By William J. Sabol, and Miranda L. Baumann

Justice reinvestment was introduced in the early 2000s as a means to respond to the massive growth in incarceration in the United States that had occurred during the past three decades by diverting offenders from prison and redirecting a portion of the associated corrections expenditures into communities to build their capacities to manage offenders locally. Over the next 17 years, the concept evolved into a Congressionally funded federal grant program that shifted the focus of reinvestment away from community reinvestment and toward a state-agency practice improvement model that ultimately aimed to improve public safety. A distinct form of justice reinvestment, the Justice Reinvestment Initiative (JRI), was the dominant practice of justice reinvestment in the United States. It was organized as a public–private partnership that engaged states in bipartisan efforts to enact legislative reforms and other policies to address sentencing and corrections practices and adopt high-performing evidence-based practices (EBPs) that would yield the desired public safety benefits. JRI contributed to legislative reforms and adoption of EBPs, especially in community supervision. The federal JRI effort has not yet provided peer-reviewed, published evidence that it has achieved its objectives.

Annual Review of Criminology, Vol. 3:317-339, 2020.

By: Dr. Mike Lauder

On 17 July 2002, David Blunkett announced a White Paper, Justice for All (Home Office, 2002). He stated: “In protecting the public, we are placing emphasis on dealing with dangerous, violent and sexual offenders. Those not sentenced to lie imprisonment but who are nevertheless a danger to society will remiain custody until they are considered safe for release. An indeterminate sentence will ensure that they will only be released under strict supervision when they are no longer assessed to be a threat to the public”. (HC Deb, 17 July 2002, c287).

The Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) sentence was introduced under the Criminal Justice Act 2003. The IPP sentence was abolished in 2012 but this action was not retrospective. By June 2024, there were still 2,734 IPP prisoners (1,132 unreleased and 1,602 recalled) and, of those unreleased, 99 percent had served time beyond their tariff (Ministry of Justice, 2024).

There are now some who believe that keeping this cohort of people in prison is uniquely cruel as there is evidence that to do so might create unwarranted psychological harm (Grimshaw, 2022). Members of Parliament now recognise that the IPP system is fundamentally flawed. What was devised to be a social good has, some would argue, become one that creates harm (Justice Committee, 2022).

The aim of this working paper is to describe the role that may have been played by the flaws inherent within the ‘Perfect World Paradigm’ when it is used to make public policy.

Centre for Crime and Justice Studies’ working paper series; London: Center for Crime and Justice Studies, 2024

By Alexandra Gannoni and Samantha Bricknell

“The purpose of this paper is to provide a picture of trends and characteristics of Indigenous deaths in prison and police custody in the 25 years since the RCIADIC. A key focus is to describe the circumstances of Indigenous deaths in custody and how these compare with those reported by the RCIADIC and over time."The Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody (RCIADIC) was established in 1987 in response to growing concern over the deaths of Indigenous people in custody. The RCIADIC (1991) found Indigenous people in custody did not die at a greater rate than non-Indigenous people in custody, but were considerably more likely to be arrested and imprisoned. The RCIADIC (1991) recommended an ongoing program be established by the Australian Institute of Criminology (AIC) to monitor Indigenous and non-Indigenous deaths in prison, police custody and youth detention. In response, the National Deaths in Custody Program (NDICP) commenced in 1992. Since then, the NDICP has collected comprehensive data on the extent and nature of all deaths in custody in Australia.”

Australian Institute of Criminology. Statistical Bulletin. No. 17. Feb. 2019. 15p.

By Joe Russo, Samuel Peterson, Michael J. D. Vermeer, Dulani Woods, Brian A. Jackson

Racial and ethnic disparities are pervasive in the U.S. criminal justice system. These disparities often compound as an individual progresses through each stage of the justice system, beginning with police contact and continuing through prosecution and correctional control. Not surprisingly, people of color are overrepresented in the probation and parole population, yet relatively little attention has been paid to disparate treatment and outcomes at this stage.

Probation and parole staff and other system actors exercise considerable discretion in responding to technical violations. Technical violations are instances of noncompliance with the conditions of supervision — such as failing to report to the supervising officer, leaving the jurisdiction without permission, and testing positive on a drug test—that, while not criminal, can lead to severe consequences for justice-involved individuals. The spectrum of responses to technical violations can range from a warning all the way up to a recommendation to revoke supervision. Evidence suggests that technical violations are an important driver of incarceration.

