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1
Waks, Allison. "Federal Incarceration by Contract in a Post-Minneci World: Legislation to Equalize the Constitutional Rights of Prisoners." University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform, no. 46.3 (2013): 1065. http://dx.doi.org/10.36646/mjlr.46.3.federal.
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In the 2012 case Minneci v. Pollard, the United States Supreme Court held that federal prisoners assigned to privately-run prisons may not bring actions for violations of their Eighth Amendment right against cruel and unusual punishment and may instead bring actions sounding only in state tort law. A consequence of this decision is that the arbitrary assignment of some federal prisoners to privately-run prisons deprives them of an equal opportunity to vindicate this federal constitutional right and pursue a federal remedy. Yet all federal prisoners should be entitled to the same protection under the United States Constitution-regardless of the type of prison to which they are assigned. This Note discusses the national trend toward prison privatization and the current asymmetry in legal protections and remedies available to prisoners depending on whether they are assigned to federally-run or privately-run prisons. It concludes by proposing federal legislation that would provide uniformity in the protection of federal prisoners against cruel and unusual punishment.
2
Kim, Dae-Young. "Prison-Based Economic Development: What the Evidence Tells Us." International Journal of Rural Criminology 7, no. 3 (March 28, 2023): 357–85. http://dx.doi.org/10.18061/ijrc.v7i3.8679.
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Since the late 1970s, there have been significant increases in the number of prisons and prisoners held in small towns and rural areas in the United States. Rural small towns have used prison construction and management as an economic development strategy. Although prisons were once seen as misfortune and disappointment to residents, since the 1980s, prison hosting has become a last resort for impoverished rural towns with desperate need of jobs. Prisons have been expected to fill the void when local industries and businesses closed down their operations in the 1980s economic crisis. While mass imprisonment and the prison boom in the United States have been important topics of research in the criminal justice field, less is known about prison-based economic development and its effects on local economies. This study conducts a literature review of U.S. studies, discusses theoretical and empirical limitations in the literature, and offers implications for research and policy development.
3
Jewell Bohlinger, B. "Greening the Gulag: Austerity, neoliberalism, and the making of the “green prisoner”." Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space 3, no. 4 (October 3, 2019): 1120–36. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/2514848619879041.
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Over the past 30 years the U.S. prison population has exploded. With the impact of climate change already here, we are also seeing new critiques of mass incarceration emerge, namely their environmental impact. In response to these burgeoning critiques as well as calls to action by the Justice Department to implement more sustainable and cost-effective strategies in prisons, the United States is experiencing a surge in prison sustainability programs throughout the country. Although sustainability is an important challenge facing the world, this paper argues that while “greening” programs seem like attempts to reform current methods of imprisonment, sustainability programming is an extension of the neoliberalization of incarceration in the United States. By emphasizing cost cutting while individualizing rehabilitation, prisons mobilize sustainability programming to produce “green prisoners” who are willing to take responsibility for their rehabilitation and diminish their economically burdensome behaviors (i.e. excessive wastefulness). Using semi-structure journals and interviews at three Oregon prisons, this paper investigates these ideas through the lens of the Sustainability in Prisons Project.
4
Stoliker, Bryce E. "Attempted Suicide: A Multilevel Examination of Inmate Characteristics and Prison Context." Criminal Justice and Behavior 45, no. 5 (February 9, 2018): 589–611. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0093854818754609.
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Correctional institutions in the United States witness higher rates of suicide compared with the general population, as well as a higher number of attempted suicides compared with completed cases. Prison research focused little attention on investigating the combined effects of inmate characteristics and prison context on suicide, with studies using only one level of analysis (prison or prisoner) and neglecting the nested nature of inmates in prisons. To extend this literature, multilevel modeling techniques were employed to investigate individual- and prison-contextual predictive patterns of attempted suicide using a nationally representative sample of 18,185 inmates in 326 prisons across the United States. Results revealed that several individual-level factors predicted odds for attempted suicide, such as inmate characteristics/demographics, prison experiences, having a serious mental illness, and symptoms of mental health issues. Some prison-contextual variables, as well as cross-level interaction effects, also significantly predicted odds for attempted suicide. Policy and research implications are discussed.
5
Jefferson, William J. "The Special Perils of Being Old and Sick in Prison." Federal Sentencing Reporter 32, no. 5 (June 2020): 276–84. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/fsr.2020.32.5.276.
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The United States Supreme Court declared in 1976 that deliberate indifference to the serious medical needs of prisoners constitutes the unnecessary and wanton infliction of pain…proscribed by the Eighth Amendment. It matters not whether the indifference is manifested by prison doctors in their response to the prisoner’s needs or by prison guards intentionally denying or delaying access to medical care or intentionally interfering with treatment once prescribed—adequate prisoner medical care is required by the United States Constitution. My incarceration for four years at the Oakdale Satellite Prison Camp, a chronic health care level camp, gives me the perspective to challenge the generally promoted claim of the Bureau of Federal Prisons that it provides decent medical care by competent and caring medical practitioners to chronically unhealthy elderly prisoners. The same observation, to a slightly lesser extent, could be made with respect to deficiencies in the delivery of health care to prisoners of all ages, as it is all significantly deficient in access, competencies, courtesies and treatments extended by prison health care providers at every level of care, without regard to age. However, the frailer the prisoner, the more dangerous these health care deficiencies are to his health and, therefore, I believe, warrant separate attention. This paper uses first-hand experiences of elderly prisoners to dismantle the tale that prisoner healthcare meets constitutional standards.
6
Sims, Kaitlyn M., Jeremy Foltz, and Marin Elisabeth Skidmore. "Prisons and COVID-19 Spread in the United States." American Journal of Public Health 111, no. 8 (August 2021): 1534–41. http://dx.doi.org/10.2105/ajph.2021.306352.
