‘“Where did Your Offending Come from?” It’s Not Unusual for Someone to Say it was the Death of a Parent’: Proposed Prisoners’ Grief Overload Theory

Abstract

The term overload has become recognised as a useful descriptor for the intense effect of stress following bereavement. This paper draws attention to the far-reaching effects of overload contributing to illegal activity. Both the intensity of the grief reaction and the propensity for criminal behaviour need to be contextualised in light of one another. Prisoners’ Grief Overload theory is proposed. The theory will demonstrate how a grieving person’s choice of maladaptive coping can damage the individual, society and the prison community in terms of safety and security, health and welfare. The phenomenon has economic, legal and political ramifications. Qualitative research undertaken in 2017 at ‘HMP North of England’, a male category C prison, will help illustrate theory generation.