By ASHLEY SPALDING, PAM THOMAS, PATIENCE MARTIN, SCOTT WEST and KAYLEE RAYMER

A new report from the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy reveals how this convoluted and opaque system extracts millions from the communities least able to bear the burden — including nearly $60 million collected from a single standard court fee imposed on all cases between 2022 and 2024. The report also highlights $91.4 million in unpaid court debt as of 2019, underscoring the long-term impact of these obligations. Geography also plays a role, with counties often charging fees that vary widely across the state, meaning that the same offense and same court experience can have very different costs, depending on where a person is arrested.

The authors offer a set of urgent policy recommendations, including eliminating jail as a consequence for unpaid fines and fees, implementing ability-to–pay assessments, and increasing data transparency and accountability across the system.

Berea: Kentucky Center for Economic Policy, 2025. 27p

By Douglas Phillips, Gabriel Weinberger, Michelle S. Manno

Evidence shows that employment can help keep people on parole or probation from coming back in contact with the justice system. But people who have a history of such involvement may lack educational credentials or have little work history, and must contend with employers’ bias against hiring them. Furthermore, they may require additional support—such as housing or transportation—to be ready to handle the demands of employment.

The Los Angeles County Innovative Employment Solutions Program (INVEST), established in February 2018, is designed to address the range of employment and supportive-service needs people on probation may have and support them in pursuing their employment and career goals. It operates at selected career centers in Los Angeles County. The program combines features of traditional workforce programs with some additional components. Most notably, it offers intensive training to prepare staff members to work with people on probation, collaboration between probation officers and employment staff members who work together in the same space, and additional funding for supportive services.

This report presents the findings of an evaluation of the INVEST program, which consisted of an implementation study and an outcomes study. The implementation study finds that the INVEST program is being implemented as intended, making a variety of employment services and training and educational opportunities available to clients, along with supportive services. It also finds that clients do not always take advantage of program services. The program services most frequently used are those related to finding employment quickly and services that take place as part of enrollment or very soon thereafter. Only about one-third of INVEST clients enrolled in any type of training program, and fewer than half of INVEST received any type of supportive service. This pattern suggests that people receiving services from INVEST need income from employment quickly, and may need financial support to be able to participate in education or training.

The outcomes study tracks employment and earnings for 1,232 INVEST clients who enrolled between March 1, 2018, and February 28, 2021, and compares their results with those of a group who were referred to INVEST but did not enroll. People who enrolled in INVEST had higher employment rates (by 12 percentage points) and higher earnings (by $1,931) over the course of a follow-up year (beginning about a year after enrollment and ending about two years after enrollment). This difference overwhelmingly reflects results among one subgroup of individuals who did not have any reported earnings when they enrolled. However, the comparison group for this part of the study was not constructed rigorously, so it is difficult to say with any confidence that the INVEST program is the reason for these improvements.

It was also not possible to construct a rigorous comparison group for outcomes related to involvement in the legal system. Compared with a similar group in another MDRC study in Los Angeles County, INVEST clients were less likely to be involved in the legal system in the year after enrolling. About three-quarters of INVEST clients avoided any arrest during that year.

Future research using a more rigorous study design—that was able to draw on more comprehensive data—could help to determine the program’s impacts on employment, earnings, and involvement in the criminal legal system, and to identify whom the program helps most.

New York: MDRC, 2025, 62p.