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Objectives. To empirically evaluate the relationship between presence of a state or federal prison and COVID-19 case and death counts. Methods. We merged data on locations of federal and state prisons and of local and county jails with daily case and death counts in the United States. We used a selection-on-observables design to estimate the correlation between prisons and COVID-19 spread, controlling for known correlates of COVID-19. Results. We found empirical evidence that the presence and capacities of prisons are strong correlates of county-level COVID-19 case counts. The presence of a state or federal prison in a county corresponded with a 9% increase in the COVID-19 case count during the first wave of the pandemic, ending July 1, 2020. Conclusions. Our results suggest that the public health implications of these facilities extend beyond the health of employees and incarcerated individuals, and policymakers should explicitly consider the public health concerns posed by these facilities when developing pandemic-response policy.
7
Stewart, Rebekah J., Kala M. Raz, Scott P. Burns, J. Steve Kammerer, Maryam B. Haddad, Benjamin J. Silk, and Jonathan M. Wortham. "Tuberculosis Outbreaks in State Prisons, United States, 2011–2019." American Journal of Public Health 112, no. 8 (August 2022): 1170–79. http://dx.doi.org/10.2105/ajph.2022.306864.
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Objectives. To understand the frequency, magnitude, geography, and characteristics of tuberculosis outbreaks in US state prisons. Methods. Using data from the National Tuberculosis Surveillance System, we identified all cases of tuberculosis during 2011 to 2019 that were reported as occurring among individuals incarcerated in a state prison at the time of diagnosis. We used whole-genome sequencing to define 3 or more cases within 2 single nucleotide polymorphisms within 3 years as clustered; we classified clusters with 6 or more cases during a 3-year period as tuberculosis outbreaks. Results. During 2011 to 2019, 566 tuberculosis cases occurred in 41 state prison systems (a median of 3 cases per state). A total of 19 tuberculosis genotype clusters comprising 134 cases were identified in 6 state prison systems; these clusters included a subset of 5 outbreaks in 2 states. Two Alabama outbreaks during 2011 to 2017 totaled 20 cases; 3 Texas outbreaks during 2014 to 2019 totaled 51 cases. Conclusions. Only Alabama and Texas reported outbreaks during the 9-year period; only Texas state prisons had ongoing transmission in 2019. Effective interventions are needed to stop tuberculosis outbreaks in Texas state prisons. (Am J Public Health. 2022;112(8):1170–1179. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2022.306864 )
8
Petroff, Alyssa M. "Behind Bars: Secrecy in Arizona’s Private Prisons’ Labor Pool." Journal of Civic Information 4, no. 2 (September 30, 2022): 1–16. http://dx.doi.org/10.32473/joci.v4i2.132117.
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Prisons run by private corporations in the United States have at hand a pool of individuals who are, by law, required to work while they are incarcerated. This article examines the secrecy behind the use of inmate labor, including on-the-job injuries sustained by prisoners, focusing on the state of Arizona as a case study. Ultimately, the article recommends that states should create oversight boards of its private prison system or allow private prison records to be accessible through already existing public records laws.
9
Mignon, Sylvia. "Health issues of incarcerated women in the United States." Ciência & Saúde Coletiva 21, no. 7 (July 2016): 2051–60. http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/1413-81232015217.05302016.
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Abstract Health care within jails and prisons in the United States is typically insufficient to meet the medical and psychological needs of female inmates. Health services are often of low quality, especially in the areas of reproductive medicine. Mental illness, substance abuse, a trauma history, and sexual victimization while incarcerated can predict a more difficult adjustment to a correctional environment. Incarcerated women who are able to maintain contact with family members, especially children, can have a better prison adjustment. Recommendations are made to improve the types and quality of health care delivered to women in jails and prisons in countries around the world.
10
Scott, Jason Bartholomew. "“Whoever Dies, Dies”: A Pedagogical Model forUnderstanding the COVID-19 Outbreak in United States Prisons." Human Organization 80, no. 4 (November 29, 2021): 282–91. http://dx.doi.org/10.17730/1938-3525-80.4.282.
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A year into the COVID-19 pandemic, nearly half of the United States prison population, or five times the rate found in the general population, had been infected. Limited social distancing and difficult to implement preventative measures helped to spread COVID-19 in prisons, while many incarcerated individuals felt that government policy prevented their ability to self-care. These feelings of alienation reflect a history of policy that links disease to deviance and social death. Based on the written self-reflections of anthropology students in Wisconsin prisons, this article outlines an ethnographic and pedagogical model for analyzing pandemic policy. Students learned to relate anthropological terminology to their critiques of policy and revealed how prisoners adapted to feelings of invisibility and hopelessness during a pandemic.
11
Gatewood, Britany J., and Adele N. Norris. "Silencing Prisoner Protests: Criminology, Black Women and State-sanctioned Violence." Decolonization of Criminology and Justice 1, no. 1 (October 22, 2019): 52–77. http://dx.doi.org/10.24135/dcj.v1i1.8.
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Protests and resistance from those locked away in jails, prisons and detention centers occur but receive limited, if any, mainstream attention. In the United States and Canada, 61 instances of prisoner unrest occurred in 2018 alone. In August of the same year, incarcerated men and women in the United States planned nineteen days of peaceful protest to improve prison conditions. Complex links of institutionalized power, white supremacy and Black resistance is receiving renewed attention; however, state-condoned violence against women in correctional institutions (e.g., physical, sexual and emotional abuse, and medical neglect by prison staff) is understudied. This qualitative case study examines 10 top-tier Criminology journals from 2008-2018 for the presence of prisoner unrest/protest. Findings reveal a paucity of attention devoted to prisoner unrest or state-sanctioned violence. This paper argues that the invisibility of prisoner unrest conceals the breadth and depth of state-inflicted violence against prisoners, especially marginalized peoples. This paper concludes with a discussion of the historical legacy and contemporary invisibility of Black women’s resistance against state-inflicted violence. This paper argues that in order to make sense of and tackle state-condoned violence we must turn to incarcerated individuals, activists, and Black and Indigenous thinkers and grassroots actors.
12
Struthers Montford, Kelly. "Prison Zooing and Conservation: Human and Animal Caging in a Time of Ecological Catastrophe." Animal Studies Journal 12, no. 2 (2023): 110–33. http://dx.doi.org/10.14453/asj/v12i2.6.