The handling of technical violations may be influenced by a variety of factors, including officer judgment and jurisdictional policy, and there is evidence of racial and ethnic disparities in how they are handled. Ultimately, disparities in the processing of technical violations can exacerbate and perpetuate existing disparities in incarceration and undermine the legitimacy of the justice system. This report presents findings and recommendations from an expert panel that explored challenges and opportunities associated with reducing disparities at the technical violation decision point.

Key Findings

• The lack of evidence on the sources of disparities in community supervision contributes to a lack of known approaches for responding to them.

• The working relationship between an officer and a supervisee is critical to successful outcomes.

• A lack of diversity or cultural sensitivity among officers and supervisee perceptions of justice system illegitimacy can be barriers to forming quality relationships of trust.

• Research is needed to determine the impacts of (1) such factors as the working relationship between and officer and a supervisee, a lack of diversity or cultural sensitivity among officers, and supervisee perceptions of justice system illegitimacy on supervisee violation behaviors, (2) responses to these behaviors, and (3) disparities.

• Supervisees of color often have inequitable access to resources, which can be a barrier to successful completion of supervision and a contributing factor in disparate outcomes.

• Information management tools are needed to increase transparency about and accountability for disparities.

• Jurisdictions would benefit from developing data dashboards to help track, analyze, and display key metrics so that progress may be measured — and corrective actions taken as needed — at the officer and agency levels.

  Recommendations

• Develop best practices for the use of technology to eliminate barriers to compliance. Evaluate pros, cons, and impacts of these approaches on outcomes and disparities.

• Develop best practices and strategies to directly provide resources (e.g., food pantries, clothing, transit vouchers) to disadvantaged supervisees and/or coordinate with community resources to provide these services. Explore the feasibility of monetary assistance for sustenance and/or emergency support.

• Conduct research into supervisee perceptions of the justice system’s legitimacy along racial and ethnic lines and the impact of these perceptions on compliance and outcomes.

• Conduct research to determine whether the use of credible messengers improves relationships with supervisees and to examine the impact of this practice on supervision outcomes.

• Study jurisdictions that have reduced disparities to better understand the dynamics associated with successful outcomes and to develop an evidence base of effective strategies.

• Conduct research to determine the impacts of more-general system reforms (e.g., caps on probation sentences, reductions in the number of technical violations) on disparities in technical violation behaviors, responses, and outcomes.

• Develop management tools (e.g., dashboards) to track disparity metrics, in near real time, at the agency, supervisor, and officer levels to promote transparency and accountability and to identify patterns to be investigated and addressed (e.g., coachable moments for staff, policy or program review).

• Reinforce supervision practices in which staff actively engage in barrier-reduction strategies to "meet supervisees where they are" in terms of appropriate accommodations and service delivery that do not compromise public safety.

Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2023. 32p.

By Giada Girelli, Marcela Jofré, and Ajeng Larasati

Harm Reduction International (HRI) has monitored the use of the death penalty for drug offences worldwide since our first ground-breaking publication on this issue in 2007. This report, our 13th on the subject, continues our work of providing regular updates on legislative, policy and practical developments related to the use of capital punishment for drug offences, a practice which isa clear violation of international human rights and drug control standards.

This year marks the beginning of a new approach to our flagship publication. Every edition of this report will provide key data and updated categories, as well as high-level developments at the national and international level. A deeper analysis of developments and trends will be published in the 2024 edition and on alternate years. The methodology used for both reports remains the same. HRI opposes the death penalty in all cases without exception.

Harm Reduction International, 2024. 22p.

by Phil Bowen

This data review is a quantitative analysis of Citizens Advice data for clients who faced fine arrears between 2019 and 2023. It sits within our research project looking at the impact of court fines on people on low incomes, alongside our report, 'Where the hell am I going to get that money from?: The impact of court fines on people on low incomes'. It specifically seeks answers to the following questions: How has the court fine been used over the past five years?; Which offences do people get fined for?; Who gets fined and what are the demographics of those individuals who receive fines?; And what are the outcomes associated with fines, specifically repayment rates, re-offending rates and imprisonment for fine default?

