Objectives:
The purpose of the paper is to show the difficulties experienced by the families of persons serving prison sentences, as well as to analyse the possibilities of social assistance and support for families of prisoners in overcoming these problems.

Material and methods:
This paper is a review of scientific literature and legal documents and shows the scope of assistance provided to prisoners and their families.

Results:
Families of prisoners are often the subject of research because of their role in the process of rehabilitation and social reintegration of prisoners. Families themselves, however, and especially the problems they experience with the imprisonment of a family member, receive little attention.

Conclusions:
Families of people committing criminal acts are often dysfunctional families that are struggling with numerous social, emotional, and legal problems, and imprisonment of a family member further intensifies these problems. The analysis carried out in this paper shows that there is a lack of forms of assistance directed specifically to the families of prisoners, and if these families do benefit from the assistance of public institutions, they do so mainly indirectly, through the assistance provided to prisoners and through post-penitentiary assistance in the process of adaptation to life after release from prison.