2024. “‘I had nowhere to go’: Disenfranchised grief and support groups for families of incarcerated individuals.” Journal of Qualitative Criminal Justice & Criminology 13(1):30-56.

Families constitute vital sources of support to the approximately two million people currently incarcerated in the United States by contributing financial assistance, providing emotional support, and promoting desistance. Existing research on families focuses on the experiences of partners or children rather than parents or adult siblings, and particularly on how family support can reduce recidivism. This paper incorporates the theoretical approach of symbiotic harms, which emphasizes the flow of harms into and out of the criminal justice system. Drawing on observations of three national, virtual support groups and 21 in-depth interviews with family members, this study investigates shared experiences across the criminal justice system and agentic responses to harm, from small acts of resistance to activism. The data reveal symbiotic harms in four key areas: financial and medical burdens, emotional adjustments, status disclosure, and negative experiences within prison walls. This research addresses a question largely unanswered by the existing symbiotic harms literature on how agency is defined and exercised. The data illustrate an important case study of the meanings that support group participants attach to their practices of agency: self-care as empowerment, reflexive engagement with processes of stigmatization, strategies for counteracting harms, and reframing setbacks as blessings.

This research is forthcoming at Social Problems.