London: Centre for Justice Innovation, 2024. 37p.

by Lucy Slade

Despite court fines being the most used sentence in the English and Welsh criminal justice system, it is rare that they feature in the discussion of justice reform engaged in by policymakers, academics and the third sector. To shine a light on this important, but under examined, area of our justice system, the Centre has undertaken a research project looking specifically what is the impact of their use. It is the first of its kind to look at what ought to happen— and what actually does. As part of this project, we have reviewed the literature of court fines and financial impositions in the criminal courts of England and Wales. This is accompanied by our report, which brings together the findings of our review of publicly available data, and qualitative interviews with people in low-incomes who have received a fine.

London: Centre for Justice Innovation, 2024. 11p.

by Lucy Slade and Stephen Whitehead

Almost everyone who is convicted in a court in England and Wales leaves with a bill to pay. Yet there is a striking gap in our knowledge on the most common sentencing outcome handed down by our courts: the court fine. A new report by the Centre for Justice Innovation published today (16 May 2024) seeks to address this knowledge gap. The report is called: “Where the hell am I going to get that money from?” The impact of court fines on people on low incomes.

The research, specifically conducted during this cost of living crisis, suggest that the impacts of getting a court fine are often highly disproportionate: while better off people experience only minor hardships, such as forgoing a holiday,for a significant number of those on the lowest incomes paying their court fine pushed them deeper towards unmanageable debt, destitution and significant levels of anxiety and mental anguish.

The research highlights that, contrary to the sentencing objectives of the court fine, the financial impact of fines and charges are not experienced equally by people with different levels of means. The research also found major gaps on the data collected, especially on the socio-economic status of those who are fined, meaning there is not a clear picture of who gets fined, who pays and who doesn’t (and why).

The research. The research is a comprehensive study based on a wide range of sources including interviews with 56 people with experience of fines who live on a low income; a literature review; analysis of public data on court fines; and of Citizens Advice data for clients who faced fine arrears between 2019 and 2023; and focus groups with 14 magistrates.

Findings from the data review:

• Men received the majority of fines (2,534,714, 64%), with women receiving 944,547 (24%), and a further 474,557 fines issued where sex was not recorded (12%). This is in keeping with the preponderance of men in the sentencing and the criminal justice caseload more generally.

• Women were proportionally more likely to receive fines than men (85% compared with 73%), in part, because they are more likely to commit the less serious offences, which result in a fine.

• Of the ten offences for which fines are most often issued, women receive the majority of fines for only one of these, TV licence evasion, where they represent three quarters of people whose gender is recorded.

Key findings

Almost everyone who is convicted of a crime in a court in England and Wales leaves with a bill to pay. Over 75% of people convicted each year are sentenced to a fine. Yet while many of the offences for which fines are given are deemed “minor,” the research suggests that, for people on low incomes, the impact of fines is anything but.

• A large number of the offences for which court fines are imposed are strongly linked to people’s pre-existing poverty, such as TV licence evasion.

• Many of the 56 interviewees reported that the financial burdens placed on them by the court had pushed them further into debt, with some pushed into destitution and into further offending to pay off the court fine.

• For some, the financial burdens took a severe toll on their mental and physical health, particularly where they faced prolonged payment periods in a never-ending cycle of payments.

• While fine amount

  • are meant to be determined by an individual’s financial circumstances, this system did not seem to work effectively in practice.

  • The imposition of other non means-tested financial charges alongside the fine, such as prosecution costs, often pushed the total amount owed to the court up from something affordable to an amount that felt impossible to pay in the time allowed.

  • Court fine enforcement action (which is subject to less regulation than commercial credit recovery), particularly the threat of bailiffs, added further financial and wellbeing strains, especially for those already struggling to make insufficient household budgets last.

  • Magistrates suggested that they often felt their hands were tied, leaving them to sentence people on low incomes to fines, the magistrates knew they could not pay.

  • Many interviewees felt that a fine was, in theory, an appropriate punishment for the offence they committed, but the confusing processes of the current system often meant that the total amount they eventually needed to pay was seen as excessive

London: The Centre for Justice Innovation, 2024, 41p.

