By The Confederation of European Probation.

Probation organisations are dynamic organisations that usually have a tradition of accommodating and assimilating appropriate working methods commonly accepted within the society in which they operate. In a probation context, these working methods broadly aim to support both the essence and goals of probation. We can see evidence of this in the ongoing professional discussions, development projects, and technology being used and incorporated into probation practice. The purpose of these practice recommendations is to support jurisdictions to reflect upon certain issues before developing and using technology, undergoing digitalisation or considering hybrid working models. First, it is recommended for all organisations providing probation services to consider the goals of probation when considering using technology and digitising services. The second recommendation is to consider the essence of probation and the goals of probation when choosing technology or digitalised working processes. In practice, this could mean, for example, that the chosen technology should enhance building a positive and constructive working relationship with the client and facilitating rehabilitation and undertaking change work with the probation client. Another practical positive impact could be that co-work with other stakeholders and service providers becomes more flexible. The third aim of the practice recommendations is to share the benefits and good practices in using technology and digitalisation with members of the Confederation of European Probation (CEP) and other counterparts. The core purpose of these practice recommendations is to highlight the recommendations of the Council of Europe, such as the Probations Rules, Recommendations on community sanctions and measures, Electronic Monitoring and Artificial Intelligence defined, regarding the use of technology and digitalisation in probation. The fourth aspect is that all members of the European Union must consider and comply with the EU Directive on Data Protection and Security (GDPR). 

Utrecht, NETH: CEP Expert Group on Technology , 2024. 33p.

By Margaret Colgate Love

The problem of collateral consequences calls to mind Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.’s famous line: “The life of the law has not been logic: it has been experience.” U.S. criminal law itself is not theoretically pure. In the area of civil law, in particular commercial law, dozens of uniform laws are on the books, drafted by experts, many of which, such as the Uniform Commercial Code, have been widely adopted. But in a country where we evaluate criminal justice policies based on a melange of principles - retributivist, utilitarian, economic, religious, pragmatic, intuitive, and emotional - there is and could be no Uniform Penal Code.1 Criminal law is inconsistent across states, and even within states, in its underlying justification or rationale, and the reasons that particular rules or practices exist. The Model Penal Code has been widely influential, but—as designed—states adopted only the pieces they liked and heavily modified them. Disagreement about how to treat someone who has been arrested or prosecuted after their criminal case is concluded is, if anything, even more intense. The collateral or indirect consequences of their experience may be divided into four main types: Loss of civil rights, limits on personal freedom (such as registration or deportation), dissemination of damaging information, and deprivation of opportunities and benefits, each of which may be justified and criticized for different reasons. Accordingly, criminal law practitioners and scholars disagree about the fundamental nature and purpose of collateral consequences. To the extent the public at large ever thinks about them, they also hold a range of views. There is no consensus about whether collateral consequences in general or particular ones should be understood as further punishment for crime or prophylactic civil regulation, as a reasonable effort to control risk or as an unconstitutional and immoral perpetuation of Jim Crow, or, perhaps, understood in some other way. Advocates, analysts, and lawmakers will never be in a position to argue persuasively “because collateral consequences rest on Principle X, it follows that they should apply in and only in Condition Y, and must be relieved under Circumstance Z.”  Yet, the practical problem of collateral consequences looms large. With their massive expansion in recent decades, those who experience collateral consequences firsthand know that they cannot become fully functioning members of the community without finding a way to overcome them. The economic dislocations caused by the COVID-19 pandemic underscore the practical implications of collateral consequences: With individuals desperate for money and opportunity, and businesses hungry for workers, the need for a sensible policy to minimize employer concerns about risk is clear. And while there remains no compelling necessity for all states to have the same penalties for armed robbery or cattle rustling, collateral consequences are a national economic problem affecting whole communities that might justify a federal, or at least a uniform, solution. Fortunately, agreement on underlying principles is not required to agree on particular policies.2 Most Americans agree that people arrested or convicted of a crime should not be relegated to a permanent subordinate status regardless of the passage of time, successful efforts at rehabilitation and restitution, and lack of current risk to fellow Americans. Finding ways to restore their legal and social status is a compelling necessity, given the array of collateral consequences adversely affecting tens of millions of Americans, their families and communities, the economy, and public safety itself. To adapt a line from Justice Anthony Kennedy’s 2003 speech on criminal justice to the ABA, too many people are subject to too many collateral consequences for too long. At the same time, substantial majority likely agree that public safety requires excluding those convicted of recent criminal conduct from situations where they present a clear and present danger of serious harm. Even if it is impossible to identify a s     

Arnold, MO: Collateral Consequences Resource Center (CCRC) , 2022. 129p.