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Prisons are responsible for the social and biological death of the humans trapped within them, the animals whom it coerces prisoners to farm and slaughter, free-living animals displaced by prison building, as well as the ecosystems and waters destroyed by prison effluent which makes the lives of those dependent upon these systems and resources for survival, unliveable. In the context of the Sixth Extinction, the prison is at once one of the most resource intensive institutions contributing to Anthropogenic climate change and biodiversity loss, and paradoxically, in the last two decades, sometimes positioned similarly to zoos as an ecological saviour of threatened species. The most established example of this is the Sustainability in Prisons Project that operates in many United States prisons. Specific to conservation, it trains prisoners – often in partnerships with zoos – to captively rear endangered animals and plants. There is also a zoo located on the grounds of a Florida prison in which prisoners care for abandoned animals, which is open to the public for tours. This article argues that the current initiatives of prison zoos and prison conservation programs reflect the trajectory of animal zoo eras and human zoos, with unique implications: two institutions of captivity, the zoo and the prison, now reify each other under the auspices of ecological conservation – a project whose need and operation continues the racialized and anthropocentric projects that gave it rise.
13
Dewey, Susan, Brittany VandeBerg, Ariane Prohaska, and Lauren Yearout. "Women Incarcerated in Rural Southern Prisons in the United States: A Review of Existing Multidisciplinary Literature and Suggestions for Future Directions." International Journal of Rural Criminology 7, no. 3 (March 28, 2023): 386–414. http://dx.doi.org/10.18061/ijrc.v7i3.8909.
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Prisons in the Southern United States are a particularly unique kind of rural institutions not only because of their geographic locations, social climates informed by the rural cultures of staff and prisoners, and, for many older Southern prisons, their roots in plantation agriculture. Despite these realities, rural criminology has yet to systematically synthesize and explore what existing research indicates about the everyday lives of over 30,000 women currently serving time in state prisons throughout the Southern United States. The present study attempts to fill this gap in the literature by synthesizing all the available literature on women incarcerated in rural Southern prisons and identifying four prevailing themes in this body of work: regional culture in historical context, relationships and social dynamics, victimization and wellbeing, and journeys through the system from sentencing to reentry.
14
Caravaca-Sánchez, Francisco, Nancy Wolff, and Brent Teasdale. "Exploring Associations Between Interpersonal Violence and Prison Size in Spanish Prisons." Crime & Delinquency 65, no. 14 (April 9, 2018): 2019–43. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0011128718763134.
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The majority of research based on prisons in the United States has found a positive association between prison size and inmate victimization. This study estimates rates and identifies inmate and institutional characteristics associated with victimization in the Spanish prisons, with special attention on the prison size. Data were collected from a sample of male inmates aged 18 years or older ( n = 2,484) located in eight prisons in the southeast of Spain. Holding inmate characteristics constant, rates of victimization were significantly and substantively higher in larger prisons. Understanding the prison size–victimization association requires further qualitative investigation to identify whether size creates more spaces for victimization (structural opportunities) and/or lapses in supervision due to depersonalization or impersonalization (social distancing).
15
Lawrence, Sarah, and Paula Devine. "Health and Wellbeing Needs of Older Male Prisoners." International Journal of Mens Social and Community Health 5, SP1 (July 23, 2022): e66-e82. http://dx.doi.org/10.22374/ijmsch.v5isp1.70.
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Introduction: Older men aged 50 years and over are the fastest-growing cohort in the prisons of the United States (US) and the United Kingdom (UK). This reflects wider demographic change, such as increased life expectancy, as well as harsher sentencing policies, and an increased eagerness of courts to pursue historical offenses particularly relating to sexual crimes. Research has shown that older men in prison often experience poorer physical health than younger prisoners and those with similar age in the general public. However, to date, no such study has explored the health-related needs of older men held in Northern Ireland prisons. The aim of this research was to explore the health and wellbeing needs of older men held in custody in NorthernIreland.Method: A questionnaire was completed by 83 men aged 50 years or over, who were in prison in Northern Ireland in 2016. Comparisons were made with similar community-based surveys.Results: The data showed that on many indicators, older prisoners experience worse health than their peers living in the community.Conclusion: These findings suggest that there is a need for appropriate healthcare planning for older men in prison which recognizes how their health may differ from other age cohorts within prison, as well as from those living outside a custodial establishment.
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Francisco, Nicole A. "Bodies in Confinement: Negotiating Queer, Gender Nonconforming, and Transwomen’s Gender and Sexuality behind Bars." Laws 10, no. 2 (June 17, 2021): 49. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/laws10020049.
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The criminal punishment system plays a critical role in the production of race, gender, and sexuality in the United States. The regulation of marginalized women’s bodies—transwomen, butches, and lesbians—in confinement reproduces cis-heteronormativity. Echoing the paternalistic claims of protection that have inspired “bathroom bills,” gender-segregated prison facilities have notoriously condemned transwomen prisoners to men’s prisons for the “safety” of women’s prisons, constructing cisgender women as “at risk” of sexual assault and transgender women as “risky”, overlooking the reality of transwomen as the most at risk of experiencing sexual violence in prisons. Prisons use legal and medical constructions of gender that pathologize transgender identity in order to legitimize health concerns; for example, the mutilation of the body in an effort to remove unwanted genitalia as evidence to warrant a diagnosis of gender identity disorder, or later gender dysphoria. This construction of transgender identity as a medical condition that warrants treatment forces prisoners to pathologize their gender identity in order to access adequate gender-affirming care. By exploring the writings of queer and trans prisoners, we can glean how heteronormativity structures gender and sexuality behind bars and discover how trans prisoners work to assemble knowledge, support, and resources toward survival.
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S. Ulen, Thomas. "REVIEW: THE CRIME DECLINE, MASS INCARCERATION, AND SOCIETAL WELL-BEING." GNLU JOURNAL OF LAW & ECONOMICS 1, no. 1 (September 10, 2018): 139–74. http://dx.doi.org/10.69893/gjle.000001.