By The U.S. Department of Justice, OFFICE OF THE INSPECTOR GENERAL

The purpose of this memorandum is to advise the Director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ (BOP) of the Department of Justice (DOJ or Department) Office of the Inspector General’s (OIG) concerns regarding the BOP’s policies and practices pertaining to the use of restraints on inmates. The OIG identified these concerns in connection with our investigators’ reviews of allegations by multiple BOP inmates at multiple BOP institutions that they were placed in restraints while confined to a bed or chair for extended periods and were assaulted or otherwise mistreated while in restraints. Some of these inmates were placed in fourpoint restraints, which are restraints using four points of contact—both wrists and both ankles—to confine an inmate to a bed, and others were placed in restraints on both wrists and ankles while confined to a chair. Some inmates reportedly suffered long-term injuries after prolonged placement in restraints. For example, one inmate suffered injury requiring the amputation of part of the inmate’s limb after being kept in restraints for over 2 days. We found that shortcomings in BOP’s policies and practices contributed to the concerns we identified and limited the availability of evidence that could either corroborate or refute inmates’ accounts of what happened while they were in restraints, thereby impairing the OIG’s ability to investigate allegations of misconduct by BOP employees. Specifically, we identified the following shortcomings: Lack of clarity in BOP policy as to the meaning of four-point restraints and lack of clear guidance regarding restraint, medical, and psychology checks of inmates in restraints that are not considered four-point restraints; Policies and practices that allow inmates to be kept in restraints for prolonged periods, sometimes leading to long-term injuries, and that require only limited oversight by BOP regional offices while inmates are in restraints; Inadequate guidelines to memorialize what occurred during restraint checks, including the absence of a requirement that BOP staff video and audio record restraint checks; and Inadequate guidelines to document medical checks of inmates in restraints. Clearer and more robust policies would assist the BOP in protecting inmates from abusive treatment, shielding staff from false allegations, deterring misconduct by staff, and holding staff who engage in misconduct accountable. Since the OIG reviewed the allegations that formed the basis of this memorandum, the BOP has made updates to its policies regarding the use of force and application of restraints, including new training guidelines for confrontation avoidance and de-escalation tactics. While these updates are an improvement to the BOP’s policies, additional policy revisions are needed to address the OIG’s concerns. In this memorandum, the OIG makes six recommendations to address the concerns we identified. Separately, the OIG is continuing to conduct an audit related more broadly to the BOP’s oversight of its use of restraints.

Washington, DC: The U.S. Department of Justice, OFFICE OF THE INSPECTOR GENERAL2025. 22p.

By Safiyah Husein, Capryce Taylor, Jacqueline Tasca, Meaghan Costa, Reza Ahmadi

John Howard Society of Ontario

“At least 10% of Ontario’s homeless population went directly from an Ontario jail to life on the streets.”

This report outlines actionable recommendations and best practices to reduce homelessness among individuals with experiences of incarceration. The insights provided are based on comprehensive discussions with people with lived experience, housing providers, community service agencies and policy professionals.

Kingston: John Howard Society of Ontario, 2025. 36p.

By The Correctional Association of New York (CANY)

The Correctional Association of New York (CANY) has released a report on Washington Correctional Facility, a medium-security prison for men located in Washington County, NY. The report details findings from interviews with incarcerated individuals, analysis of administrative data, meetings with staff, and observations made by CANY during a monitoring visit in March 2024.Key findings include:

73% of incarcerated individuals interviewed reporting witnessing or experiencing verbal, physical, or sexual abuse.

The facility had a 21% vacancy rate in January 2024, which resulted in high rates of mandatory overtime and reduced operations, such as limited access to recreation for incarcerated individuals.

Grievance filing rates were lower than other medium-security prisons. No individuals interviewed reported that they felt the grievance process was fair.

Many incarcerated people reported positive experiences with vocational (e.g., welding, custodial maintenance) and academic programs. The facility administration expressed concern about low rates of attendance.

New York: Correctional Association of New York, 2025. 66p

By Kellyann Bock & Michael Rempel

Following a statewide corrections officer strike in February 2025 and the termination of over 2,000 officers, New York State prisons have been unable to accept timely transfers of people sentenced to state time. This brief analyzes the resulting surge in the “state-ready” population on Rikers Island—those awaiting transfer to prison—which rose more than eight-fold from 101 to 875 people from February to June 2025. As of the end of June 2025, these individuals accounted for 11% of the total jail population and are responsible for 89% of February-to-June 2025 jail population growth. In short, the jail population would have changed little in the first half of 2025 if not for the ripple effects of the corrections officer strike.

New York : Data Collaborative for Justice, 2025. 7p.

By Debra Parkes

The nearly three decades in which Beverley McLachlin was a member of the Supreme Court, including 18 as Chief Justice, witnessed a number of shifts in Canadian penal policy and in the reach and impact of criminal law. During the Harper decade (2006 to 2015) in which the federal Conservatives enjoyed a majority government led by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, criminal justice policy took a turn toward the punitive. The federal government tore a page out of the American legislative handbook and sought to “govern through crime”,1 albeit in a more restrained Canadian style.2 Criminologists Anthony Doob and Cheryl Webster have posited that pre-Harper, Canadian criminal justice policy was grounded in four pillars that enjoyed support across party lines. These pillars were that social conditions matter; that harsh punishments do not reduce crime; that the development of criminal justice policies should be informed by expert knowledge; and that changes in the criminal law should address real problems.3 These principles were cast aside, Doob and Webster argue, beginning at least in 2006 with the passage of numerous crime bills that, to name just a few, created new crimes with enhanced penalties;4 proliferated mandatory

Allard School of Law, Allard Research Commons Allard Research Commons, Faculty Publications Allard Faculty Publications, 2019, 19p.