By Margaret Love

This report deals with a form of relief from the collateral consequences of a criminal conviction that is less far-reaching than expungement or other forms of record clearing but is potentially available to more people at an earlier point in time. These so-called “certificates of relief” do not limit public access to a person’s record, but they may be effective in reducing many conviction-related disadvantages in the workplace, including by providing employers and others with protection against the risk of being sued for negligence. At least as long as expungement and sealing remain unavailable to many people with a felony conviction record, or are available only after lengthy waiting periods, certificates of relief can provide an important addition to a state’s reentry scheme, and serve as a bridge to a more thorough forms of record relief like expungement. We believe that, rather than competing as alternative forms of relief, certificates, and expungement can operate as complementary parts of a structured system of serially available criminal record relief. Yet it appears that certificates have been largely ignored in many states by courts that are empowered to dispense them, as well as by the advocacy community whose clients might benefit from them. State court systems have failed to collect, track, or aggregate basic data like the number of certificate applications, grants, and denials, a failure that makes it almost impossible to evaluate a certificate’s effectiveness in a given state. At the same time, in a promising development, certificates are being used by prison and parole agencies to facilitate reentry for those exiting prison or completing supervision. Given the perceived limits of record clearing as a comprehensive reentry strategy, social science researchers have become interested in studying the effect of laws that aim to increase the positive information about individuals with a criminal record to counter the negative effect of the record itself. This report is intended to support these research efforts by describing the state of the law relating to certificates of relief in the 21 states that now offer them. A follow-up study will look at the state of executive pardoning  

Arnold, MO: Collateral Consequences Resource Center, 2024. 42p.

By Anneliese N. Luck

Jail incarceration remains an overlooked yet crucial component of the U.S. carceral system. Although a growing literature has examined the mortality costs associated with residing in areas with high levels of incarceration, far less is known about how local jails shape this burden at the intersection of race, sex, and age. In this study, I examine the relationship between county-level jail incarceration and age-specific mortality for non-Hispanic Black and White men and women, uniquely leveraging race-specific jail rates to account for the unequal racial distribution of jail exposures. This study finds evidence of positive associations between mortality and jail incarceration: this association peaks in late adulthood (ages 50–64), when increases in jail rates are associated with roughly 3% increases in mortality across all race–sex groups. However, patterns vary at the intersection of race, sex, and age. In particular, I find more marked and consistent penalties among women than among men. Additionally, a distinctly divergent age pattern emerges among Black men, who face insignificant but negative associations at younger ages but steep penalties at older ages—significantly larger among those aged 65 or older relative to their White male and Black female counterparts. Evidence further suggests that the use of race-neutral incarceration measures in prior work may mask the degree of harm associated with carceral contexts, because the jail rate for the total population underestimates the association between jail rates and mortality across nearly all race–age–sex combinations. These findings highlight the need for future ecological research to differentiate between jail and prison incarceration, consider the demographic distribution of incarceration's harms, and incorporate racialized measures of exposure so that we may better capture the magnitude of harm associated with America's carceral state.

Demography (2024) 61 (5): 1455–1482.

By The Justice Policy Institute

Most states have established release mechanisms for the aging population and those in prison who are battling a terminal illness, often referred to as compassionate release. Compassionate release policies typically permit individuals in prison to petition for early release after having served a pre-determined number of years for either health (medical parole) or advanced age (geriatric parole). However, the laws frequently have restrictive eligibility requirements and are applied sparingly, often when an individual is expected to survive only a matter of days or weeks. While Maryland has both medical and geriatric parole options, approval is fleeting. Data are limited but provide a glimpse into their restricted use. Between 2015 and 2020, the Maryland Parole Commission approved 86 medical parole applications and denied 253. Further, the Governor granted nine medical parole requests from individuals serving life sentences and rejected 14 requests. Most notably, the lowest yearly approval rating occurred during the height of the pandemic in 2020 at seven percent. The Justice Reinvestment Act of 2016 expanded geriatric parole eligibility by lowering the age threshold from 65 to 60 years old. However, petitions are rarely approved. Currently, there are about 650 individuals over the age of 60 in Maryland’s prison system who have served at least 15 years. These individuals are eligible to be evaluated for release. But, like in most states, Maryland seldom relies on these compassionate release policies to release the elderly and infirm from prison, despite posing a minimal risk to public safety and a significant cost burden on the state budget. Without substantial reforms to compassionate release in Maryland, the aging population will continue to grow, and the onus will be on the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services (DPSCS) to provide the adequate care.

Washington, DC: Justice Policy Institute, 2022. 14p.