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One of the most dramatic events in the United States of the past almost 30 years has been the remarkable decline in the amount of crime. Since 1991 there has been an almost (an important qualifier, as we shall see) continuous decline in both violent and non-violent crime in the United States. At the same time that this decline was occurring, there was an increase (although not a continuous increase, as we shall also see) in the number of people incarcerated in prisons and jails in the U.S. The figures are stark. In 1980 there were approximately 500,000 people being held in all federal and state prisons and local jails in the country. By 2005 there were 2.5 million people incarcerated in the United States. That figure was by far the highest rate of incarceration in the developed world. In addition, the United States accounted for 25 percent of all the prisoners in the world.
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Scallan, Eilish, Kari Lancaster, and Fiona Kouyoumdjian. "The “problem” of health: An analysis of health care provision in Canada’s federal prisons." Health: An Interdisciplinary Journal for the Social Study of Health, Illness and Medicine 25, no. 1 (May 6, 2019): 3–20. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1363459319846940.
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The United Nations states that prisoners should enjoy the same standards of health care that are available in the community. Despite this, persons in prison experience barriers to care and face unique health challenges. Given the ways in which prisons shape health outcomes for incarcerated persons, it is important to interrogate how the provision of health care is governed in custodial settings. In this article, we examine one important aspect of governance: legislation governing the provision of health care in prisons. We view this issue through a critical lens, building on a body of poststructural scholarship which has illuminated how laws and policies are not merely tools of governance but also key sites for the production of meanings around social “problems,” including the “problem of health.” Taking Canada’s Corrections and Conditional Release Act as a case example and applying Carol Bacchi’s “What’s the Problem Represented to Be” analytical framework, we examine how the specific representation of “health” in this legislation works to produce effects for persons in federal prison. Three key themes are formed through this analysis. First, what constitutes “essential services” in the context of federal prisons is more limited compared with the broader community. Second, the dichotomy between the rights of persons in prison versus the protection of society that is produced in development of these laws has significant bearing on the treatment of those in prison. Third, this representation has negative effects on the health of persons in prison. In order to meet United Nations standards, greater attention must be paid to the ways in which laws and other governing practices reproduce inequities in health care provision in prisons.
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Das, Sayantanee, Sameer Ladha, and Robert Klitzman. "Risk Reduction Policies to Reduce HIV in Prisons: Ethical and Legal Considerations and Needs for Integrated Approaches." Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics 51, no. 2 (2023): 366–81. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/jme.2023.86.
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AbstractThe United States has the fastest growing prison population in the world, and elevated incarceration rates, substance use, and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) prevalence are fueling each other. Yet without a national guideline mandated for HIV care within the prison system, standards for state and federal prisons vary greatly.
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Friedman, Brittany. "White Unity and Prisoner-Officer Alliances." Contexts 21, no. 3 (August 2022): 28–33. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/15365042221114978.
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The law enforcement badge is a prized possession for white supremacists. Broader patterns of alliances between law enforcement and civilian white supremacists are endemic to social order in the United States, both in free society and within prisons. Using archival methods on trusty systems in California prisons, I show the development of prisoner-officer alliances that reify the privileges of white power.
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Sweeney, Megan. "Books as Bombs: Incendiary Reading Practices in Women's Prisons." PMLA/Publications of the Modern Language Association of America 123, no. 3 (May 2008): 666–73. http://dx.doi.org/10.1632/pmla.2008.123.3.666.
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Reading receives considerable cultural and institutional support in the contemporary united states, from face-to-face, televised, and online book clubs to community-wide reading initiatives such as Michigan Reads!; One Book, One Philadelphia; and On the Same Page Cincinnati. In United States prisons, however, opportunities for reading and education have steadily declined since the prisoners' rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s gave way to the retributive-justice framework of the 1980s and beyond.
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Shawver, Lois, and Douglas Kurdys. "Shall We Employ Women Guards in Male Prisons?" Journal of Psychiatry & Law 15, no. 2 (June 1987): 277–95. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/009318538701500208.
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Since the Civil Rights Act of 1964, United States prisons have begun hiring women to work as guards in male prisons. In recent years, this policy has been challenged in the courts on two grounds: first, that women guards are a security risk, and second, that they invade prisoners' privacy. Research cited in this article questions the validity of both of these claims. Women guards appear to reduce tensions in male prisons and to be in less danger than the male guards. Three criteria are suggested for evaluating privacy invasion in particular cases, and using these criteria it appears that most prisons can avoid privacy invasion of male prisoners without excluding women from positions as guards.
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AUSTIN, JAMES, and BARRY KRISBERG. "Incarceration in the United States: The Extent and Future of the Problem." ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 478, no. 1 (March 1985): 15–30. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0002716285478001003.
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The purpose of this article is to summarize and interpret the most current data on imprisonment in the United States. These data will be examined in light of other criminal justice and national trends affecting prison population growth. Of special importance will be analysis of historical and projected trends in the use of American prisons. This will include an examination of the methods used to forecast future incarceration rates in light of changing criminal justice policies and other factors believed to influence prison population growth. The authors conclude that despite a projected national trend of a leveling off of prison admissions, prison populations will continue to rise, reflecting the effects of sentencing reforms aimed at increasing prison terms.
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Specter, Donald. "One Road to Prison Reform Runs Through Europe." Federal Sentencing Reporter 27, no. 1 (October 1, 2014): 7–8. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/fsr.2014.27.1.7.
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Following the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Plata v. Brown, the author toured prison systems in Western Europe with a University of Maryland study abroad program and then again with corrections and public officials from three states. The goal of the first trip was to compare and contrast competing correctional systems. The second trip was designed to expose relevant public officials to different penological values and practices. Both groups quickly appreciated the profound differences in conditions and philosophies. Even though imprisonment in these European countries is a last resort, prisons are designed to be as “normal” as possible. The State’s responsibility goes past the constitutional minimum under the Eighth Amendment to provide food, clothing, shelter and personal safety. Reintegration into the community—not punishment—is the primary objective. These values translated to conditions and programs that are more humane and effective than those typically found in the United States. Correctional leaders used this experience to put into place programs limiting the housing of the mentally ill prisoners in segregation, improving reentry programs, and “normalizing” some prison units. Direct and personal exposure to European prison and criminal justice systems promoted humane and effective prisons at home.