By Kay L. Levine and Volkan Topalli

In The Process is the Punishment, Malcolm Feeley exposed the lower criminal court as a powerful institution in American life, an important counterpart to both the more glamorous federal courts and the more highly charged superior courts that preside over serious crimes within a jurisdiction. Although it typically handles only low-level criminal charges, the lower criminal court’s reach is both broad and deep; in its functioning and process it has the capacity to change the lives of many who come before it – sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse – irrespective of guilt or innocence, conviction or dismissal.

Cambridge University Press, on 22 Oct 2020, 17p.

By Christopher L. Ringwalt, 1 Dorothy C. Browne, 1 Lee B. Rosenbioomfl Gloria Ann Evans, 3 and Jonathan B. Kotch 1

This study explores the relationship between mothers" approval of corporal punishment and the degree to which they themselves were subjected to vio- lence as children. Considered as additional contributing factors are: (1) whether the mothers as children were punished by their own parents, (2) whether they perceived such punishment as unfair, and (3) the degree of parental nurture they experienced as children. The sample consisted of 330 new mothers whose mother and father both lived in the home when they were 14 years of age. Respondents were interviewed at home one to two months following their infants" discharge from the hospital. After control- ling for race and income, no relationship was found between approval of cor- poral punishment and the violence to which mothers were subjected as children. However, significant associations were found between such approval and: (1) whether mothers were punished by their parents, and (2) maternal (but not paternal) nurture. Perceptions that parental punishment was unfair failed to contribute to such approval. Altogether, parental factors in mothers" childhoods, excluding race and income, accounted for 8.9~o of the variance in approval of corporal punishment.

Journal of Family Violence, VoL 4, No. 4, 1989, 13p.

By K. Drybread

A six- year- old girl came home from a neighbor’s house with blood in her underpants. Her mother, frantic, demanded to know how it had gotten there. “Who did this to you?” she asked. The girl responded, “I don’t know.” Her mother screamed the question again and again; the girl’s answer remained the same. The mother tried a new question, “What did he look like?” Her daughter’s reply was still, “I don’t know.” After posing the new q

UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO BOULDER user on 27 January 2020, 21p.

By Eva Maghfiroh Institut Agama islam Syarifuddin Lumajang

Aggressive behavior is a form of behavior that can hurt other people. This behaviour comes from cognitive processes that are disrupted. Students, in Islamic boarding school, who experience aggressive behavior, can become aggressive too. This article discusses how teachers deal with students with aggressive behavior in Islamic boarding school. One of the ways, is to provide reward and punishment for them, who have aggrescive behavior

Dakwatuna : Jurnal Dakwadan Komunikasi Islam, 19p.

By Cindy Miller-Perrin* and Robin Perrin

Physical punishment remains a common practice in the USA despite significant empirical evidence of its potential harm and ineffectiveness, arguments that its use violates children’s human rights, and professional recommendations against its use. The purpose of the current paper is to offer explanations as to why, in the face of a worldwide movement to protect children from violence, the USA continues to support physical punishment of children. The paper also summarizes the various debates engaged in by experts that stem from these explanations for physical punishment and argue that the time has come to move beyond these debates and eliminate the physical punishment of children. We offer suggestions for changing attitudes and practices related to physical punishment of children in order to promote their health and well-being. We conclude by suggesting that the burden of proof in debates about physical punishment, which has typically fallen upon those who argue children should never be physica

Miller-Perrin and Perrin Psicologia: Reflexão e Crítica (2018) 31:16, 7p.

