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Searching for the unexpected - understanding information-seeking behaviours of people new to prison visits
Ryan, Nathan Ryan, Nicole
Ryan, Nathan
Ryan, Nicole
Author
Abstract
Often, when an offender is sentenced their family and friends find themselves in a state of uncertainty. At this point, family and friends of prisoners need support and often find themselves alone to navigate and learn the correctional system to gain visitation approval. It is unknown how people new to visitation learns the rules and processes of prison visits to gain visitation access. This study explores 21 prison visitors’ information-seeking behaviour to understanding how people new to prison visitation learns to navigate the system to obtain visitation approval and identify any factors that might imped their ability to information-seek, thus delaying or preventing visitation. Using Flexible Pattern Matching Analysis we identified five factors that can occur prior to individual’s need to information-seek, and one key factor that was common during the visit experience that can impact peoples ‘ability to information seek’. Implications for prison visitation policy and practice are discussed.
Keywords
flexible pattern matching analysis, information seeking, prison visitation, prison visitors, uncertainty management theory
Date
2024
Type
Journal article
Journal
Book
Volume
Issue
Page Range
1-22
Article Number
ACU Department
Thomas More Law School
Faculty of Law and Business
Faculty of Law and Business
Collections
Relation URI
Event URL
Open Access Status
License
CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
File Access
Open
Notes
© 2024 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivativesLicense ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ ), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction inany medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivativesLicense ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ ), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction inany medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.