By The Death Penalty Research Center

In January 2024, Ohio lawmakers announced plans to expand the use of the death penalty to permit executions with nitrogen gas, as Alabama had just done a week earlier. But at the same time the Attorney General and the Ohio Prosecuting Attorneys Association are championing this legislation, a bipartisan group of state legislators has introduced a bill to abolish the death penalty based on “significant concerns on who is sentenced to death and how that sentence is carried out.” The competing narratives make it more important than ever for Ohioans to have a meaningful, accurate understanding of how capital punishment is being used, including whether the state has progressed beyond the mistakes of its past.

Early 19th century Ohio Black Laws imposed various legal restrictions on the rights and status of Black people in the state, not dissimilar to what would later become Black Codes in many Southern states. As constitutional historian Dr. Stephen Middleton explains, “Although the penal code of Ohio did not explicitly provide for a dual system for handling criminal cases, the Black Laws naturally made race an element in the criminal justice system.”

Ohio’s 1807 “Negro Evidence Law” prohibited Black people from testifying against white people in court, thus instituting a legal double standard. Articles in African American newspapers from the time reported numerous instances where white assailants attacked Black victims with impunity because there was no legal consequence without a white person who could testify on the victims’ behalf. The state also passed racial restrictions on juries in 1816 and 1831, officially barring Black people from jury service. These laws no longer exist, but modern studies reveal that jury discrimination continues.

One of the most significant ties between historical death sentencing and the modern use of capital punishment is the preferential valuing of white victims. Multiple Ohio-specific studies have concluded that when a case involves a white victim—especially a white female victim—defendants are more likely to receive a death sentence or be executed. A review of all aggravated murder charges in Hamilton County from January 1992 through August 2017 revealed that prosecutors are 4.54 times more likely to file charges with death penalty eligibility if there is at least one white victim, compared to similarly situated cases without white victims. A separate study of Ohio executions between 1976 and 2014 found that homicides involving white female victims are six times more likely to result in an execution than homicides involving Black male victims. DPIC independently analyzed race of victim data for all 465 death sentences in the state and found that 75% of death sentences were for cases with at least one white victim. For context, most murder victims in the state are Black (66%).

Black capital defendants have also faced instances of overt racism from jurors, prosecutors, and even their own attorneys. During closing arguments, the prosecuting attorney in Dwight Denson’s trial suggested that if jurors did not sentence him to death, they might as well rename Cincinnati’s Over-the-Rhine neighborhood to “Jungle Land,” adding, “Leave it to Dwight Denson. Leave it to people like him.” An attorney for Malik Allah-U-Akbar (tried as Odraye Jones) reiterated false, racialized testimony from an expert witness during closing arguments: “I think it’s a quarter of the…urban [B]lack American youth come up with antisocial personality disorder…. This isn’t a situation you can treat. … You have to put him out of society until it runs its course.”

As the current debate over the use of the death penalty in Ohio continues, this report provides historical information, context, and data to inform the critical decisions that will follow.

Washington, DC: Death Penalty Information Center, 2024. 49p.

By Solitary Watch, American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana; Jesuit Social Research Institute/Loyola University New Orleans

