Mass incarceration and symbiotic harms: How families and loved ones experience the criminal justice system

ABSTRACT Families constitute vital sources of support to the approximately two million people currently incarcerated in the United States by contributing financial assistance, providing emotional support, and promoting desistance. Existing research on families focuses on the experiences of partners or children rather than parents or adult siblings, and particularly on how family support can reduce recidivism. This paper incorporates the theoretical approach of symbiotic harms, which emphasizes the flow of harms into and out of the criminal justice system. Drawing on observations of three national, virtual support groups and 21 in-depth interviews with family members, this study investigates shared experiences across the criminal justice system and agentic responses to harm, from small acts of resistance to activism. The data reveal symbiotic harms in four key areas: financial and medical burdens, emotional adjustments, status disclosure, and negative experiences within prison walls. This research addresses a question largely unanswered by the existing symbiotic harms literature on how agency is defined and exercised. The data illustrate an important case study of the meanings that support group participants attach to their practices of agency: self-care as empowerment, reflexive engagement with processes of stigmatization, strategies for counteracting harms, and reframing setbacks as blessings.