Assessing life situations of prisoner's wifes within the social work perspective

Prisoners' families are known to have many economical, psychological, and social problems. Wives of imprisoned men are the leading ones within the family having such problems. Few studies, conducted in Turkey regarding prisoners' families, are encountered in the literature. Therefore, the present study aims to contribute to the literature and be a guidance for the development of related social policies by pointing out the current issues, needs, and the life situations of the wives of imprisoned men. The study is designed with a qualitative research approach. In depth interviews are done with 17 women in total, all being wives of imprisoned men, living in İstanbul and Ankara. The interviewees are reached by the use of the snowball method. In the interviews, the interviewees' childhood experiences, marriage period, married life, spouses' interference with crime, life changes after the incarceration, social work needs are discussed. Majority of the interviewees are either primary school graduate or unschooled people. Many of them do not work and live on with the social aids given by the state. Economic conditions of many interviewees had not been good before their spouses' incarceration, but have gotten even worse after the incarceration. A good few interviewees had psychological difficulties right after the incarceration, but they have gotten better by time especially for their children. Many of the interviewees define their spouses' with good traits and none of them think of divorcement even though they have serious structural problems such as deception, alcohol-substance abuse, spouse irresponsibility, violence in their marriage. According to the interviewees, visiting their spouse in prison is economically costly, transportationwise hard, and psychologically wearing. Interviewees have stated that they had been facing several difficulties as a women within the society because of having an imprisoned spouse. Children, family, spouses' family, friend and state are the support mechanisms for the interviewees during absence of their spouse, even though none of them see themselves with sufficient support. Respondents are required to have more economical and psychological support. The main expectations of the respondents from the future are coming together with their spouse and starting a new life without issues.