• Korean Journal of Culture and Social Issue
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.595-622
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• 2016

This study aims to understand the process of family reunion of the ex-offenders. To this end, Korea Rehabilitation Agency under Ministry of Justice and Healthy Family Support Center conducted intensive interviews with ex-offenders, their families and with 8 counselors who are in charge of ex-offenders and their families' residential, psychological, and educational support. The data collected through the interviews were analyzed by Consensus Qualitative Research(COR). The followings are the results: the counselors found out that most of ex-offenders had experienced unhappy childhood which was lack of healthy relationship with their parents. Secondly, counselors noticed a common feature among the families of ex-offenders. The common feature was that they keep the fact that one of their parents was imprisoned to their children as a secret. Thirdly, through the data analysis, counselors could understand various factors that affect reunion of ex-offenders' families: the factors that helped successful reunion were ex-offenders' sense of responsibility, open and healthy communication among family members, and mutual understanding of being a good family member, whereas, irresponsible dependance to other family members, denier and avoidance from the family members against ex-offenders, and lost sense of being a family member were the factors that discouraged the reunion. It turned out that the kinds of crime that ex-offenders committed also affected family reunion. The processes of reunion were easier for those who served their time with fraud, embezzlement, whereas, it was much more challenging for those who served their time with rape, violence, or murder. Fourthly, counselors learned that "relaxation" is the key factor in the process of reunion of ex-offenders' families. They also emphasized that there should be thorough monitoring process before the intervention in the reunion process. This study contributes in terms of finding healthy ways of intervention with ex-offenders' families and developing programs that help ex-offenders to recover their relationship with their family.