Social injustice and collateral damage: The families and children of prisoners

In this chapter, we explore the wide-ranging experiences of the families of prisoners and argue that their circumstances need to be seen as more than just the by-product of criminal justice processes and that the inequities they experience should be addressed in their own right, if a society is to claim to be just. In thinking about the meaning of ‘justice’ within criminal justice it is important to consider the very real consequences of imprisonment which stretch beyond the prisoner and to consider the ways in which the state’s power to punish is wielded disproportionality against those who are already likely to be experiencing a range of social disadvantages.