Carceral Communities: Serious Offenders, Secondary Stigmatisation, and Collateral Harms of Imprisonment

My proposed research project lies at the intersection of social inequalities, social perceptions of crime, and contemporary conditions of incarceration. I am interested in the notion of collateral victimisation, and the nuanced--and notably unexamined--ways in which the kin of serious offenders (particularly murderers and those convicted of sexual offences) experience stigmatisation following their relative's offence. Specifically, my proposed research project seeks to examine the long-term impacts that the invasion of the carceral in the domestic space (e.g., the presence of police in the family home at the time of arrest) has upon relatives of serious offenders--placing particular emphasis upon the children and female partners of perpetrators. In relating this project to the broader politics of crime control, as conceptualised by Ian Loader and Richard Sparks (2010), it is poignantly evident that existing criminological research rarely examines the impact of carcerality on the family of offenders. As such, I am particularly interested in looking at the ways in which young people, as well as minority gender and sexual identity groups, are disproportionately stigmatised following the arrest and/or incarceration of a kin member. Relying upon existing criminological, sociological, and psychological theory, this proposed research project seeks to restore a sense of autonomy and voice to those secondary victims whose collateral experience of the carceral state uniquely--and damagingly-- constructs their perceptions of society and self from the point of arrest. My proposed project intends to rely upon qualitative research methods--including ethnographic inquiry in the American South and England--to qualify and clarify the following research questions: How are families belonging to minority identity groups being policed in the domestic space, especially following the offence of a kin member? How are the children and female/non-binary partners of serious offenders uniquely stigmatised and traumatised following the arrest and incarceration of a parent/partner? When does the criminal legal process begin, and why has existing criminogenic literature focused heavily upon the family only following the release of a kin member? What impact does the stigmatisation and social stratification of secondary offenders- -namely, children of prisoners--have upon these individuals' internal and external perceptions of self? Ultimately, my research seeks to fill a disciplinary gap around the ways in which the family of offenders experience secondary victimisation and stratification, offering a novel
reframing of the victim-perpetrator binary that has existed at the heart of criminological knowledge production for decades.