How many people do you know that have been to prison?

[Bearybasket]

Only counting people you know quite well (say well enough to chat with so friends, family members or close colleagues sort of level) not passing acquaintances or friends of friends

None close.

Two, distantly that I am aware of. One is the ex FIL of an ex colleague (tenuous!) - he was a solicitor and got done for fraud - I went to their wedding so met him v.briefly.

The other was a boy my parents fostered over 40 years ago (only for a few short term emergencies). They read in the local paper that he’d been convicted of manslaughter about 20 years ago. Think it wasn’t his first crime. It was inevitable really, he had a dreadful childhood.

None that I'm aware of.

Friend‘s ex-husband - killed someone drink driving

Do POWs count? I knew a couple of elderly guys who had been in POW camps at the end of WW2. One later became a political prisoner in the DDR and served many years before release and transfer to the west.

One. My ex husband did a short sentence as a very misguided young adult. It was years before we met.

1. A cousin and an uncle.

Five I can think of off the top of my head. Three family members, a family friend, and a former partner of my mum who was around a lot when I was a teen.

Robbery, drugs, manslaughter as far as I know.

They went to prison for doing bad things, but they weren't necessarily bad people. I had a difficult time forming my own opinions around them as individuals as I grew up, they were/are people I love, and what who they were meant for who I was, but I came to terms with that a long time ago.

I do know other people who went to prison. A couple of former school friends (one it was definitely on the cards for, the other the typical "kept himself to himself" guy), acquaintances for driving offenses, but they weren't people I would say I knew well.

please can you tell us a bit more about what this was like for you? Were you a child or adult?

Why did he get jail time?

I came on here to say 6 but once I started counting realised its more like 15 family and friends. 😯

Loads

One, partner of a family member 16 years ago. We haven't spoken to him since. He is currently in prison again, 4th time that we know of, but they keep bloody letting him out to reoffend and destroy more lives.

None

Well if he's done his time what else are they supposed to do??

A lot, including friends, partner and ex partner.

One that I know about (family member). I am sure I've known many more, though! It's statistically impossible that no-one out of the hundreds I've known well enough to talk to has been to prison. It's not a thing I've ever asked 😂

I spent one night in a police cell, if that counts?

None.

None

i do know one person who would probably have ended up in prison if a wealthy relative had not generously reimbursed the victims of the perpetrators financial crimes.

None alive now (that I know of) but...
I was at Uni (same course) with a mature student who it turned out had previously murdered his mother and served time for it,
My dad was a Japanese POW - but I don't think that's what the OP meant.

Yeah she did but not as long as she was told to expect.
did he serve time? Of course not, never works that way.
however, when the local paper reported it they gave her side of it more than his so everyone knew.

One - a neighbour, the most friendly old grandma on the street. She’s lovely and funny, knows everyone. Then at a drinks party she got v drunk and told me that in her youth she spent a few years in
prison for trafficking cocaine!!!

None.

Professionally, many.
Otherwise, a few who went to prison as a result of protests and activism.
Some for drugs, way back in the hippy days.
And a friend who committed armed robbery (dead now)
And one of the sons of a family that we knew from church when I was a child grew up to become a paedophile.

One. He murdered a woman.
He might be in a psychiatric facility, I’m not sure.
Either way, it’s a life sentence.

Two. One the son of a former neighbour where we lived years ago, one the son of a friend.

Do you mean your dad was in a Japanese prisoner of war camp?
Or do you mean that your dad was a Japanese prisoner of war?
My apologies - I’m confused by your comment.
Both sound terrible.