The use of solitary confinement in the state of Louisiana has penetrated the broader public consciousness largely through the story of the Angola 3. Over the past decade, the harrowing saga of three African American men—all likely innocent of the prison murders that were used to justify confining them in solitary for up to 43 years—sparked media attention and public outcry as the ultimate expression of harsh, racist, Southern injustice. But there is another story to be told about solitary confinement in Louisiana. Like the story of the Angola 3, it is deeply rooted in the history of racial subjugation and captivity in the South, which begins with slavery and stretches through convict leasing and Jim Crow to the modern era of mass incarceration. However, it extends far beyond the lives of just three men. This is the story of a prison system where, on any given day, nearly one in five people is being held in isolation, placed there by prison staff, often for minor rule violations or “administrative” reasons. When it conducted a full count in the fall of 2017, the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections (LADOC) reported that 19 percent of the men in its state prisons—2,709 in all—had been in solitary confinement for more than two weeks. Many had been there for years or even decades. The Vera Institute of Justice, which released its own report on solitary confinement in Louisiana earlier this year, similarly found over 17 percent of the state’s prison population in solitary in 2016. These rates of solitary confinement use were more than double the next highest state’s, and approximately four times the national average. Given that Louisiana also has the second highest incarceration rate in the United States, which leads the world in both incarceration and solitary confinement use, it is clear that Louisiana holds the title of solitary confinement capital of the world. The state has this dishonorable distinction at a time when a growing body of evidence offers proof of the devastating psychological and social harms caused by prolonged solitary confinement, as well as its ineffectiveness as a tool to reduce prison violence. In 2015, when it revised its Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (known as the Mandela Rules), the United Nations acknowledged that solitary confinement of 15 days or more is cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment that often rises to the level of torture. Taken together, these facts indicate that the state of Louisiana is abusing and at times torturing thousands of its citizens for no legitimate purpose whatsoever. The numbers, however, still tell only part of the story. Just as Albert Woodfox’s memoir "Solitary" powerfully conveys what it is like to live for decades in conditions that are designed “to break people,” the words of individuals living in solitary confinement are vital to understanding the reality of what is happening today in Louisiana’s prisons. For this report, we collected information directly from those men and women. The bulk of the report is based on detailed responses from more than 700 lengthy surveys completed by individuals in solitary, whose names and identifying information have been changed to protect their safety and privacy. Their descriptions paint a grim picture of long stretches of time spent in small cells that are often windowless, filthy, and/or subject to extreme temperatures, where they are denied basic human needs such as adequate food and daily exercise, and subject to many forms of abuse as well as to unending idleness and loneliness, resulting in physical and mental deterioration. Since surveys were returned voluntarily, the results cannot be viewed as a comprehensive or representative sampling. Yet with more than 700 responses from all nine of the state’s prisons, which provided personal narratives as well as quantitative data,8 we believe our report complements, builds upon, and adds an even greater sense of urgency to previous recommendations for reform of solitary confinement in Louisiana, including those included in the recent report by the Vera Institute of Justice. At a moment when LADOC has, for the first time, shown willingness to reconsider and reduce its use of solitary confinement, the findings in this report offer vital insights—and illuminate a path toward the sweeping changes that must be made if Louisiana is to create a prison system that succeeds in both advancing public safety and preserving the human rights of incarcerated people. Major findings from this report include the following: • More than 77 percent of respondents said they had been held in solitary confinement for more than a year, and 30 percent said they had been in solitary for more than five years. LADOC has not collected data on duration of time in solitary. Nationally, less than 20 percent of individuals in solitary, on average, have been there for more than one year. The United Nations has called on countries to ban the use of solitary beyond two weeks. • Just over 56 percent of respondents were in Extended Lockdown, which is generally used as punishment for prison rule violations, and which has no maximum duration. This type of segregation violates UN prohibitions on both using isolation for punishment (as opposed to safety) and using it for indefinite periods. • African Americans were over-represented among respondents. This racial disparity is consistent with the Vera Institute’s report, which also found higher percentages of African Americans and lower percentages of whites in solitary than in the general prison population. • More than half of respondents believed their mental health had worsened during their time in solitary. Most others said it had stayed the same or weren’t sure. • Many described psychological problems consistent with research on the negative mental health effects of prolonged solitary confinement. These include anxiety, panic attacks, depression, hopelessness, sensitivity to light and sound, visual and auditory hallucinations, rage, paranoia, and difficulty interacting with others. Some expressed fear that the damage would be permanent, and they would “never be the same again.” • More than one-quarter of respondents reported engaging in self-harm, including cutting and head-banging, while in solitary, while less than 6 percent said they had done so while in general population. More than 66 percent said that they had witnessed others attempting to harm themselves frequently while in solitary. Of those who had harmed themselves, 4 percent said they received counseling in response, while more than 26 percent said they were punished for it. etc.....

New Orleans: Solitary Watch American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana Jesuit Social Research Institute/Loyola University New Orleans. 2019. 135p.

By Becky Feldman

Today, there are nearly two million people in American prisons and jails – a 500% increase over the last 50 years. In 2020, over 200,000 people in U.S. prisons were serving life sentences – more people than were in prison with any sentence in 1970. Nearly one-third of people serving life sentences are 55 or older, amounting to over 60,000 people. People of color, particularly Black Americans, are represented at a higher rate among those serving lengthy and extreme sentences than among the total prison population.