By U.S. Department of Justice Civil Rights Division;  U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Georgia 

 In September 2022, Lashawn Thompson died alone in a filthy cell in the mental health unit of the Fulton County Jail. Mr. Thompson, who had a history of mental illness and was unhoused, was accused of spitting at a Georgia Tech police officer and arrested on a simple battery charge, then held on an old warrant. Three months after his arrest, Mr. Thompson was found in his cell, slumped over with his head on his toilet. A medical examiner reported that his malnourished body was infested with an “enormous presence of body lice,” and concluded that he was “neglected to death.” There was widespread reporting and outrage about the conditions that led to Mr. Thompson’s death. But there was another death on the mental health unit—several months before Mr. Thompson’s—that never made the news. An unhoused man with serious mental illness was arrested and held in Fulton County Jail’s mental health unit after breaking into a building to seek shelter and warmth. On the mental health unit he stopped taking his medications, and his health declined. He was found unresponsive following a likely seizure and was transported to an outside hospital for care, but never recovered. He died in hospice a month later. Two more people died in the Jail’s mental health unit in the weeks following Mr. Thompson’s death. Both men had serious mental health needs; one had a developmental disability. Both were killed by their cellmates, and both were found with their feet bound. One of them was wrapped up in bedding “like a mummy.” Altogether, these four Black men with serious mental health needs died in the Jail’s mental health unit in under a year. In July 2023, we opened a civil rights investigation into conditions in the Fulton County Jail under the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act (CRIPA), 42 U.S.C. § 1997, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), 42 U.S.C. § 12132, and the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act, 34 U.S.C. § 12601. Within weeks of opening our investigation, six more Black men had died in the Jail. One person was found unresponsive in his cell after his cellmate strangled him. And days later, tensions in the Jail erupted in violence: within 24 hours, five units in the Jail saw violent assaults, at least seven people were stabbed, and one person was killed. After an extensive investigation, we find reasonable cause to believe that Fulton County and the Fulton County Sheriff’s Office violate the constitutional and statutory rights of people incarcerated in the Fulton County Jail. Fulton County Jail fails to adequately protect incarcerated people from the substantial risk of serious harm from violence, including homicides and  stabbings by other incarcerated people. Serious violence has harmed people with mental health needs and other vulnerable populations. Assaults are carried out with weapons fashioned from Jail fixtures and are made possible by physical deficiencies in the Jail environment, such as unlocked doors. The Jail has long had inadequate practices for reporting and responding appropriately to sexual violence. Poor supervision, poor classification practices, and inattention to the maintenance of the Jail are major contributors to the unacceptable violence. Fulton County Jail deputies and detention officers use force against incarcerated people without adequate justification. This includes a practice of deploying Tasers against incarcerated people without reasonable cause. Understaffing in the facility contributes to the excessive use of force, as do poor policies, training, and the failure of supervisors to identify, correct, and discipline officers. Fulton County Jail living conditions do not meet basic constitutional standards. The Jail has allowed housing areas to fall into a state of serious disrepair, with standing water collecting in living areas, exposed wires, pests poorly controlled, and deficient services for providing clean clothing and sheets. These conditions are dangerous and unsanitary. Meals are served to the incarcerated population in an unsanitary manner and do not meet nutritional standards. As a result, people in the Jail have suffered harms from pest infestation and malnourishment. Medical and mental health care in the Fulton County Jail do not meet constitutional standards. The Jail impedes access to medical and mental health care through a lack of security staff. Medication administration gaps lead to medical and mental health complications and injuries. When medical emergencies occur, the Jail fails to provide appropriate medical care. And although people with mental health needs are overrepresented in the Jail population, the Jail environment exacerbates symptoms of mental illness. The Jail does not adequately protect people from a risk of suicide and does not adequately treat serious mental health needs. Restrictive housing conditions in the Jail pose a substantial risk of harm, including acute mental illness and self-injury, and restrictive housing practices are discriminatory and unlawful. The Jail places people in isolation without adequate monitoring for decompensation. Restrictive housing placement processes discriminate against people with mental health disabilities in violation of the ADA. Jail officers punish people with long terms in restrictive housing without adequate due process protections. Georgia is one of only four states where the juvenile justice system’s jurisdiction ends at 16. There are 17-year-old boys and girls at the Jail, many of whom spend over a year in custody. These children are subjected to violence and excessive force, experience sexual abuse, and are denied adequate mental health care. The Jail’s use of restrictive housing uniquely harms these children because they are psychologically different from adults, making their time in isolation much more damaging, exacerbating the onset of mental illness, increasing the risk of suicide, and causing long-lasting trauma. The Jail also fails to provide special education services to 17-year-old boys and girls who are entitled to them, in violation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), 20 U.S.C. §§ 1400–1482. None of these problems are new. And despite widespread awareness of these issues, the unconstitutional and illegal conditions have persisted. Vulnerable populations— including children, those who are gay or transgender, people with medical and mental health needs, and others—often bear the brunt of these conditions. Deaths and other harms have continued. In April 2024, an incarcerated person died in the Jail after being stabbed 20 times. Less than a week later, a man was found dead in his cell, likely hours after his death. The report that follows explains the scope of our investigation and provides background information about the Jail. The report describes the constitutional and statutory violations that we found in the Jail, including the legal framework applied, the unacceptable conditions identified, and the deficient practices that led to the problems. We end by identifying changes that need to be implemented to fix the violations and prevent further harms.       

Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, 2024. 105p.   

