‘“Where did Your Offending Come from?” It’s Not Unusual for Someone to Say it was the Death of a Parent’: Proposed Prisoners’ Grief Overload Theory

TY - JOUR

T1 - ‘“Where did Your Offending Come from?” It’s Not Unusual for Someone to Say it was the Death of a Parent’

T2 - Proposed Prisoners’ Grief Overload Theory

AU - Wilson, Marion

N1 - Funding Information: The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The author received a scholarship from the University of Hull (201408627). Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s) 2023.

PY - 2023/4/15

Y1 - 2023/4/15

N2 - The term overload has become recognised as a useful descriptor for the intense effect of stress following bereavement. This paper draws attention to the far-reaching effects of overload contributing to illegal activity. Both the intensity of the grief reaction and the propensity for criminal behaviour need to be contextualised in light of one another. Prisoners’ Grief Overload theory is proposed. The theory will demonstrate how a grieving person’s choice of maladaptive coping can damage the individual, society and the prison community in terms of safety and security, health and welfare. The phenomenon has economic, legal and political ramifications. Qualitative research undertaken in 2017 at ‘HMP North of England’, a male category C prison, will help illustrate theory generation.

AB - The term overload has become recognised as a useful descriptor for the intense effect of stress following bereavement. This paper draws attention to the far-reaching effects of overload contributing to illegal activity. Both the intensity of the grief reaction and the propensity for criminal behaviour need to be contextualised in light of one another. Prisoners’ Grief Overload theory is proposed. The theory will demonstrate how a grieving person’s choice of maladaptive coping can damage the individual, society and the prison community in terms of safety and security, health and welfare. The phenomenon has economic, legal and political ramifications. Qualitative research undertaken in 2017 at ‘HMP North of England’, a male category C prison, will help illustrate theory generation.

KW - attachment

KW - bereavement

KW - complicated grief

KW - cultural differences

KW - disenfranchised grief

KW - gender

KW - theories

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85153175777&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1177/00302228231169801

DO - 10.1177/00302228231169801

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85153175777

SN - 0030-2228

JO - Omega (United States)

JF - Omega (United States)

ER -