Life experiences of the family members of convicted people: A qualitative research

Even if the detention of a family member contains some hope compared to convictions, it is a highly traumatic experience. The phenomenon of conviction, which is a hopeless experience for the rest of the family members, affects families more seriously in many ways. However; when the literature on the subject is examined, there are few studies on convict families in Turkey. Thus, this research aims to understand the changes, problems, needs and coping strategies experienced by convicts' families after convictions, in short, their life experiences after convictions. In the light of the information obtained about the life experiences of convicts' families, suggestions are made for the development of social policies and social services for convicts' families. In the research designed with a qualitative research model, a semi-structured interview form containing questions about the experiences of the families was used, and in-depth interviews were conducted with 17 convicts who were reached using the snowball method. The interviews with 14 women, whose husbands are in prison, and 3 men, whose wives are in prison, were analyzed and interpreted in the light of theoretical knowledge. The results of the research were discussed under four main headings: the results regarding the detention-convict process, the results regarding the changes in the family system, the results regarding the problems and needs of the families, and the coping strategies. When the aforementioned results were examined closely, it was seen that convicts' families had problems arising from economic, psychosocial and execution process, family structure, relations and communication changed after convictions, roles were restructured and families had serious needs in the face of problems they experienced. It has been found that families generally cope with the problems experienced emotionally and their awareness and access to services/supports are quite low.