By Tammy Colleen Ayres, Diane Levine, Clare Anderson, Kellie Moss, Dylan Kerrigan, Mellissa Ifill, Estherine Adams, Nelroy Austin, Queenela Cameron, Martin Halliwell, Shammane Jackson, Kevin Pilgrim, Deborah Toner, Kristy Warren

This article reflects on the research process that underpinned the ESRC GCRF project ‘Mental Health, Neurological and Substance Abuse Disorders in Guyana's Jails: 1825 to the present day’. Introducing readers to a transdisciplinary team comprised of academics and practitioners, in what follows we think through how the methods of the research underpinned the production of the data used in this special issue. The article highlights the emotional labor and ethics of care among the team, the benefits of transdisciplinary research, and the mutual reciprocity and learning that took place between academics and prison staff. The goal of the project was to create equitable and ethical partnerships, and this contributed to the success of this research in terms of findings, data, and real-world impact.

The Howard Journal of Crime and JusticeVolume63, Issue4, 2024. December 2024 Pages 363-389

By Marie Hutton and Rachel O’Brien

This report forms part of PRT’s National Lottery Community Fund-funded Building Futures programme that, since 2020, has been exploring the experiences of people serving long-term prison sentences. The programme has defined its long-term cohort to include those men that will spend 10 or more years in prison and eight years or more for women. It is based on a consultation with 133 men and women between the age of 18 and 75, serving their sentences in 38 prisons in the UK. This report aims to: • Understand more about the impact that a range of relationships (and their absence) have on the lives of people serving long sentences. • Explore how a range of factors support or hinder people’s ability to maintain, rebuild and develop supportive relationships. • Develop insights and ideas that inform policy and practice in line with PRT’s vision of a just, humane and effective penal system. This report and its context This report explores the shifting landscape within which this work takes place and that shapes the nature of prison life, including people’s ability to maintain supportive relationships. Alongside increases in the overall prison population, this includes a long-term rise in the number of people serving custodial sentences over 10 years (a trend that looks set to continue). These trends compound pressures on a system that has been overcrowded every year since 1994, and in which staff shortages are endemic. These pressures present significant challenges to those living and working inside, to government, to the prison system and to organisations providing services in prison. The justice system has a duty to treat people with respect due to their inherent dignity and value as human beings, ensuring they are not discriminated against on a range of grounds including ethnicity, sex and age. The contributions of participants included in this report raise significant questions about the extent to which the system is fulfilling these obligations. These issues become more pressing in the context of an aging prison population, where racial disproportionality continues to increase, and where neurodiversity and disability are becoming more prevalent. This report underlines how the prison system - behind the curve, under-resourced and emotionally charged in the public imagination - needs to be enabled to contend with disparate current and future needs. It underlines the importance of ensuring the prison system not only better meets current needs, but is also fit for the future, treating people with dignity (including when dying) and enabling them to live meaningful lives in the constrained circumstances of prison. The contribution that supportive relationships play to this end has been highlighted by  the Farmer reviews of 2017 and 2019 and the measures that have flowed from this. Although long overdue, the government has also acknowledged the need for a strategy for older people in prison. Our conclusions aim to build on these changes. Findings.  Participants provided insights about how prisons operate day-to-day, revealing gaps between policy and practice on the ground, inconsistencies and systemic pressures that undermine good practice. Having no, limited or disrupted relationships outside impacted participants’ progress and motivation and can impact Parole Board decisions about their future, including release. This speaks to evidence around pro-social relationships and the protective factors these can bring. This includes desistance from crime. However, participants emphasised the extent to which the presence of supportive relationships makes prison ‘survivable’ and how these are shaped by age and sentence length. Many described how close bonds help them feel ‘human’, ‘cared for’, giving them ‘hope’. This speaks to arguments about the legitimacy and moral justification of systems of punishment needing to be compatible with reasonable expectations of hope during and after that punishment.6 Participants also spoke about alternate lives continuing outside, with families and friends moving on without them. Many shared their fears for the future as their relationships were stretched to breaking point, they became more detached, as visits dwindled, families changed, loved ones died and children grew up. Some anticipated leaving prison with no friends or family to return to. Others faced the prospect of death in prison, with a lack of family contact in their final years. A consistent theme raised was the prevalence of people who did not have anyone on the outside, received no visits or external support. Many participants expressed empathy for those worse off than them, were supporting others and suggested ideas that could benefit current and future peers. This included changes that would increase availability of ‘partners in progress’ to support frontline staff.   

London: Prison Reform Trust, 2024. 72p. 