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Browne, Angela, Alissa Cambier, and Suzanne Agha. "Prisons Within Prisons: The Use of Segregation in the United States." Federal Sentencing Reporter 24, no. 1 (October 1, 2011): 46–49. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/fsr.2011.24.1.46.
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Since the 1980s, departments of corrections have sharply increased the use of segregation as a discipline and management tool. In effect, segregation is a secondary sentence imposed by the correctional facility—one that follows long after and usually is unrelated to the conviction for which the person is incarcerated. The consequences of holding an individual in these conditions over time may include new or exacerbated mental health disturbances, assaultive and other antisocial behaviors, and chronic and acute health disorders. In fact, studies show that prisoners who are released from segregation directly to the community reoffend at higher rates than general-population prisoners. Policy changes that will reduce the use and long-term impact of segregation will benefit not only the staff and prisoners in these units but also ultimately the well-being of facilities, systems, and the community.
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Decker, Scott H., and David C. Pyrooz. "The imprisonment-extremism nexus: Continuity and change in activism and radicalism intentions in a longitudinal study of prisoner reentry." PLOS ONE 15, no. 11 (November 30, 2020): e0242910. http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0242910.
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There is considerable speculation that prisons are a breeding ground for radicalization. These concerns take on added significance in the era of mass incarceration in the United States, where 1.5 million people are held in state or federal prisons and around 600,000 people are released from prison annually. Prior research relies primarily on the speculation of prison officials, media representations, and/or cross-sectional designs to understand the imprisonment-extremism nexus. We develop a tripartite theoretical model to examine continuity and change in activism and radicalism intentions upon leaving prison. We test these models using data from a large probability sample of prisoners (N = 802) in Texas interviewed in the week preceding their release from prison and then reinterviewed 10 months later using a validated scale of activism and radicalism intentions. We arrive at three primary conclusions. First, levels of activism decline upon reentry to the community (d = -0.30, p < .01), while levels of radicalism largely remain unchanged (d = -0.08, p = .28). What is learned and practiced in prison appears to quickly lose its vitality on the street. Second, salient groups and organizations fell in importance after leaving prison, including country, race/ethnicity, and religion, suggesting former prisoners are occupied by other endeavors. Finally, while we identify few correlates of changes in extremist intentions, higher levels of legal cynicism in prison were associated with increases in both activism and radicalism intentions after release from prison. Efforts designed to improve legal orientations could lessen intentions to support non-violent and violent extremist actions. These results point to an imprisonment-extremism nexus that is diminished largely by the realities of prisoner reentry.
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Waits, Mira Rai. "Imperial Vision, Colonial Prisons:." Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 77, no. 2 (June 1, 2018): 146–67. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/jsah.2018.77.2.146.
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Prison construction was among the most important infrastructural changes brought about by British rule in nineteenth-century India. Informed by the extension of liberal political philosophy into the colony, the development of the British colonial prison introduced India to a radically new system of punishment based on long-term incarceration. Unlike prisons in Europe and the United States, where moral reform was cited as the primary objective of incarceration, prisons in colonial India focused on confinement as a way of separating and classifying criminal types in order to stabilize colonial categories of difference. In Imperial Vision, Colonial Prisons: British Jails in Bengal, 1823–73, Mira Rai Waits explores nineteenth-century colonial jail plans from India's Bengal Presidency. Although colonial reformers eventually arrived at a model of prison architecture that resembled Euro-American precedents, the built form and functional arrangements of these places reflected a singularly colonial model of operation.
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Austin, Jeanie, Melissa Charenko, Michelle Dillon, and Jodi Lincoln. "Systemic Oppression and the Contested Ground of Information Access for Incarcerated People." Open Information Science 4, no. 1 (December 6, 2020): 169–85. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/opis-2020-0013.
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AbstractLibrary and information science (LIS), as a whole, has not prioritized the information access of people inside of jails and prisons as a central tenet of library practice At the moment, there is growing attention given to states’ attempts to curtail book access for people inside of jails and prisons. Groups that provide free books to incarcerated people -- such as the numerous Books to Prisoners programs across the United States -- have been central to the discussions around access to information and resistance to censorship. These groups have drawn particular attention to the ways that Black, Indigenous, and people of color, as well as LGBTQ people, in prison experience ongoing oppression during incarceration because of limited access to materials relevant to their experiences. By identifying the types of information that are banned or limited, the difficulties people who are incarcerated face in seeking to access information, and the impact that access to information has in the lives of people who are incarcerated, this article explains prison censorship as a form of state-sponsored oppression, which is largely being combated by Books to Prisoners rather than LIS. The article ends by explaining LIS’ lack of attention to information access for people who are incarcerated.
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Kaufman, Emma. "Extraterritorial Punishment." New Criminal Law Review 20, no. 1 (2017): 66–95. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/nclr.2017.20.1.66.
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Repatriation treaties permit noncitizens convicted of crimes in the United States to serve their sentences abroad. The reach of these treaties is vast: together, they provide for the transfer of tens of thousands of prisoners in American custody. In practice, however, repatriation is remarkably rare. This is not because people want to stay in American prisons. Instead, the critical feature of repatriation is resistance from prison bureaucrats, who often determine that prisoners are “too American,” or that their crimes are too severe, to license punishment in a foreign jurisdiction. This Article examines bureaucratic resistance to repatriation. Drawing on doctrine, legislative history, statistics, and prison policies, I argue that prison officials’ reluctance to repatriate prisoners stems from a conflict between two theories of punishment: one in which the criminal sanction binds a person to the place whose laws he has offended, and one in which the location of punishment is severed from the authority to punish. Ultimately, resistance to repatriation reflects a concern about the legitimacy of extraterritorial punishment. Whether or not that concern should change repatriation law, its existence highlights a growing gap between the legal justifications for imprisonment and the actual practice of punishing people in the United States.
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Ross, Richard. "Juvenile in Justice." Boom 6, no. 2 (2016): 74–87. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/boom.2016.6.2.74.
