Abstract
The doubling of the inmate population during the 1980s and 1990s has been met, paradoxically, with an increasing numbers of prisons being closed down, bringing the national penitentiary system to a situation of chronic overcrowding, shortage of material and human resources, degradation of infrastructures and near collapse of prison services. This chapter presents Odemira prison facility, which stands out from this general panorama. As the readers enter Odemira, they are presented with methodological notes on the first days of fieldwork, the initial contact not only with the institution but also with its population, and the complexities that contributed to turn what was supposed to be a two-week stay into a year of continuous visits and in-depth study.
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Notes
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The topic of family relationships and imprisoned parents is widely covered in the prison literature. A very good example of the problems that arise when parents are imprisoned is Smith (2014), focusing specifically on the children.
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Frois, C. (2017). Entering Odemira Prison Facility. In: Female Imprisonment. Palgrave Studies in Prisons and Penology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63685-6_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63685-6_3
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