By John Eric Humphries, Aurelie Ouss, Kamelia Stavreva, Megan T. Stevenson & Winnie van Dijk

Noncarceral conviction is a common outcome of criminal court cases: for every individual incarcerated, there are approximately three who are recently convicted but not sentenced to prison or jail. We develop an empirical framework for studying the consequences of noncarceral conviction by extending the binary-treatment judge IV framework to settings with multiple treatments. We outline assumptions under which widely-used 2SLS regressions recover margin-specific treatment effects, relate these assumptions to models of judge decision-making, and derive an expression that provides intuition about the direction and magnitude of asymptotic bias when they are not met. Under the identifying assumptions, we find that noncarceral conviction (relative to dismissal) leads to a large and long-lasting increase in recidivism for felony defendants in Virginia. In contrast, incarceration relative to noncarceral conviction leads to a short-run reduction in recidivism, consistent with incapacitation. While the identifying assumptions include a strong restriction on judge decision-making, we argue that any bias resulting from its failure is unlikely to change our qualitative conclusions. Lastly, we introduce an alternative empirical strategy and find that it yields similar estimates. Collectively, these results suggest that noncarceral felony conviction is an important and potentially overlooked driver of recidivism.

 National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper no. 32894 Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research, 2024. 134p.

By John Wooldredge

Academic attention to violence and other forms of in-prison misconduct is on the rise, although most research continues to be framed within now stale perspectives. A broader framework is needed that builds on the more contemporary aspects of these perspectives and incorporates other elements of prison culture and management that potentially influence violent offending and victimization in prison. This article begins with an overview of cumulative knowledge on prison culture to highlight relevant ideas on inmate adaptation to confinement and how violence might manifest from (mal)adaptation. How prison management shapes and reflects culture is also discussed with an emphasis on how prison officers affect inmate safety. A bi-level framework is presented that brings together the piecemeal contributions of research to date to provide a more comprehensive understanding of offending and victimization that should facilitate crime prevention in prison while improving the humanity of the prison experience

Annual Review of Criminology, Vol. 3 (2020), pp. 165–188

By Doug Pyper, Georgina Sturge, Harriet Samuel 

Suicides in prisons in England and Wales In 2023, provisional statistics show that there were 93 suicides in prison custody in England and Wales. This represented a rate of 10.8 suicides per 10,000 prison population, a rise on the 2022 figure of 9.4. Over the past twenty years, the lowest rate of suicides per 10,000 prisoners was around 7 in 2008-2012 and the highest was 15 in 2016. The suicide rate rose between 2012 and 2016 but has declined overall since. Over the same period, the proportion of prison deaths attributed to suicide has declined by 28 percentage points: down from 58% of all deaths in 2002 to 30% in 2023 The rate of suicides among male prisoners is higher than that in the male general population. An Office for National Statistics study of deaths between   

London: UK Parliament, House of Commons Library, 2024. 11p.

By Evarn J. Ooi

Aim

We investigate the impact of the Practice Guide for Intervention (PGI) on re-offending among high-risk parolees in New South Wales (NSW).

 Method

Introduced in June 2016, PGI was a major component of the ‘Enhanced Community Supervision’ reform and led to a dramatic overhaul in the delivery of supervision services. Using a difference-in-differences (DiD) strategy, we compare re-offending behaviour between offenders released from prison on parole and those released unconditionally before and after the introduction of PGI. PGI is compulsory for offenders released on parole with a Level of Service Inventory-Revised (LSI-R) score of medium or above, and consequently, the sample is limited to offenders with these LSI-R scores. Re-offending is measured as the probability of committing a new and proven offence within 12 months of release from prison. The pre-PGI period includes offenders released from prison between June and December 2014. There are two post-PGI periods. The first post-PGI period includes offenders released between June and December 2016, which coincides with the first six months after PGI was introduced in NSW. The second post-PGI period includes offenders released between June and December 2017, when the use of PGI across NSW was approaching its historical peak.

 Results

A comparison of the trends in the re-offending rate before the introduction of PGI confirms that prisoners released unconditionally form a natural comparison group for parolees. The DiD estimates reveal a 2 to 3 percentage point reduction in the likelihood of re-offending among parolees compared with those released unconditionally after the introduction of PGI. However, the estimates are not statistically significant.

Conclusion

The results suggest that the introduction of PGI did not have a statistically significant impact on re-offending rates of high-risk parolees.

(Crime and Justice Bulletin No. 228).  Sydney: NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research. 2020. 26p.

By Sarah L. Desmarais, Brandon Morrissey, Lisa Callahan, Samantha A. Zottola, Jen Elder, Kristin Lupfer, Elan C. Hope, & Richard A. Van Dorn

