One Foot on the Street and One in Prison: Experiencing Life in Open Prisons

ABSTRACT

This article explores the lived experience of imprisonment in Spain’s open prisons, where prisoners spend most of the day in the community and return to the institution at night. Based on semi-structured interviews with 18 people in three Spanish open prisons, it examines how this Southern European form of open conditions is experienced and situates it within broader international debates. The findings show that open imprisonment is deeply ambivalent—both liberating and painful—with narratives that diverge between predominantly positive and predominantly negative orientations. The study refines the understandings of the pains and ‘liberations’ of open prisons, showing how daily community contact fosters autonomy while generating specific challenges such as the ‘wandering situation’ and intrusive forms of supervision in personal life. It also illustrates that openness varies across and within countries, reflecting different penal logics and institutional practices that shape how freedom and control are balanced in everyday life under open conditions.