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This photo essay and introduction focus on people in California prisons who were sentenced to decades in prison for crimes committed as juveniles. The United States is the only country in the world to sentence juveniles to life in prison. A majority of juveniles sentenced to life serve their time in just five states, California among them. While many breakthroughs are still needed, California has begun to right the wrongs it has committed against the state’s most vulnerable population.
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Wallace, Danielle, John M. Eason, Jason Walker, Sherry Towers, Tony H. Grubesic, and Jake R. Nelson. "Is There a Temporal Relationship between COVID-19 Infections among Prison Staff, Incarcerated Persons and the Larger Community in the United States?" International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 18, no. 13 (June 26, 2021): 6873. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18136873.
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Background: Our objective was to examine the temporal relationship between COVID-19 infections among prison staff, incarcerated individuals, and the general population in the county where the prison is located among federal prisons in the United States. Methods: We employed population-standardized regressions with fixed effects for prisons to predict the number of active cases of COVID-19 among incarcerated persons using data from the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) for the months of March to December in 2020 for 63 prisons. Results: There is a significant relationship between the COVID-19 prevalence among staff, and through them, the larger community, and COVID-19 prevalence among incarcerated persons in the US federal prison system. When staff rates are low or at zero, COVID-19 incidence in the larger community continues to have an association with COVID-19 prevalence among incarcerated persons, suggesting possible pre-symptomatic and asymptomatic transmission by staff. Masking policies slightly reduced COVID-19 prevalence among incarcerated persons, though the association between infections among staff, the community, and incarcerated persons remained significant and strong. Conclusion: The relationship between COVID-19 infections among staff and incarcerated persons shows that staff is vital to infection control, and correctional administrators should also focus infection containment efforts on staff, in addition to incarcerated persons.
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Davis, Angela Y., and Cassandra Shaylor. "Race, Gender, and the Prison Industrial Complex." Meridians 19, S1 (December 1, 2020): 87–111. http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/15366936-8565858.
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Abstract Despite the transnational growth of the prison industrial complex and the rapid expansion of the carceral state in the United States and beyond, violence against women in prisons has remained largely invisible. Reports from people inside prisons, amplified by activists on the outside and international human rights organizations documenting prison conditions, highlight rampant violations of human rights behind walls. The gendered nature of racism, which fuels the growth of the prison industrial complex, results in experiences of violence, including medical neglect, sexual abuse, lack of reproductive control, loss of parental rights, and the devastating effects of isolation, that manifest in particular ways in women’s prisons. Advocates who are challenging conditions inside increasingly are connecting with activists across the globe and organizing their efforts to resist this violence in concert with a broader resistance to carcerality overall.
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Kerr, Lisa. "Contesting Expertise in Prison Law." McGill Law Journal 60, no. 1 (December 8, 2014): 43–94. http://dx.doi.org/10.7202/1027719ar.
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Prisons present a special context for the interpretation of constitutional rights, where prisoner complaints are pitched against the justifications of prison administrators. In the United States, the history of prisoner rights can be told as a story of the ebb and flow of judicial willingness to defer to the expertise-infused claims of prison administrators. Deference is ostensibly justified by a judicial worry that prison administrators possess specialized knowledge and navigate unique risks, beyond the purview of courts. In recent years, expansive judicial deference in the face of “correctional expertise” has eroded the scope and viability of prisoners’ rights, serving to restore elements of the historical category of “civil death” to the legal conception of the American prisoner. In Canada too, courts have often articulated standards of extreme deference to prison administrators, both before and after the advent of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and notwithstanding that the Charter places a burden on government to justify any infringement of rights. Recently, however, two cases from the Supreme Court of British Columbia mark a break from excessive deference and signify the (late) arrival of a Charter-based prison jurisprudence. In each case, prisoner success depended on expert evidence that challenged the assertions and presumed expertise of institutional defendants. In order to prove a rights infringement and avoid justification under section 1, the evidence must illuminate and specify the effects of penal techniques and policies on both prisoners and third parties. The litigation must interrogate the internal penal world, including presumptions about the workings of prisoner society and conceptions of risk management.
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Gordon, Shira. "Solitary Confinement, Public Safety, and Recdivism." University of Michigan Journal of Law Reform, no. 47.2 (2014): 495. http://dx.doi.org/10.36646/mjlr.47.2.solitary.
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As of 2005, about 80,000 prisoners were housed in solitary confinement in jails and in state and federal prisons in the United States. Prisoners in solitary confinement are generally housed in a cell for twenty-two to twenty-four hours a day with little human contact or interaction. The number of prisoners held in solitary confinement increased 40 percent between 1995 and 2000, in comparison to the growth in the total prison population of 28 percent. Concurrently, the duration of time that prisoners spend in solitary confinement also increased: nationally, most prisoners in solitary confinement spend more than five years there. The effects of solitary confinement on prisoners have been a source of growing concern, but the question of whether solitary confinement affects public safety and recidivism has received less attention. While lower courts have imposed constitutional limitations on the use of solitary confinement, in the modern era the Supreme Court has never held that the practice is unconstitutional. Therefore, this Note argues for policy reforms to counteract the harmful impact of solitary confinement on public safety and recidivism, informed by the constitutional standards for its use in prisons.
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Peterson, Scot M. "Beerheide v Suthers: A Case Study Concerning Religion in Prisons in the USA." Ecclesiastical Law Journal 8, no. 36 (January 2005): 67–73. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0956618x00006013.
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The penitentiary in the United States of America originated as a religious institution. Its roots lie in the belief that inmates could reform if they were given an opportunity to engage in reflection, prayer, Bible-reading and work, thus establishing a new personal foundation for functioning as productive members of the larger society. Not surprisingly, given American's predilection for maintaining a secular civil society, this original foundation for the prison eventually fell from favour, and American penological theories became more sociological or psychological in nature. The fact remains, however, that society in the United States is broadly religious, and prisons continue to address the religious beliefs of inmates and how to accommodate those beliefs in a penological setting. This comment provides a case study on this topic, based on littigation concerning the provision of kosher food to Orthodox inmates in the prisons in Colorado.
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Waxler, Robert P. "Changing Lives through Literature." PMLA/Publications of the Modern Language Association of America 123, no. 3 (May 2008): 678–83. http://dx.doi.org/10.1632/pmla.2008.123.3.678.