Although most jail admissions represent the only contact a person will have with the criminal legal system, there is a small group of people who experience more frequent jail contact and who represent a disproportionate number of both jail admissions and expenditures.1,2 People with frequent jail contact experience complex, interconnected social, economic, and behavioral health needs that may exacerbate (or be exacerbated by) their frequent jail contact. This group also experiences frequent contact with other services in the community, such as emergency rooms, homeless shelters, and treatment facilities. Strategies to implement services that meet complex needs and address structural barriers are critical to meaningfully and sustainably reduce system involvement among the population of people who experience frequent jail contact. Effective change for people with frequent jail contact must proceed simultaneously on a systemic, policy level and on the individual 1 services level. The population discussed in this policy brief typically has complicated behavioral and medical health needs, extensive criminal legal encounters, and significant social deficits such as poverty, isolation, and elevated risk of being unhoused. Many of their needs can be addressed with intensive, person-centered treatment in a coordinated continuum of care. The success of community-based solutions is supported by three foundational elements: 1. A systemwide examination of structural barriers and opportunities, 2. A focus on policies to effectively implement and support evidence-based interventions, and 3. A re-envisioning of how the behavioral health and criminal legal systems can coordinate trauma-informed responses for people with frequent jail contact. In this policy brief, we provide nine policy recommendations to help communities address the needs of people experiencing frequent jail contact toward the goal of reducing future contact. These policy recommendations are based on a review of existing research on people with frequent jail contact,3 consideration of the findings of a 2-year mixed-methods study focused on understanding the population of people with frequent jail contact in three U.S. counties,4 and consultation with experts, community partners, and people with lived experience. The nine policy recommendations are: 1. Create a Data Sharing Ecosystem 2. Establish Formal, Jurisdiction-Specific Definitions 3. Use Validated Behavioral Health Screening Tools 4. Implement Psychiatric Advanced Directives 5. Facilitate Jail In-Reach Programs 6. Increase Peer Support Programs 7. Improve Access to Housing 8. Increase Utilization of Community-Based Services 9. Center and Evaluate Efforts for Racial Equity
 

New York: Safety and Justice Challenge Research Consortium, which is managed by the CUNY Institute for State and Local Governance. 2023. 9p.

By The Howard League for Penal Reform

Young adults aged 18-25 are a distinct group who are still maturing as their brains continue to develop. They are overrepresented in the prison population in England and Wales, and in particular in the remand population where they make up 20 per cent of the population compared to around eight per cent in the general population. • The need for a distinct approach for young adults has been recognised in some parts of the criminal justice system. However, the focus tends to be on convicted young adults who are being or have been sentenced. More attention must be paid to young adults who are awaiting trial or sentencing. • Young adults are subject to the provisions set out in the Bail Act 1976, which apply to all adults. The framework on bail and remand should be amended to align with the recently strengthened tests on remand for children. A child cannot be remanded to custody if it is not ‘very likely’ that they will receive a custodial sentence for the offence for which they appear before the court. Where a child has a history of breach or offending whilst on bail they cannot be remanded to custody unless the breach or offending is ‘relevant in all the circumstances of the case’ and is ‘recent and significant’. There is a statutory duty on the court to consider a child’s best interests and welfare. These provisions, which aim to ensure that remand to custody is a last resort, do not apply to young adults. Turning 18 should not be a cliff edge. • The Crown Prosecution Service and judiciary should incorporate a greater recognition of maturity into relevant guidance to ensure that a distinct approach is taken to young adults from the outset. • Young adults should not be remanded without a court report which considers the impact on them of being remanded. If a young adult is to be remanded, sufficient time should be given to explaining remand decisions in court and young adults should be provided with a copy of the reasons for remand in writing. Data on the reasons for remand decisions should be published and disaggregated by age, ethnicity, religion and gender. • Remand is used disproportionately against Black, Brown and racially minoritised young adults. In June 2023, 26 per cent of remanded 18-20-year-olds and 18 per cent of remanded 21–25-year-olds were Black, compared to less than six per cent and five per cent respectively in the general population. Data on the number of people on remand should continue to be published and be disaggregated by age, ethnicity and religion. • Custodial time limits should only be extended in exceptional circumstances. Consideration should be given to the impact of an extended period of time in custody on a young adult in light of their age and ongoing maturational development, before time limits are extended. Data on the length of time people are held on remand should be published and should be disaggregated by age, ethnicity, religion and gender.  • Young adults benefit from lawyers who specialise in working with that age group and understand their specific needs. More should be done to support and encourage all young adults at risk of remand to have specialist legal representation. • Remanded young adults should have access to resettlement support in custody and more should be done to ensure the availability of good quality accommodation that meets young adults’ needs. • All prisons and courts should have a bail information service with bail information officers who are trained in and understand the specific needs of young adults. • Young adults who are remanded should be allocated a probation officer and keyworker in prison. • Young adults should have access to a meaningful daily regime, which includes education and employment, physical exercise and contact with family and friends. Unconvicted prisoners should have the number of visits they are legally entitled to. • Young adults should be supported to submit complaints, including escalating them to the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman as needed, and complaints should be responded to in a timely manner, in accordance with the national complaints policy. • Specialist mental health provision should be available to remanded young adults. • More must be done to identify careexperienced remanded young adults, including increased training for staff in prison on leaving care rights. Every prison holding remanded young adults should have a leaving care co-ordinator. Introduction - In Autumn 2022 the Howard League launched a project, supported by the Barrow Cadbury Trust, to better understand the experiences of remanded young adults. The project builds on previous work by the Howard League looking at the specific needs of young adults, including the role of maturity in the sentencing of young adults (Howard League, 2017), sentencing principles for young adults (Howard League, 2019a and b), and issues facing young adults in prison during Covid (Howard League, 2020). The project follows on from an earlier scoping study about young adults on remand supported by the Barrow Cadbury Trust (Allen, 2021). That study found that there are strong arguments for developing a strategy to make remand arrangements better reflect the developing maturity of young adults. This briefing includes the experiences, voices and lessons to be learned from a group of remanded young adults aged 18-20 in a male Category B prison. It is informed by discussions with criminal justice professionals who work with remanded young adults in England and Wales and the Howard League’s work representing individual young adults across the prison estate through its specialist legal advice service. 

