Prison Experience Research Articles

Challenges of ageing in prisons and forensic psychiatric settings

IntroductionThere is a current trend towards an increase in the number of elderly prisoners due to the increase in life expectancy and the change in the attitude of society and the judicial system. The cut-off for “older offender” is defined from the age of 50, due to the lifestyle previous to prision and premature ageing.ObjectivesThe authors intend to understand the challenges of aging in prison and forensic services, highlighting the psychiatric comorbidities of inmates and how these services can adapt to the needs of this population.MethodsNon-systematic review of the literature.ResultsStudies of elderly in prisons and elderly forensic psychiatric patients are limited. Prisoners have increased physical and psychiatric morbidity and early mortality as they are more exposed to risk factors and more likely to have at least one health problem compared to older adults in the community. Compared to older people in the community, older prisoners are at higher risk for most psychiatric disorders including depression, psychosis, bipolar disorder, cognitive impairment, personality disorder and anxiety. Suicide rates are also higher among elderly prisoners. The inadequacy of the prison system to respond to the unique needs of elderly prisoners has a detrimental impact on their overall experience of incarceration. The development of specific services for elderly prisoners or the adaptation of mixed units for the elderly population is proposed.ConclusionsThe elderly population in prisons is growing and has higher risk of psychiatric pathology compared to community elders. Prison services with difficulties in identifying and meeting these needs.DisclosureNo significant relationships.

The Embodiment of Contempt: Ontario Provincial Prison Food.

Prison food is central to the prison experience and is a physically invasive manifestation of carceral power. This article draws on 61 interviews with individuals with lived experience of provincial prisons in Ontario, Canada. Participants reported that the food was unhealthy, small-portioned, bland, and steamed to the point that they could not discern what they were eating. Others reported living in fear of the food, whether because it was molding, spoiled, or had been tampered with. For many participants, their experience of incarceration was that of hunger and unwanted bodily changes. Poor quality prison food bolstered an underground food economy in which trading, gambling, or intimidation were used by prisoners to access more and/or better foods. Overall, prison food was a means through which social, political, and institutional contempt for prisoners was communicated to and embodied by prisoners.

Prisoners of the World Unite: The Internationalism of the 2 June Movement from Berlin Moabit Prison

Abstract When, in February 1975, the 2 June Movement kidnapped Peter Lorenz, the CDU candidate for mayor of West Berlin, it framed the act in terms of global solidarity. Lorenz was held in a ‘people’s prison’ (Volksgefängnis) on account of his symbolic responsibility for injustices taking place not only in West Berlin but also across the world, including Pinochet’s Chile and the Israel-Palestine conflict. Once in pretrial detention for the kidnapping, members of the group in Moabit prison continued to draw on this internationalist rhetoric, albeit as a means of connecting their own struggles in prison with those of liberation movements abroad. This article explores why this group—associated far more with local West Berlin initiatives than the Red Army Faction ever was—nevertheless deployed globalized rhetoric. It provides a new perspective on the 2 June Movement through targeted analysis of its written sources, which were central to how the group’s actions were perceived by outsiders. Clearly inflected by Marcuse’s theory of marginalized groups, the 2 June Movement narrated the ‘imprisonment’ of Peter Lorenz and its own prison experiences in later years in similar terms. In both cases, local experiences and actions on the ground in West Berlin were envisaged as having the potential to counter injustices taking place abroad. While there were limitations to this world-view, the 2 June Movement is representative of a form of revolutionary optimism capable of connecting the global with the local which was specific to West Berlin’s unique geohistorical circumstances.

What is trauma-informed practice? Towards operationalisation of the concept in two prisons for women

A cultural initiative, ‘Becoming Trauma-Informed’, was introduced into prisons in England and Wales from 2015 based on the work of American clinical psychologist, Dr Stephanie Covington, and as part of a more general trend towards the recognition and treatment of trauma-related conditions in the community and in mental health settings. Becoming trauma-informed training for Prison Officers in England and Wales was carried out in all 12 women’s prisons during 2015–2017 and began in the long-term high-secure male estate from May 2018. The becoming trauma-informed work is based on considerable expertise, and a deep commitment by experts and practitioners to the development of trauma-informed practice. The authors welcome this ‘trauma-turn’ in thinking and practice and describe an extended pilot attempt to operationalise and measure its impact on the prison experience. The results were disappointing. By highlighting challenges, and exploring meaning-in-practice, we hope to contribute to the improvement of these initiatives.

