Exploring ‘Betwixt and Between’ in a Prison Visitors’ Centre and Beyond

Abstract

In order to maintain relationships with their loved ones, family members will often spend a great deal of time (as well as expense and emotional labour) visiting their loved one in prison. When visiting inside the prison, visitors occupy the liminal space of the visit room. Though technical outsiders and legally free, they must accede to the institution’s demands; they are in a position of being neither free nor prisoner, but are somewhere in between.