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There is something ugly about incarceration. Over 2.2 million people are locked in jails and prisons in the united states; $60 billion a year is spent to support this effort. But there is also the old comparison of the prison with the monk's cell, a place of contemplation and self-reflection, and Jean Genet's sense of “a close relationship between flowers and convicts” (9). As a probation officer I know likes to remind me, “If you want to find Jesus, just go into the prisons. He is always there.” In any discussion of prisons, there are always opposing terms to consider: incarceration and freedom, body and consciousness, the hard core and the vulnerable, mind-forged manacles and visionary imagination.
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Lee, Dong Im, and Jueng Hwan Chun. "The Status and Direction of the Cognition Reinforcement Program for Elderly Prisoners." Forum of Public Safety and Culture 31 (June 30, 2024): 47–64. http://dx.doi.org/10.52902/kjsc.2024.31.47.
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An increase in the elderly population can lead to an increase in crimes against the elderly, and an increase in crimes against the elderly can lead to an increase in various dementia prisoners. In particular, prisoners with severe dementia cannot live a daily life alone due to cognitive decline. Therefore, there must be a manpower in charge of care like a shadow next to the prisoners with dementia. The treatment of dementia prisoners in prison is combined with non-pharmaceutical and pharmacological methods. The purpose of this study is to discuss non-pharmaceutical measures as a way to prevent dementia and slow the progression of dementia. Looking at foreign treatment programs for dementia prisoners, the United States promotes easy classes such as bingo and art through the Gold Court program for dementia prisoners, operates daily stretching and orientation programs, and fellow prisoners are in charge of prisoners in need of care. The UK restores mental health through plant-human interactions through nature-friendly environmental programs, and achieves physical activity and social inequality resolution and reintegration. In Japan, a serious aging phenomenon is leading to an increase in crimes against the elderly and an increase in the number of dementia prisoners. Prisons conduct psychological tests based on memory and calculation power for early detection of dementia prisoners, and if the test results suggest dementia, they are required to receive exercise and learning in prison. Some prisons offer rehabilitation programs such as origami, quizzes, puzzles and games for the mental health of elderly prisoners. In Korea, prisons are conducting non-pharmaceutical treatment for dementia prisoners only in prisons dedicated to the elderly. Non-pharmaceutical treatment programs include art intervention, cognitive reinforcement programs, and healing agriculture. The program operation is not implemented according to the degree of dementia, but is implemented uniformly. Therefore, prisons should implement customized cognitive intervention treatment or cognitive reinforcement programs by subdividing them into the characteristics of the subject, those with subjective cognitive decline, those with mild cognitive impairment, those with mild dementia, and those with severe dementia. Moderators who implement these programs will be able to provide effective treatment only when they understand and approach the program's specialized techniques and correction characteristics. If a cognitive reinforcement program using robots is introduced and operated in prisons, operators will be able to pursue diversity, persistence, selectivity, and individualization of program operations according to the degree of dementia of dementia prisoners.
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Natoli, Lauren Jeanne, Kathy Linh Vu, Adam Carl Sukhija-Cohen, Whitney Engeran-Cordova, Gabriel Maldonado, Scott Galvin, William Arroyo, and Cynthia Davis. "Incarceration and COVID-19: Recommendations to Curb COVID-19 Disease Transmission in Prison Facilities and Surrounding Communities." International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 18, no. 18 (September 17, 2021): 9790. http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18189790.
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Overcrowding can increase the risk of disease transmission, such as that of SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19), within United States prisons. The number of COVID-19 cases among prisoners is higher than that among the general public, and this disparity is further increased for prisoners of color. This report uses the example case of the COVID-19 pandemic to observe prison conditions and preventive efforts, address racial disparities for people of color, and guide structural improvements for sustaining inmate health during a pandemic in four select states: California, New York, Illinois, and Florida. To curb the further spread of COVID-19 among prisoners and their communities, safe public health practices must be implemented including providing personal protective equipment (PPE) and testing of staff and inmates, disseminating culturally and language appropriate information regarding the pandemic and preventive precautions, introducing social distancing measures, and ensuring adequate resources to safely reintegrate released prisoners into their communities.
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Smith, Larry L., James N. Smith, and Beryl M. Beckner. "An Anger-Management Workshop for Women Inmates." Families in Society: The Journal of Contemporary Social Services 75, no. 3 (March 1994): 172–75. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/104438949407500305.
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Approximately one million persons are in prisons and jails across the United States. For 10 years, concern has been growing about the lack of mental health services provided to these inmates. In this article, the authors describe an anger-management workshop provided to a random sample of 11 medium-security women inmates at the Utah State Prison.
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Reiter, Keramet, Lori Sexton, and Jennifer Sumner. "Theoretical and empirical limits of Scandinavian Exceptionalism: Isolation and normalization in Danish prisons." Punishment & Society 20, no. 1 (December 21, 2017): 92–112. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1462474517737273.
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Drawing on interviews with 76 prisoners, 47 prison staff, and 14 experts, we document lived experiences of punishment in the Danish prison context. We argue that, regardless of “humanizing” elements of normalization and humanity, prisoners and staff may experience the power of the carceral state in Denmark in ways similar to those under more obviously harsh confinement regimes, as exist in the United States and, to a lesser extent, in the United Kingdom. Ultimately, macro-level theories like Scandinavian Exceptionalism serve as a rhetorical tool, implying that harsher prison systems are fixable, but fail to reflect the micro-level realities of incarceration.
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Maner, Morgan, Katherine LeMasters, Jennifer Lao, Mariah Cowell, Kathryn Nowotny, David Cloud, and Lauren Brinkley-Rubinstein. "COVID-19 in corrections: Quarantine of incarcerated people." PLOS ONE 16, no. 10 (October 5, 2021): e0257842. http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0257842.