“I Literally Roll With The Punches”: Black and Latina Women Coping Through Parental Incarceration

Racial and ethnic disparities within the criminal legal system have been shown to disproportionately impact Black and Latinx children. Parental incarceration is associated with emotional and psychological stresses for children, but these effects can extend beyond incarceration. Research suggests that parental incarceration is not a discrete event and problems during childhood can exacerbate throughout the life course. Yet, little is known on how challenges faced by parental incarceration transcend to adulthood. Further, an examination on the long-term effects of parental incarceration through the lens of race, ethnicity, and gender remains understudied. In order to address this gap, this study focused on the lived experiences of young Black and Latina women. We utilized 11 semi-structured interviews to explicate how young Black and Latina women compartmentalize the experience of parental incarceration and use coping strategies. Using an interpretative phenomenological analysis, we found that these young women interpret parental incarceration as an ongoing process and rely on four coping strategies. Thus, our findings highlight that despite the challenges of parental incarceration, young Black and Latina women remain resilient by accepting the reality of their circumstances, keeping themselves occupied with tasks and activities, seeking their own social support systems and mental health services, and reconstructing their own prosocial identity.

Trauma, Mental Health Distress, and Infectious Disease Prevention Among Women Recently Released From Incarceration.

BackgroundU.S. women recently released from incarceration experience significantly higher rates of trauma and exacerbation of mental health conditions, and the period following release has been identified as a window of heightened risk for mental health distress and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), sexually transmitted infections (STI) and hepatitis C (HCV) transmissions. Despite these vulnerabilities, and an urgent need for supports, optimal engagement strategies remain unclear. WORTH Transitions is a program made up of two evidence-based interventions focused on improving the health of women returning to the community from incarceration with substance use disorders. Combining the two was designed to reduce HIV/STIs/HCV risks and increase overall health treatment engagement using a community health worker led intervention.MethodsWe examined associations between trauma, mental health symptomology, and HIV/STI/HCV outcomes among women who engaged in the WORTH Transitions intervention (N = 206) Specifically, bivariate and longitudinal multivariate models were created to examine associations between trauma and mental health distress (defined as depressive and PTSD symptoms), on (1) types of engagement in HIV/STIs/HCV prevention and behavioral health services; and (2) HIV/STIs/HCV risk outcomes. The women who engaged in the intervention were 18 years and older and some were White, Black and other racial or ethnic minority.ResultsPTSD symptomology and being a Black or indigenous woman of color was significantly (p = 0.014) associated with individual or group session engagement. Neither trauma nor PTSD symptoms were associated with higher HIV/STIs/HCV risks. Instead, relative to those who did not engage in HIV/STI/HCV risky behaviors, PTSD symptomology (p = 0.040) was associated with more than 3-fold increase in the probability of being lost to follow up (relative risk ratio = 3.722).ConclusionGiven the impact of PTSD-related symptoms on driving both engagement in HIV/STIs/HCV prevention services and intervention attrition among women leaving incarceration, physical and behavioral health interventions must be both overtly trauma- and mental health-informed. As was the case with WORTH Transitions, physical and behavioral health services for this population must include intentional and active support of the forms of treatment participants endorse to ensure maximal engagement.

Service user experiences of a psychologically enhanced resettlement service [PERS] in an English open prison

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to investigate the experiences of adult male prisoners presenting with personality difficulties in an open (Category D) prison in the UK and their experience of a pilot offender personality disorder (OPD) pathway Psychologically Enhanced Resettlement Service (PERS) in the prison.Design/methodology/approachThirteen participants who had engaged with PERS were interviewed about their experiences of open conditions and the service. The interviews were transcribed verbatim and analysed using thematic analysis.FindingsTwo superordinate themes were identified relating to participants’ experience of open conditions, highlighting the challenges they faced. These were “the impact of institutionalization” and “relational barriers”. Two superordinate themes were identified relating to participants’ experiences of PERS; these were “relationships with staff” and “service structure”. Each superordinate theme had subordinate themes.Research limitations/implicationsAnalysis is based on a small number of interviews in one male prison, and only qualitative data were collected. A mixed-methods approach would enable the triangulation of results.Practical implicationsClinical importance for the pilot service is established, and there should be consideration for the rollout of PERS to other open establishments.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study is the first to explore the experiences of Category D prisoners within the open estate engaging with a pilot OPD pathway service. Findings illustrate the difficulties OPD service users encounter managing the transition into open prison conditions and highlight elements of the PERS model that can support this process. Clinical and research implications are identified.