By Patrick G Bass Morningside College

Civil War prison historiography has enjoyed a kind of renaissance over the past two decades, using new sources, new research methodologies, and new theoretical frameworks. Both of these works from Kent State University Press are among the efforts in these new directions. Angela Zombek’s monograph Penitentiaries, Punishment, and Mili- tary Prisons is the more ambitious of the two works under review. Zombek approaches her subjects in a complicated manner. The struc- ture proceeds from background and general overview through specific investigations to a Reconstruction postscript. The introduction sum- marizes the entire work. The first chapter provides a deep background analysis of theories of penology before and during the American Civil War, which reaches from the European Enlightenment to the Lieber Code of the early 1860s. The second chapter centers on the overall con- tinuities of practices of penology throughout the first two-thirds of the nineteenth century. The last full chapter (not the conclusion) looks at postwar legacies in terms of the triumph of continuity. The conclusion ably restates her findings.

The Annals of Iowa Volume 78 Number 2 (Spring 2019) pps. 211-213

By Carl Toersbijns, Retired Corrections Administrator

This lecture is written by a layperson who seeks to simplify the process of punishment inside prisons while explaining its impact, intentionally or intentionally. It is also written to propose a theory that punishment should be temporary and not permanently imposed in perpetuity with time to allow society’s forgiveness and understanding of the long-term effects of penal state and its impact on criminalized people. To begin with, we must first acknowledge the fact that incarceration is massive in nature and tone and spoken of frequently and rapidly after a crime has been committed and adjudicated to the courts for sentencing and term of punishment.

January 7, 2023, 6p.

By Paolla Magioni Santini and Lucia C. A. Williams

Studies have shown that corporal punishment against children is a common family practice, causing damage to child development. Considering that parents are the main perpetrators of this type of aggression, parenting programs are needed to raise children without violence. This study aimed at performing a systematic review of parenting programs evaluations to reduce corporal punishment. Intervention procedures, as well as design, results and limitations were identified for each study. The PRISMA protocol (Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses) was used for reporting the results. A literature survey was conducted in Brazilian databases, as well as English ones from 1994-2014. One Brazilian study and eight international studies were selected as relevant, and only four used randomized controlled trials (RCT). All studies reported satisfactory results in decreasing aggression by parents against their children. Further research in the area with solid methodology is recommended.

Systematic Literature Review, 2016, 9p.

By Clifton P. Flynn

Corporal punishment enjoys strong normative support in American society, even in the face of growing evidence suggesting that it may be potentially harmful. This arti- cle examines Americans' attitudes toward the physical punishment of children. Support for spanking varies along such social categories as race, education, religion, and region. The article concludes by discussing the implications of corporal punishment attitudes for scholars, professionals, and families.

University of South Carolina at Spartanburg, Aggression and Violent Behavior, Vol. I, No. 1, pp. 47-55, 1996, 9p.

By Sheldon Glueck (Author), Graeme Newman (Introduction)

Sheldon Glueck’s Probation and Criminal Justice (1931), a collection of papers from world wide experts, stands as one of the earliest systematic examinations of probation within the American penal system. Published at a time when probation was still consolidating its place as a regularized judicial practice, the book sought both to describe the institution as it existed and to evaluate its possibilities as a rational and humane alternative to imprisonment. Glueck, already well known as a criminologist and later famed for his longitudinal studies on criminal careers, approached probation with the same empirical rigor and critical balance that defined his scholarship.
The work provides a historical account of probation’s origins, tracing its roots to the nineteenth-century innovations of John Augustus in Boston, and situates its emergence within the broader reform movements of the Progressive Era. By the early 1930s, probation had spread widely across American jurisdictions, yet it lacked the uniformity, resources, and professional standards necessary for consistent success. Glueck’s central argument was therefore twofold: probation held genuine promise as an instrument of rehabilitation and social reintegration, but its potential could only be realized through careful administration, adequately trained personnel, and an honest reckoning with its limitations.
To read Probation and Criminal Justice today is to encounter both a historical document and a surprisingly contemporary critique. The themes Glueck emphasized—the professionalization of probation officers, the dangers of excessive caseloads, the necessity of balancing rehabilitation with accountability—are still at the heart of debates over community supervision. The persistence of these concerns is a testament both to the enduring complexity of probation as a penal tool and to the prescience of Glueck’s analysis.
In this sense, the book is more than a relic of early twentieth-century criminology. It is a reminder that penal reform, however well intentioned, remains fragile unless supported by adequate resources, clear objectives, and sustained public commitment. Probation has advanced since Glueck’s time in terms of reach, sophistication, and legitimacy, yet the paradoxes he identified continue to shape its practice.
For scholars, practitioners, and students of criminal justice, this volume offers not only a window into the early years of probation but also a mirror reflecting ongoing challenges in community-based corrections. Glueck’s careful and critical study thus retains its relevance: a classic text that still speaks to the unfinished project of building a fair, effective, and humane system of criminal justice.