Harsh sentencing policies, such as lengthy mandatory minimum sentences, have produced an aging prison population in the United States. But research has established that lengthy sentences do not have a significant deterrent effect on crime and divert resources from effective public safety programs. Most criminal careers are under 10 years, and as people age, they usually desist from crime. Existing parole systems are ineffective at curtailing excessive sentences in most states, due to their highly discretionary nature, lack of due process and oversight, and lack of objective consideration standards. Consequently, legislators and the courts are looking to judicial review as a more effective means to reconsider an incarcerated person’s sentence in order to assess their fitness to reenter society. A judicial review mechanism also provides the opportunity to evaluate whether sentences imposed decades ago remain just under current sentencing policies and public sentiment.

Second Look Defined

Legislation authorizing judges to review sentences after a person has served a lengthy period of time has been referred to as a second-look law and more colloquially as “sentence review.”

This report presents the evolution of the second look movement, which started with ensuring compliance with the U.S. Supreme Court’s decisions in Graham v. Florida (2010) and Miller v. Alabama (2012) on the constitutionality of juvenile life without parole (“JLWOP”) sentences. This reform has more recently expanded to other types of sentences and populations, such as other excessive sentences imposed on youth, and emerging adults sentenced to life without parole (“LWOP”). Currently, legislatures in 12 states, the District of Columbia, and the federal government have enacted a second look judicial review beyond opportunities provided to those with JLWOP sentences, and courts in at least 15 states determined that other lengthy sentences such as LWOP or term-of-years sentences were unconstitutional under Graham or Miller.

Washington, DC: The Sentencing Project, 2024. 42p.

By Judith A. Ryder

The rate of female incarceration continues to surge, resulting in over 714,000 women currently being held behind bars worldwide. Females generally enter carceral facilities with low educational profiles, and educational programming inside is rarely a high priority. Access to education is a proven contributor to women’s social and economic empowerment and can minimise some of the obstacles they encounter after being released from custody. Support for the intellectual potential of incarcerated female ‘students’ can address intersecting inequalities that impede access to social protection, public services and sustainable infrastructure. Policymakers, academics and activists concerned with gender equality must begin by focusing on academic and vocational program development for female prisoners, built through strong community partnerships, and inclusive of trauma informed supports.

International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy, 9(1), pp. 139-149. 2020

By Paul McGorrery and Paul Schollum

When sentencing someone for criminal offending, courts can select from a number of possible sentencing orders, such as imprisonment, a drug and alcohol treatment order, a community correction order (CCO), a fine, an adjourned undertaking, or a dismissal with or without conviction. Courts can also often impose a combination of these sentencing orders if doing so would be appropriate in the circumstances of the case. The focus of this report is a particular combination of sentencing orders imposed in the same case: imprisonment with a CCO (a combined order). A CCO is a sentencing order that an offender serves in the community while subject to various mandatory conditions as well as at least one optional condition. When courts impose a combined order, the offender commences their CCO on release from prison. Aim and research questions The aim of this report is to present a statistical profile of combined orders of imprisonment with a CCO in the 9 calendar years from 2012 to 2020.

Melbourne: Sentencing Advisory Council (VIC), 2023. 28p.

By Anna Chalton, Dugan Dallimore and Paul McGorrery

Threat Offences in Victoria examines sentencing outcomes from 2015 to 2019 for five types of threat offences: threat to kill, threat to inflict serious injury, threat to destroy or damage property, threat to commit a sexual offence and threat to assault an emergency worker. It considers the offences co-sentenced alongside threat offences and the prior and subsequent offending rates for people sentenced for threat offending.

Melbourne: Sentencing Advisory Council (VIC), 2021. 76p.

By Anna Chalton, Paul McGorrery, Zsombor Bathy, Dugan Dallimore, Paul Schollum and Octavian Simu

This report provides an in-depth analysis of how Victorian courts sentence stalking offences contrary to section 21A of the Crimes Act 1958 (Vic). It considers the demographics of stalkers, the relationship between stalking offenders and victims, the sorts of stalking behaviours sentenced in Victorian courts and the sentencing outcomes for stalking offences. It also explores the link between stalking and family violence, the rate of reoffending among stalking offenders and the prevalence of stalking offences in rural and regional Victoria

Melbourne: Sentencing Advisory Council (VIC), 2022. 104p.