How Does a History of Trauma Affect the Experience of Imprisonment for Individuals in Women’s Prisons: A Qualitative Exploration

The majority of women in prison have experienced prior traumatic events. Imprisonment can also be considered a traumatic experience. Research exploring how imprisonment affects women with trauma histories is scarce. To examine this, qualitative interviews were conducted with 50 participants imprisoned in three women’s prisons in England. Four overarching themes were identified using thematic analysis: the traumatizing prison system; triggering power dynamics; trust in relationships; and surviving and thriving. Aspects of the prison environment and staff behavior were experienced as triggering and traumatizing, while peer relationships provided some mitigation of these difficulties. These findings have implications for the design of women’s prisons, improvements in staff recruitment and training, and the implementation of trauma-informed care for individuals in women’s prisons.

Jail Health Care in the Southeastern United States From Entry to Release.

Millions of people are incarcerated in US jails annually. These individuals commonly have ongoing medical needs, and most are released back to their communities within days or weeks. Jails are required to provide health care but have substantial discretion in how they provide care, and a thorough overview of jail health care is lacking. In response, we sought to generate a comprehensive description of jails' health care structures, resources, and delivery across the entire incarceration experience from jail entry to release. We conducted in-depth interviews with jail personnel in five southeastern states from August 2018 to February 2019. We purposefully targeted recruitment from 34 jails reflecting a diversity of sizes, rurality, and locations, and we interviewed personnel most knowledgeable about health care delivery within each facility. We coded transcripts for salient themes and summarized content by and across participants. Domains included staffing, prebooking clearance, intake screening and care initiation, withdrawal management, history and physicals, sick calls, urgent care, external health care resources, and transitional care at release. Ninety percent of jails contracted with private companies to provide health care. We identified two broad staffing models and four variations of the medical intake process. Detention officers often had medical duties, and jails routinely used community resources (e.g., emergency departments) to fill gaps in on-site care. Reentry transitional services were uncommon. Jails' strategies for delivering health care were often influenced by a scarcity of on-site resources, particularly in the smaller facilities. Some strategies (e.g., officers performing medical duties) have not been well documented previously and raise immediate questions about safety and effectiveness, and broader questions about the adequacy of jail funding and impact of contracting with private health care companies. Beyond these findings, our description of jail health care newly provides researchers and policymakers a common foundation from which to understand and study the delivery of jail health care.

He Ture Kia Tika/Let the Law Be Right: informing evidence-based policy through kaupapa Māori and co-production of lived experience

Background:Ninety-one per cent of Aotearoa New Zealand prisoners have been diagnosed with either a mental health or substance use disorder within their lifetime. Challenges exist in how to meet their needs. Diverse pūrākau (stories) of success in whānau ora (wellbeing) and stopping offending are missing from academic and public discourse that should direct law and policy changes. Aims and objectives:We describe a kaupapa Māori co-production project called He Ture Kia Tika/Let the Law be Right. We highlight how kaumātua (Māori indigenous elders), academics, and practitioners merged their voices with people with lived experiences of mental health, addiction, and incarceration to create justice policy and solutions. Methods:We focus on the theory and application of our co-production, directed by kaupapa Māori methodology. We describe the work of a co-design group that actively guides the project, from inception towards completion, using rangahau kawa (research protocols) as culturally clear guidelines and ethically safe practices. We then detail our processes involved in the collection of co-created pūrākau (storytelling) with 40 whānau (family) participants, and describe our continued collaboration to ensure law and policy recommendations are centred on lived experiences. Findings:Kaupapa Māori informed co-production ensured rangahau kawa (research protocol and guidelines) were created that gave clear direction for an engagement at all levels of the project. We see this as bringing to life co-production, moving beyond theory to the practicalities of ‘being’ and ‘doing’ with each other in safe, ethical ways for all. Discussions and conclusions:A strong association exists between unmet mental health needs and reoffending. Tackling cultural, health, social and justice issues requires a multi-layered approach from a range of rangatira (leaders including kaumātua/elders) and tohunga, or experts, of their lived experiences to inform future policy and law reform.