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Carceral settings in the United States have been the source of many single site COVID-19 outbreaks. Quarantine is a strategy used to mitigate the spread of COVID-19 in correctional settings, and specific quarantine practices differ state to state. To better understand how states are using quarantine in prisons, we reviewed each state’s definition of quarantine and compared each state’s definition to the Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC) definition and recommendations for quarantine in jails and prisons. Most prison systems, 45 of 53, define quarantine, but definitions vary widely. No state published definitions of quarantine that align with all CDC recommendations, and only 9 states provide quarantine data. In these states, the highest recorded quarantine rate occurred in Ohio in May 2020 at 843 per 1,000. It is necessary for prison systems to standardize their definitions of quarantine and to utilize quarantine practices in accordance with CDC recommendations. In addition, data transparency is needed to better understand the use of quarantine and its effectiveness at mitigating COVID-19 outbreaks in carceral settings.
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Wade-Olson, Jeremiah. "Race, Staff, and Punishment: Representative Bureaucracy in American State Prisons." Administration & Society 51, no. 9 (October 10, 2016): 1397–424. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0095399716667156.
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A total of 1.5 million people are incarcerated in the United States’ prisons. Tens of thousands are placed in restrictive, solitary confinement units. Building on theories of representative bureaucracy, this article considers both the race of the inmates and the race of correctional staff. The article has three main findings: that minority prison staff have higher preferences for rehabilitation and lower preferences for punishment, that prisons with a high percentage of Black inmates utilize punishment at higher rates, and that representation, in the form of Black staff, helps ameliorate the high level of punishment associated with a high percentage of Black inmates.
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Dubler, Nancy Neveloff. "The Collision of Confinement and Care: End-of-Life Care in Prisons and Jails." Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics 26, no. 2 (1998): 149–56. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1748-720x.1998.tb01670.x.
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In 1997, the United States incarcerated over 1.7 million persons in local jails and in state and federal prisons. These inmates are disproportionately poor and persons of color. Many lack adequate access to health care before incarceration and present to correctional services with major unaddressed medical problems.Convictions for drug possession and use have increased the number of injection drug users with HIV and AIDS in prisons. Determinate sentencing and “three strikes and you’re out” laws have increased the number of inmates who are aging and dying during their sentences. Their feelings reflect those of Larry Rideau, sentenced to life without parole and founder of The Angolite—an award-winning prison newspaper at Louisiana's Angola Prison—“The dream of getting out, you equate with heaven. Dying in prison you equate with hell.”
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Gibbons, John J., and Nicholas de B. Katzenbach. "Confronting Confinement: A Report of the Commission on Safety and Abuse in America's Prisons." Federal Sentencing Reporter 24, no. 1 (October 1, 2011): 36–41. http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/fsr.2011.24.1.36.
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This article was originally published by the Vera Institute of Justice in June 2006. What happens inside jails and prisons does not stay inside jails and prisons: It comes home with prisoners after they are released and with corrections officers at the end of each shift. When people live and work in facilities that are unsafe, unhealthy, unproductive, or inhumane, they carry the effects into the community with them. We all bear responsibility for creating correctional institutions that are safe, humane, and productive. With so much at stake for U.S. citizens' health and safety, with so many people directly affected by the conditions in U.S. prisons and jails, this is the moment to confront confinement in the United States.
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Schlafer, Rebecca J., and Alyssa Scrignoli. "Tough Topic, Necessary Reading: Finding Books for Children with Incarcerated Parents." Children and Libraries 13, no. 1 (March 23, 2015): 24. http://dx.doi.org/10.5860/cal.13n1.24.
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The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world, and it is estimated that about 53 percent of men and 61 percent of women in the US prison population are parents of minor children.As the number of people incarcerated in US prisons and jails grows, so too does the number of children affected by their parents’ absence. Recent estimates suggest that more than 2.7 million US children now have a parent in prison or jail.
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Lambert, Lauren A., Lori R. Armstrong, Mark N. Lobato, Christine Ho, Anne Marie France, and Maryam B. Haddad. "Tuberculosis in Jails and Prisons: United States, 2002−2013." American Journal of Public Health 106, no. 12 (December 2016): 2231–37. http://dx.doi.org/10.2105/ajph.2016.303423.
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Martin, William G. "Privatizing Prisons from the United States to South Africa." Safundi 3, no. 1 (February 2002): 1–10. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17533170201103111.
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Lucas, Ashley, Natalia Ribeiro Fiche, and Vicente Concilio. "We Move Forward Together: A Prison Theater Exchange Program Among Three Universities in the United States and Brazil." Prison Journal 99, no. 4_suppl (July 9, 2019): 84S—105S. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0032885519861061.
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In 2013, the Prison Creative Arts Project at the University of Michigan and Teatro na Prisão at the Universidade Federal do Estado do Rio de Janeiro began an international exchange of university-based prison theater programs. The theater faculty at the Universidade do Estado de Santa Catarina joined the exchange in 2016 and began a new prison theater program at a women’s facility in Florianópolis, Brazil. Together, these three universities not only share best practices and resources but form a community of support and understanding as they engage in a highly specialized and challenging creative process inside prisons.
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Churchill, Ward. "A Not So Friendly Fascism? Political Prisons and Prisoners in the United States." CR: The New Centennial Review 6, no. 1 (2006): 1–54. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/ncr.2006.0016.
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Gibson-Light, Michael, and Josh Seim. "Punishing Fieldwork: Penal Domination and Prison Ethnography." Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 49, no. 5 (June 11, 2020): 666–90. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0891241620932982.
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Ethnographic studies inside prisons are especially difficult to execute. In addition to facing amplified challenges in gaining site access, earning subjects’ trust, and tolerating the exhaustion of fieldwork, researchers who collect participant observation and in-depth interview data behind bars must confront an explicit asymmetrical power relation. Prison ethnographers penetrate, to varying levels of depth, a social universe where staff dominate prisoners and where prisoners, largely in response to the pains of their imprisonment, carve paths to dignity. This paper considers how and where non-staff and non-incarcerated ethnographers can awkwardly fit into (or fail out of) this space. Drawing on insights from two ethnographic studies in the United States, the authors detail their particular and common experiences across three phases: access, collection, and exit. These experiences motivate a description of prison ethnography as “punishing fieldwork.” Such research is not only exacting, it is also significantly contained and directed by penal power.