Read-Me.Org Inc. New York-Philadelphia-Australia. 2025. 211 p.

By Laurel Wimbish, Janelle Simpson, Lena Dechert, Laura Feldman,

The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), State Justice Statistics (SJS) Program provides funding to state Statistical Analysis Centers (SACs) to build their capacity to collect, analyze, and disseminate criminal justice data to state and local policy makers, administrators, and other stakeholders. In 2019 and 2020, the SAC for Wyoming—the Wyoming Survey & Analysis Center (WYSAC) at the University of Wyoming—received special-emphasis capacity-building funding from BJS to conduct a targeted analysis using Wyoming’s criminal history records. SACs are strongly encouraged to collaborate with their state’s State Administering Agency (SAA) to develop and implement projects that support the State’s criminal justice planning needs. The Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation (DCI) is the SAA for the State of Wyoming and serves as the central repository for criminal history record information. WYSAC worked with DCI to develop and implement this research project in support of one of DCI’s top priorities, maintaining accurate and complete criminal history records. Wyoming statute requires all city, county, and state law enforcement agencies; district courts; courts of limited jurisdiction; district attorneys; the Department of Corrections; state juvenile correctional institutions; and local probation and parole agencies to submit criminal history record information to DCI.1 DCI stores these data in a computerized state criminal history system (CCH) and uses the data for many purposes including complying with the 2002 Help America Vote Act, conducting background checks for employers and professional licensing boards, and sharing data with the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI’s) National Criminal Background Check System (NICS).2,3 To effectively serve these purposes, criminal justice entities (law enforcement agencies, the courts, and corrections) must provide DCI with accurate and complete data. The objectives of this project were to 1) explore the accuracy and completeness of Wyoming’s criminal history records, specifically for misdemeanor crimes of domestic violence (MCDVs), 2) provide DCI with a report outlining the results of the analysis, and 3) provide recommendations on how DCI and other state criminal justice agencies can improve the accuracy and completeness of the state’s criminal history records.

Laramie: WYOMING SURVEY & ANALYSIS CENTER, 2021. 16p.

By Catalina Franco Buitrago, David J. Harding, Shawn D. Bushway, and Jeffrey D. Morenoff

We find that people involved in low-level crime receiving a prison sentence are more likely than those with non-prison sentences to be re-imprisoned due to technical violations of parole, rather than due to new crimes. We identify the extent and cost of this incapacitation effect among individuals with similar criminal histories using exogenous variation in sentence type from discontinuities in Michigan Sentencing Guidelines. Technical violations disproportionately affect drug users and those first arrested as juveniles. Higher re-imprisonment adds one-quarter to the original sentence’s incapacitation days while only preventing low-severity crime, suggesting that prison is cost-ineffective for individuals on the margin.

NHH Dept. of Economics Discussion Paper No. 03/2022, 79p.

By Naomi Delap and Liz Hogarth,

Our justice system, designed for men, is not working for women. Our prisons are full of trauma: over 60 per cent of women in prison have experienced domestic violence and more than half have experienced abuse as a child. Our prisons are bad at rehabilitating and deterring women from further offending; instead, they actively harm them and their children. Racially minoritised women are further disadvantaged: overrepresented at every point in the system and more likely than white women to be remanded and receive a sentence in the Crown Court. The human and financial cost of the system’s failure is significant.

The Labour government has announced a bold approach to respond to these issues. The creation of a Women’s Justice Board and its new strategy will, it is stated, reduce the number of women in prison and tackle the root causes of women’s offending by driving early intervention, diversion and alternatives to custody. If these outcomes are achieved, there will be less crime and fewer victims; and women, their families and their communities will benefit.

This new direction is a cause for celebration. If the initiative is to work, however, it is imperative we learn from the lessons of the past in order to avoid making the same mistakes; and look to other models for solutions in order to deliver, finally, a justice system that works for women.

London; Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, 2025. 24p.