The role of grandparents in the family's penitentiary crisis: biographical research

This paper focuses on the role and importance of grandparents in the situation of the family's penitentiary crisis. In the light of biographical research carried out with two research groups: (1) adults who experienced a parent's incarceration in childhood and (2) parents of prisoners – the activities and key strategies of grandparents involved in supporting their grandchildren were analysed. The potential of Fritz Schütze's biographical sociology was used to carry out the study, based on the reconstruction of the life history of the respondents. On the basis of the narrative interviews, I described the specificity of two key contexts: (1) the (negative) experience of parentification in the situation of complete takeover of the care of grandchildren, and (2) (positive and negative) aspects of grandparents' occasional participation in family life. The obtained results allow to improve the knowledge about the experiences (needs and difficulties) of prisoners' families, especially focusing on intergenerational relations.

Narratives of life after political imprisonment: Republican and Loyalist ex-prisoners in Northern Ireland

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the impact of prison experience in ex-political prisoners in Northern Ireland in the context of changing and conflicting master narratives.Design/methodology/approachA series of nine interviews were conducted with Loyalist and Republican political ex-prisoners in Northern Ireland. Eight were male and one was female. All had been in prison for substantial sentences relating to the Troubles.FindingsThis study highlighted the challenges faced by political ex-prisoners regarding the changing conflicting master narratives in Northern Ireland and identified how they deal with these challenges. The participants adapted to post-conflict society by attempting to understand and make sense of their experiences, including justifying their actions as appropriate for the era and identifying positive changes in society resulting from the conflict.Research limitations/implicationsA narrative approach can be beneficial for understanding the experiences of political ex-prisoners. It enables a theoretical perspective to look not only at the personal but also at social elements of why people behave as they do. The findings demonstrate that political ex-prisoners do have different experiences to non-political ex-prisoners. The sample size was small and was drawn from a specific group of political ex-prisoners who were actively seeking reconciliation. The findings may be different for other groups.Practical implicationsA narrative approach can help the practitioner understand the context in which a person lives; ex-political prisoners may be very different from ordinary ex-prisoners because of the context in which they were imprisoned and the reasons for which they were imprisoned. They are likely to continue with the narrative of the conflict they fought in and may still have the same aims (e.g. Northern Ireland to become part of Ireland), though they may or may not believe in the same means. These are issues that should be discussed and elaborated when working with ex-political prisoners.Social implicationsThe master narratives active in the society into which the political ex-prisoner is released may impact the success or otherwise of their re-integration into society.Originality/valueUnderstanding the role of conflicting master narratives in dealing with the implications of being an ex-political prisoner.

“Guilty of Being Free”: An Intellectual vs. Soviet Penal System (Prison Letters and Drawings of Sergei Parajanov)

Sergei Parajanov was one of the most innovative directors of postwar Soviet cinema, which made him suspect to the Soviet authorities and eventually led Parajanov to serving a prison sentence. This article discusses how the trauma of Parajanov’s prison experience was reflected in the textual and visual output (letters, drawings and collages) that he created during his imprisonment out of the materials at hand. The study relies on comparative-historical and semiotic methods. Parajanov’s homosexuality made his position in prison precarious and ambiguous. He went through a variety of occupations and laboriously navigated both the prison hierarchy and Soviet penal system’s vigilant control. However, by his own count, Parajanov crafted 800 objects during his imprisonment. The article explores the recurring motives such as the crane hook, halo, and a hunched posture. This imagery is placed in the context of Parajanov’s everyday life in prison and is interpreted in the light of his textual documents from that period.

A Gendered Approach to the Yu Chi Chan Club and National Liberation Front during South Africa's Transition to Armed Struggle

AbstractSouth Africa's anti-apartheid struggle reflected an ideal of heroic masculinity that ignored and depreciated women as active political agents. This has contributed to a post-apartheid social order that accepts formal gender equality but that perpetuates gender inequality by discounting women's experiences. This article examines the little-known and short-lived Yu Chi Chan Club (YCCC) and National Liberation Front (NLF). Tiny Cape Peninsula-based breakaways from the Non-European Unity Movement – an African National Congress rival – the YCCC and NLF were exceptional amongst early 1960s underground groups in their systematic attempts to theorize guerrilla struggle and assess its applicability to South African conditions and, in the NLF's case, to build a cell structure through political education. Although the NLF's idealized notion of revolutionary life was premised on an abstract individual with traits then associated with public and vocal male activists, nonetheless women participated as equal abstract individuals. The NLF's relatively horizontal cell structure, small cell size, and lack of hierarchy made participation easier for both women and men, allowing women to operate equally within the political space. From their gendered upbringing and early experiences in hierarchical organizations to their brief experience of equality within the YCCC and NLF, the women were then forced into a prison system with an extremely rigid and unequal gender divide. Subjected to the state's regendering project, the political space available to the NLF's women prisoners shrank far more than it did for their male comrades, whose prison experiences became the measure of anti-apartheid politics.

