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Chapter 4 “Courtesy Incarceration” Exploring Family Members’ Experiences of Imprisonment Brittany L. Peterson, Beth M. Cohen, and Rachel A. Smith Prelude Brittany L. Peterson On Christmas Eve 2003, I remember nervously walking from the parking lot toward the imposing locked door of the local county jail. As we walked up, the locks clicked and we were allowed to go inside. The visit was short, only one hour in length. We sat on the hard metal immobile stools and looked at each other through double-paned glass. It was difficult to hear, so we leaned down against the cold steel shelf and talked directly into the small audio area. I was incredibly uncomfortable in the cramped, dirty, and poorly-lit room. Sixty minutes later, it was time to leave. We placed our hands up against the dirty glass as if to give each other a hug through the panes. And with that, we turned and walked, each in our separate directions, to spend Christmas Eve in vastly different environments. It was the first, but certainly not the last, Christmas Eve that my brother would spend behind bars, nor the last time I would visit him in prison. As a scholar-practitioner and the first author on this piece, I aim for transparency when it comes to research on incarceration. My personal experiences shape the questions and areas of inquiry that we pursue in this chapter. These experiences have the ability to raise important questions that enliven research and help to make it meaningful. However, for research to be sustained and credible, that personal experience must be tempered by method and rigor. While some may perceive an irreconcilable tension between the profoundly “subjective” stance that comes from personal experience and the “objective” goals of a researcher, we argue that this juxtaposition is both common and nonproblematic. 84 Peterson, Cohen, and Smith To begin, the tension between objectivity and subjectivity is common. Corbin and Strauss explain that “each investigator enters the field with some questions or areas for observation, or will soon generate them” (1990, p. 6). Thus they acknowledge the improbability of entering a site without any ideas or questions but subsequently emphasize the importance of the researcher being open and able to let initial questions subside if the data point to other questions and constructs. Moreover, Glaser and Strauss (1967) suggest that scholars should acknowledge their role in the process because “certain ideas . . . can come from sources other than the data” (p. 6). Accordingly, “subjective ” inspiration and experience are common in scholarly work. This chapter is based on a collaborative effort designed to preserve the integrity and credibility of the research while capitalizing on the unique strengths that come with personal experience. Each methodological choice helps to balance and alleviate the tension between objectivity and subjectivity in scholarship . The juxtaposition of my “subjective” relationship to the prison system and our “objective” research goals provides a holistic approach to exploring the experiences of those with incarcerated loved ones in an effort to uncover and understand the communicative strategies used in these complex situations. Introduction The U.S. Department of Justice reports that nearly 7.2 million individuals are currently under the supervision of the justice system (probation, parole, jail, and prison), and nearly 2.3 million of those individuals are behind bars (Glaze, 2010). In this chapter, we explore the experiences and communication strategies of those who have loved ones in prison. In doing so, we strive to achieve three main aims. First, we challenge scholars to consider the importance and credibility of these often silenced voices in the system by giving their experience a name: courtesy incarceration. Second, we seek to uncover the communicative coping mechanisms used by loved ones to manage the often undesirable effects of incarceration on family and friends. We hope that this chapter will provide scholars with a new frame through which to study incarceration, practitioners with an important and overlooked group of individuals with which to engage dialogue, and families with a renewed sense of credibility that their struggles are real and important. In order to achieve these aims, we first provide a brief overview of previous research on family members of the incarcerated. Next, we introduce the concept of courtesy incarceration and argue that family and friends of the incarcerated may experience its burdens and, consequently, find ways to manage them. In order to examine this claim, we present data from interviews with individuals in prison waiting rooms about their communication strategies through modified labeling...

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