London: Howard League for Penal Reform,   2023. 13p.

By Hilde Tubex, John Rynne and Harry Blagg

This article reports on research undertaken in Western Australia and the Northern Territory to develop effective throughcare strategies for Indigenous people leaving prison. The findings are based on interviews with Indigenous men and women in communities, with and without lived experience of prison, and local service providers. The interviews demonstrate that a thorough exit plan from prison is essential. However, for throughcare strategies to be effective, they should acknowledge the context of Indigenous involvement in the criminal justice system and the ongoing consequences of colonisation. The paper discusses the main areas that need to be addressed during imprisonment and after release, which form the basis of recommendations. Effective throughcare strategies must involve Indigenous people and the broader community, to break the cycle of offending and reoffending and address the over-representation of Indigenous people in prison. 

Trends & issues in crime and criminal justice no. 585. Canberra: Australian Institute of Criminology. 2020. 14p.

By Charles Fain Lehman

In 2019, then-mayor Bill de Blasio introduced, and the New York City Council approved, plans to close the jail complex on Rikers Island and replace it with four jails in Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx, and Queens. Construction on these borough-based jails is expected to be completed in 2027, at which time the city is expected to shutter Rikers entirely. In doing so, it will replace a system with a maximum capacity of nearly 15,000 beds with one that can hold just 3,300 detainees on a given day. That capacity is, by any measure, extremely small, representing a daily population seldom seen on Rikers since its opening a century ago. Even after more than half a decade of deliberate incarceration, the jail’s daily population today sits between 5,500 and 6,000, far greater than the borough-based jails’ allotment. Can New York City operate a jail system with just 3,300 beds without either: a) dangerous, likely illegal, overcrowding? or b) making the city less safe? This report argues that the answer is no. To reach this conclusion, it recounts how the 3,300-bed figure was arrived at, which had more to do with politics than with any reasonable projection of required capacity. It then details the research on the effects of pretrial detention, investigates who is currently on Rikers and who could safely be released, and estimates the relationship between crime rates and jail population. The bottom line: under almost no conceivable scenario can the city expect to safely and sustainably reduce the daily jail population to 3,300—never mind, to reduce it below that figure. Given the city’s commitment to closing Rikers, this report concludes by looking at potential sources of alternative capacity, including refurbishing or repurchasing closed jails; constructing small additional borough jails; and “boarding out” detainees to Long Island and Westchester County. These solutions could buy additional capacity for the system but not enough to provide adequate and safe housing for even the current, much-reduced population. In light of this, the report briefly revisits the case for keeping some of Rikers open  In 2019, then-mayor Bill de Blasio introduced, and the New York City Council approved, plans to close the jail complex on Rikers Island and replace it with four jails in Manhattan, Brook lyn, the Bronx, and Queens. Construction on these borough-based jails is expected to be completed in 2027, at which time the city is expected to shutter Rikers entirely. In so doing, it will replace a system with a maximum capacity of nearly 15,000 beds with one that can hold just 3,300 detainees on a given day. That capacity is, by any measure, extremely small, representing a daily population rarely seen on Rikers since its opening a century ago. Even after more than half a decade of deliberate incarceration, the jail’s daily population today sits between 5,500 and 6,000, far greater than the borough-based jails’ allotment. Can New York City operate a jail system with just 3,300 beds without either: a) dangerous, likely illegal, overcrowding? or b) making the city less safe? This report argues that the answer is no. To reach this conclusion, it recounts how the 3,300-bed figure was arrived at, which had more to do with politics than with any reasonable projection of required capacity. It then details the research on the effects of pretrial detention, investigates who is currently on Rikers and who could safely be released, and estimates the relationship between crime rates and jail population. The bottom line: under almost no conceivable scenario can the city expect to safely and sustainably reduce the daily jail population to 3,300—never mind, to reduce it below that figure. Given the city’s commitment to closing Rikers, this report concludes by looking at potential sources of alternative capacity, including refurbishing or repurchasing closed jails; constructing small additional borough jails; and “boarding out” detainees to Long Island and Westchester County. These solutions could buy additional capacity for the system but not enough to provide adequate and safe housing for even the current, much-reduced population. In light of this, the report briefly revisits the case for keeping some of Rikers open 

New York: The Manhattan Institute, 2022. 34p.

