Incarcerated mothers' views of their children's experience: A qualitative study in French nurseries

Abstract

In France, young children of incarcerated women live with their mothers in prison in specific units called nurseries, up to the age of 18 months. Only a few studies have examined the impact of this environment on these children. This study sought to explore through mothers' narratives how they perceive their children to experience this environment and how it affects their development. We used semistructured interviews to collect the perceptions of 25 mothers about their children's experience of daily life in 12 different prison nurseries in France. Interpretative phenomenological analysis was used to explore the data. According to mothers, prison is a sensorially aggressive environment for children that may impair the children's sensory abilities. The children's and mothers' emotional perceptions of anger, sadness, insecurity and imprisonment intertwine. Prison is home for these children, which leads them to establish strong bonds with this inside world-prison staff, other inmates-but to develop reluctances and concern about exploring the outside world. The prison's sensorial environment may overlay the sensorial environment created by the mother, interfering with early mother-child interactions and leading to emotional misattunement. The gap between what the mother and the child each feel to be their home, and the social group they feel they belong to, causes pain to the mothers. This could alter their mandate of being a protective shield that could reduce the traumatic potential of the carceral environment on their babies. These mothers' sentences must be reconsidered for the sake of their children.