Their spouses occasionally make the headlines. Some of them are even celebrities, unfortunately, as their cases are front-page news. But what about the wives? How do they live with the trial, the visits, the waiting? How do they cope with their partners’ years of detention, the transfers from prison to prison, the children who are growing up? What is their private life like when these couples get together after years of speaking, seeing and loving each other in an impersonal visiting room?
They, too, are often seen as guilty by association. The choice they make of sticking by their men, the daily struggles that that implies for them are rarely taken into consideration.
Luce Michel met eight of these women who agreed to speak anonymously. The reasons for their husbands’ convictions are varied: murder, rape, hold-ups, drug smuggling… and the sentences are of varying lengths. Some of the women had already had their own run-ins with the law; others were introduced to the world of prison through their men’s detention. Their love affair started before the incarceration or during it, and isn’t always easy afterwards…
The book’s only preconceived idea was to let the women speak. They are the ones who describe the cases their husbands were convicted for. What matters here is the way they take them into account, discuss it, live with it. Without pretending to be an investigation or a court of appeals, Convicts’ Wives simply tries to tell their truth.

Eight prisoners’ wives bear witness to their lives, to how they live with the trial, the years of their husbands’ incarceration, the waiting, the transfers… The repercussions on their daily lives, their work, their families, their friends. Sheds new light on the world of prison.