By The Center for Human Rights

The COVID-19 pandemic has spurred urgent and growing concerns about the health of immigrants held in detention centers in the United States. In fact, awareness of the problem is not new: in 2016, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) inspector general raised deep questions about the agency’s preparedness for a possible pandemic event,[1] concerns that were reiterated last December when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) denounced DHS for having medical infrastructure it described as “not sufficient to assure rapid and adequate infection control measures.”[2]

Here in Washington, over the course of recent years, increasing activism by people detained at the Northwest Detention Center[3] (NWDC) and community supporters has spurred pointed criticism by elected officials at the local, state, and national level of conditions within the facility. Sustained media attention and multiple lawsuits have also forced the facility to defend its practices. In March 2020, the Washington State Legislature passed HB 2576, a law mandating inquiries into state and local oversight mechanisms regarding conditions in the NWDC, further underscoring the perceived need to address gaps in understanding regarding the health and welfare of those housed within the facility.

In this context, the UW Center for Human Rights (UWCHR) considers it important to make our ongoing research on conditions within the NWDC available to the public. As part of our longstanding effort to examine the human rights implications of federal immigration enforcement in our state, UWCHR has sought, since 2017, to obtain information about conditions of detention in public and private detention facilities where immigrants are housed in Washington state.[4] While our efforts to obtain information about conditions within the NWDC have been only partially successful due to the lack of transparency surrounding the facility, the information we have obtained is sufficiently concerning, particularly in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, that we are choosing to share our initial findings with the public even as our collection and analysis of further data continues.

This report will be published as a series discussing areas of human rights concern at the facility, including background, methodology, and relevant human rights standards; sanitation of food and laundry; allegations of medical neglect; use of solitary confinement; COVID-19 and health standards; reporting of sexual assault and abuse; and uses of force and chemical agents. The report includes research updates covering concerns about cleanliness at the detention center going unanswered and a look at the context for Charles Leo Daniel’s death at the NWDC.

The Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington

By Vera Institute of Justice

Postsecondary education in prison has positive effects for students who are incarcerated, their families and communities, public safety, and safety inside prisons. Research has demonstrated that postsecondary education reduces incarceration, makes prisons safer places to live and work, and improves employment and wages. Nationally, taxpayers also see major benefits, with every dollar invested in prison-based education yielding more than four dollars in taxpayer savings from reduced incarceration costs. Most people in prison are both interested in and academically qualified for postsecondary education (64 percent), yet only a tiny fraction of people in prison completes a credential while incarcerated (9 percent). This gap between educational aspirations and participation is driven largely by a lack of capacity due to limited funding.

New York: Vera Institute of Justice, 2023. 3p.

By The Reducing Reoffending Third Sector Advisory Group (RR3)

   The Reducing Reoffending Third Sector Advisory Group (RR3) provides the key interface between the voluntary sector, and the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS), in order to increase mutual understanding and build a strong and effective partnership. The group is made up of senior leaders from the voluntary sector and meets quarterly with civil servants to provide guidance and feedback on MoJ policy developments. The RR3 convenes Special Interest Groups (SIGs) to advise on specific areas of policy and practice as the need arises. This Employment SIG has focused on the barriers to employment faced by people, both in prison and on their release into the community. This focus has been caveated with the acknowledgement that there are many people in prison who require additional, pre-employment support in order that they can gain the skills and the confidence that they need to secure employment at an appropriate juncture. For this group, the focus has been not on the immediate steps needed to secure employment, either in prison or in the community, but on addressing more complex needs that present obstacles to gaining employment in the future. Following an introduction into the current employment situation faced by people leaving prison and recent initiatives implemented in prisons to boost employment outcomes, the paper focuses on the following areas: 1) Prison workshops 2) The financial security of people in prison 3) Employer and training provider engagement 4) Addressing complex needs 5) Service coordination

Suffolk, UK: Clinks. 2024, 17pg