Incarcerated Bodies – Embodied Autoethnography in Prison

Prison is a study field in which everyone – inmates, guards, and prison researchers – experiences powerful sensory stimuli comprised of sounds, sights, and smells in a crowded, closed space. Yet traditional academic research has socialized researchers to “wash away” their physical and emotional feelings for fear they would jeopardize the scientific nature and validity of their studies. Nevertheless, at times in a prison setting, the researchers’ bodies are the only tool that enables them to document what goes on; so much so that ignoring their bodies and emotions leads to a loss of valuable information. Using embodied autoethnography (EA), I have examined bodily experiences in prison as reflected in the staff's conversations about the prisoners, how the prisoners speak of themselves, and the researcher's own prison experience while facilitating theater and study groups in an Israeli prison. I contend that the staff treats the prisoners' bodies as one would a messy body, which then becomes a metonymy for the prisoners' criminal personality. Although the prisoners internalize this standpoint, they continuously undermine it by boasting bodies that are both aesthetic and tidy. In conclusion, I claim that prison inmates are attentive to the self-body of all those with whom they interact. They use performance and physical gestures to build relationships while expressing vulnerability and empathy. Prisoners forge mutual emotional ties with researchers they identify as having a psychic deadness and with whom they are able to engage in a process of emotional bartering. The study sheds light on the incarceration experience and effects of human bodies in prison, emphasizing the importance of the use of qualitative methodologies that give voice to body, senses, and emotions.

Sintsincks to Sing Sing: Empire, the War of 1812, and the Transformation of U.S. Prisons

In the 1820s, incarcerated workers constructed Sing Sing Prison between the Hudson River and a limestone quarry. The prison’s name evoked the site’s legacy of conquest and colonization, while the War of 1812 served as a catalyst for large prisons like Sing Sing where confinement would be shaped by labor, violence, and coercion. During the war, both the British and the United States held captives in large prison complexes in North America and England. Initially envisioned as humane alternatives to earlier prison ships, British and U.S. military prisons soon became sites of intimidation and violence. Soon after, the cultural memory of the war helped reshape the meaning and experience of incarceration at Sing Sing. This led prison advocates, including veterans of the war, to reject the religious idealism of earlier prison advocates without rejecting prisons altogether.

"Vigour to sustain": The Experience of Imprisonment and Stoic Principles in Lord Byron's The Lament of Tasso

Tasso as an exemplary Stoic figure begins in his motivations. Whereas the biblical figures typically devote themselves entirely to God, Tasso concentrates on his own mental state, and the ways by which he does so leads straight to Byron's interest in Stoicism that surfaces in his letters, journals, and reading lists, composed since adolescence. This interest led Byron to adopt some of their key notions about, Thomas Rolleston writes, one's "highest spiritual faculty and deepest sense of reason" by which a suffering protagonist is able to maintain dignity (252). In one of his accounts composing "Detached Thoughts," penned between 15 October 1821 and 18 May 1822, Byron is, Rolleston continues, interested in the "Stoic vision" of "the supremacy of the human soul over the human body" (23) referenced in both Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius (BLJ 9: 45). In the same journal, Byron reveals a firm belief in the perpetual nature of internal human working: "Of the immortality of the Soul—it appears to me that there can be little doubt—if we attend for a moment to the action of Mind.—It is in perpetual activity" (BLJ 9: 45). Byron perceives an intimate relationship between the constant "action" of the human mind and insoluble burdens of physical ordeals when understanding the two thinkers: "the Stoics Epictetus & Marcus Aurelius call the present state 'a Soul which drags a Carcase'—a heavy chain to be sure, but all chains being material may be shaken off … that the Mind is eternal—seems as possible as that the body is not so" (45).

