The Experience of Prisoners’ Parents: A Meta‐Synthesis of Qualitative Studies

The parents of prisoners have long drawn the attention of researchers, due to their role in the etiology of criminality as well as the importance of their support of their offspring during and after incarceration. However, although studies have shown that the parents of prisoners experience high levels of distress, burden, and social stigma, research into their experience is only now beginning to emerge. This metasynthesis examined the limited body of qualitative research on the experience of prisoners’ parents, as an exploratory step toward advancing the understanding of their experience. Relevant terms were used to systematically search key databases. Ten small‐scale studies, which varied in focus, location, and disciplinary orientation, met the inclusion criteria. The synthesis produced four core themes, reflecting findings regarding parents’ (primarily mothers’) experience of their offspring's incarceration: parenting from a distance; the burden of care; troubled parental identity; and social reaction. Furthermore, the findings suggested a number of possible mediating factors of this experience, such as parents’ social capital and their cognitive appraisal of their offspring's criminality. These themes imply a possible experience of “imprisonment by association” among the parents of inmates and illuminate features that may be unique to them. Given the inherent limitations regarding generalizability of a metasynthesis and the heterogeneity of the experiences of the parents represented by the articles reviewed, the findings call for future large‐scale quantitative studies to explore the challenges and therapeutic needs of parents of prisoners regarding the themes identified.     

September 11, 2001: The Clash of Competing Worldviews

The Life Era: Cosmic Selection and Conscious Evolution Eric Chaisson New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1987. 259 pages.     

L’anormalité du dommage : une notion juridique stabilisée ?

Medical liability, in accordance with liability law, is traditionally based on the triad of operative event, causal link and damage. The emergence of systems of no-fault liability gave rise to the concept of abnormal damage, which is a necessary condition for liability. In terms of medical liability, in 1958 the administrative courts ruled that this criterion was necessary in order to compensate medical damage in situations of liability for alleged misconduct, then from 1990 in situations of no-fault liability. This condition was extended to compensate medical hazard from 1993. The Court of Cassation refused to adopt a no-fault liability system, leading to unequal treatment. Thus, the law of March 4, 2002 created a system which, in situations of no-fault liability, allowed national solidarity to be engaged in the event of abnormal damage. However, the legislation did not clearly set out the character of this abnormality, and jurisprudential hesitation over this criterion has made compensation uncertain. In 2014, the administrative and judicial courts clarified their jurisprudence by adopting a more specific definition of this criterion of abnormality. However, a very restrictive view taken of this criterion means that many victims now risk being excluded from the scope of compensation. As such, this jurisprudential stability is perhaps but temporary.