No Visitor’s Days: The Impact of the Pandemic in the Family and Intimate Relationships of Prisoners

The configuration of relationships in prison, both internal and between inside and outside, is quite distinctive to other contexts and its exploration can contribute to the understanding of practices and meanings traditionally associated with family and intimate relationships. Time in prison significantly alters the dynamics of the intimate life of prisoners, which is limited to visits, phone calls and letters. However, despite their closed nature, prisons are porous institutions, constantly connected with the outside. This paper describes the impact that the measures to prevent COVID-19 in prisons have had on the intimate and family relationships of prisoners, taking Spain as our case study. The analysis of secondary data and five interviews with key informants (two relatives of prisoners, two activists in prisons and a worker in prison) shows that these measures altered the nature and forms of the already existing universe of prisoners’ relationships with the outside, re-organising (and hierarchising) their support networks, particularly those loved ones and friends overflowing the traditional and/or nuclear understanding of the family. This contributes to narrowing the porosity of the prison. At the same time, the introduction of video calls has contributed to the opening of new possibilities, despite its limits. Possibilities that can also expand the bodily and sensitive experience of the family and intimate relations are also explored in this chapter.