A Word from the President

The Association for Middle East Women’s Studies (AMEWS) is honored to cosponsor and participate in a celebration of the life and work of Nawal El Saadawi, who died on March 21, 2021, at the age of eighty-nine.El Saadawi’s life and legacy are at the heart of what AMEWS stands for. Whether writing about medicine or women-related issues in politics, religion, and sexuality, El Saadawi had addressed topics central to the AMEWS mission since the organization’s inception in 1985.Generations of AMEWS members have been inspired by El Saadawi’s life and writings. She broke taboos and linked the liberation of women with the political and cultural liberation of the nation—topics that so many AMEWS members wrote about and discussed in dozens of panels, hence transmitting her legacy from generation to generation.Inside the MENA region, El Saadawi’s writings shocked governments, religious scholars, and intellectuals and subjected her to accusations of blasphemy. Her books were banned, and she herself was imprisoned for her fearless writings and spent years in exile for saying, “I speak the truth, and truth is dangerous.”El Saadawi condemned anything she considered a tool of women’s oppression. In The Hidden Face of Eve she describes the physical and psychological trauma of female circumcision; the practice was criminalized in Egypt in 2008. She denounced virginity tests sold in British clinics. “Circumcision was not my choice, but now I have the choice to say what I think of it.” She never turned her back on any form of women’s oppression.El Saadawi addressed women’s issues throughout the modern history of the MENA region. Her thought evolved with the evolution of the phases, but one message remained consistent: women have brains that some religious people (whom she qualified as “traders of religion”) want to veil. This is a message she repeated endlessly to the youth during and after the Arab Spring. When asked by a CNN journalist on August 17, 2016, whether she was pessimistic about the future of the region, she replied in Arabic: I am always optimistic; I even obtained an Award of Optimism from Spain recently. Optimism and hope extend my life. I transform every negative thing into a positive one; I transformed my prison experience into a positive experience, and any attack on me becomes a positive thing because I turn the attack back against the attacker. All pioneers of this world were attacked, imprisoned and even killed, and I am not different. Attacks do not depress me because they make me more influential. I don’t know why people are afraid of attacks.These positive words are what the youth of the MENA region need. They are words that future generations of AMEWS and JMEWS need to hear.

Gothic horror and dictatorship in Latin American film: The detention centre as a haunted house in Crónica de una fuga/Chronicle of an Escape (Caetano 2006)

This article examines how Crónica de una fuga/Chronicle of an Escape () uses Gothic horror conventions, particularly the haunted house, to represent the experiences of political prisoners at a clandestine detention centre under the last Argentine dictatorship (1976–83). Though understudied until recently, the Gothic and the haunted house in Latin America have a long cultural history in which their transnational meanings have been adopted, adapted and expanded to suit local contexts, thus evoking both buried pasts and traumatic origins, such as the legacies of colonialism or dictatorial violence, as well as contemporary crises. This article demonstrates how Crónica de una fuga utilizes a Gothic aesthetic to reflect political terror’s effect on space and time, representing the clandestine detention centre as haunted house in order to make legible the oft-suppressed experience of state-sponsored political terror under the Argentine dictatorship. Moreover, the film reveals the Gothic nature of the military government’s strategies to instil fear in the populace. By aiding us to understand the political terror of the past, Crónica’s haunted house also helps its viewers contend with and memorialize its ongoing legacies.

Displaced Persons’ Experiences of Trauma and Responses to Contemporary Crisis in Europe: An Oral History of Engagement with Refugees

Abstract The contemporary refugee crisis is an ongoing global concern. For the many East European displaced persons who were resettled in Queensland following the Second World War, these events are particularly poignant. Their prior experiences of violence, incarceration and encampment are being echoed in current developments, and contribute to their approach towards these events today. While scholars have considered generalised public attitudes towards refugees, little comparative research exists to assess the impact of this situation on displaced persons in Australia. Even less knowledge exists to inform practitioners’, scholars’, and policy makers’ understanding of how former refugees are engaging with this current crisis, and thus how resettled refugees can be supported as they reconcile their own experiences of violence and loss with public debate surrounding the validity of refugees’ claims for asylum. This article shows that the displacement and trauma of post-war Polish, Ukrainian, and Latvian displaced persons retain an ongoing influence on their perceptions of crisis and displacement in the present. It reveals a unique response to mass refugee movements that speaks to their own experiences as displaced persons. This reflects the way in which these displaced families’ remembered experiences have become crucial to their engagement with contemporary events and refugees.