By Martha Newson, Linus Peitz, Jack Cunliffe & Harvey Whitehouse 

As incarceration rates rise globally, the need to reduce re-offending grows increasingly urgent. We investigate whether positive group bonds can improve behaviours among incarcerated people via a unique soccer-based prison intervention, the Twinning Project. We analyse the effects of participation compared to a control group (study 1, n = 676, n = 1,874 control cases) and longitudinal patterns of social cohesion underlying these effects (study 2, n = 388) in the United Kingdom. We also explore desistance from crime after release (study 3, n = 249) in the United Kingdom and the United States. As law-abiding behaviour also requires a supportive receiving community, we assessed factors influencing willingness to employ formerly incarcerated people in online samples in the United Kingdom and the United States (studies 4–9, n = 1,797). Results indicate that social bonding relates to both improved behaviour within the prison and increased willingness of receiving communities to support reintegration efforts. Harnessing the power of group identities both within prison and receiving communities can help to address the global incarceration crisis.

Nature Human Behaviour (2024)

By Hanna Hernandez,  & Vasiliki Georgoulas-Sherry    

Rates of recidivism have been commonly used as a key measure for public safety and in assessing the effectiveness of the criminal justice system – sentencing, jails, prisons, community supervision, treatment, and reentry programming. There is continued interest in tracking recidivism rates beyond a three-year follow-up. Tracking long-term recidivism can provide information for supporting incarcerated individuals and promoting their success in reintegrating into the community following a prison sentence. To evaluate long-term recidivism rates in Washington, the Washington Statistical Analysis Center (SAC) applied for and received the 2021 State Justice Statistics (SJS) grant from the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). Under this grant from BJS, the SAC will draw on publicly available data from the Washington State Department of Corrections (WADOC) to evaluate the long-term recidivism trends of incarcerated individuals released from prison. Background Across the U.S., individuals are being incarcerated in jails and prisons, as many as 11 million times each year. While over 50% of the nation’s incarcerated population is housed in prisons, a little under a third (27%) are housed in local jails, and about a fifth (17%) are housed in juvenile facilities, federal facilities, territorial prisons or other detention facilities (Loeffler et al., 2022; Western et al., 2022). While these rates of incarceration showcase issues surrounding overall mass incarceration, these statistics do not highlight the consistent and pervasive changes within the prison populations. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), in 2019, the U.S. incarceration rate decreased to the lowest rate since 1995. However, despite this rate in decline, the U.S. still incarcerates a bigger percentage of its population compared to any other country. Most recently, 2022 has shown a 2% increase in population as compared to the 2021 rates – this increase made the 1% decline reported in 2021 non-existent, and most historically, highlighted the first increase in rates in both federal and state prison populations within the last decade; it is important to note COVID-19 impacts might have significantly reduced this population (Martyn et al., 2022; Nowotny et al., 2021). According to the BJS (2023), “at yearend 2022, an estimated 32% of sentenced state and federal prisoners were black; 31% were white; 23% were Hispanic; 2% were American Indian or Alaska Native; and 1% were Asian, Native Hawaiian, or Other Pacific Islander” (5). Similarly, pandemic impacts might have significantly impacted these findings – for example, as pretrial populations were almost back to full pre-pandemic populations – more than two-thirds of this population had not been convicted of a crime. Another reason could be due to many jurisdictions reducing their use of prison incarceration.

Olympia, WA:  Washington State Statistical Analysis Center, 2024. 33p.

By Hanna Hernandez, M.A. & Vasiliki Georgoulas-Sherry

Rates of recidivism have been commonly used as a key measure for public safety and in assessing the effectiveness of the criminal justice system – sentencing, jails, prisons, community supervision, treatment, and reentry programming. Tracking recidivism can provide necessary information to support successful integration into the community following a prison sentence – which promotes community and public safety. Furthermore, understanding the individuals who are more likely to recidivate, and assessing demographic differences over the years can provide even more knowledge for supporting successful reentry. To evaluate long-term recidivism in Washington, the Washington Statistical Analysis Center (SAC) applied for and received the 2021 State Justice Statistics (SJS) grant from the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). Under this grant from BJS, the SAC first drew on publicly available data from the Washington State Department of Corrections (DOC) to evaluate the long-term recidivism trends of incarcerated individuals released from prison (Georgoulas-Sherry & Hernandez, 2024). To expand on the findings, this report utilizes the same cohort to further evaluate the racial and sex similarities and differences in recidivism rates. 

Olympia, WA:  Washington State Statistical Analysis Center, 2024. 31p.

By the John Howard Association (Illinois)

Regular communication with the outside world is vital to people in custody. Methods of communication such as phones, mail, video visits, and email via tablets allow incarcerated people to stay in touch with loved ones, access information related to their legal rights, and prepare for their lives after prison. Therefore, prisons must provide reliable methods of communication to those in custody.

Chicago: The John Howard Association, 2024. 33p.