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 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 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 Paul H. Robinson and Jeffrey Seaman

The decarceration movement enjoys enthusiastic support from many academics and activists who point out imprisonment’s failure to rehabilitate and its potential criminogenic effects. At the same time, many fiscal conservatives and taxpayer groups are critical of imprisonment’s high costs and supportive of finding cheaper alternatives. Yet, despite this widespread support, the decarceration movement has made little real progress at getting offenders out of prison, in large part because community views, and thus political officials, are strongly committed to the importance of doing justice – giving offenders the punishment they deserve – and decarceration is commonly seen as inconsistent with that nonnegotiable principle. Indeed, almost no one in the decarceration movement has attempted to formulate a large-scale decarceration plan that still provides for what the community would see as just punishment.

In this Article, we offer just such a plan by demonstrating that it is entirely possible to avoid the incarceration of most offenders through utilizing non-incarcerative sanctions that can carry a total punitive effect comparable to physical prison. New technologies allow for imposing “electronic prison” sentences where authorities can monitor, control, and punish offenders in a cheaper and less damaging way than physical prison while still doing justice. Further, the monitoring conditions provided in electronic prison allow for the imposition of a wide array of other non-incarcerative sanctions that were previously difficult or impossible to enforce. Even while it justly punishes, electronic prison can dramatically increase an offender’s opportunities for training, treatment, education, and rehabilitation while avoiding the problems of unsupported families, socialization to criminality, and problematic reentry after physical incarceration. And, from a public safety standpoint, electronic prison can reduce recidivism by eliminating the criminogenic effect of incarceration and also provides longer-term monitoring of offenders than an equivalently punitive shorter term of physical imprisonment. Of course, one can imagine a variety of objections to an electronic prison system, ranging from claims it violates an offender’s rights to fears it may widen the net of carceral control. The Article provides a response to each.

Electronic prison is one of those rare policy proposals that should garner support from across the political spectrum due to effectively addressing the complaints against America’s incarceration system lodged by voices on the left, right, and center. Whether one’s primary concern is decarcerating prisoners and providing offenders with needed treatment, training, counseling, and education, or one’s concern is reducing crime, imposing deserved punishment, or simply reducing government expenditures, implementing an electronic prison system would provide a dramatic improvement over America’s current incarceration policies.

Written April 2024. U of Penn Law School, Public Law Research Paper No. 24-20,

By Matt Tidmarsh

The number of women working in occupations that lay claim to professional status has increased markedly in recent decades, but the speed and extent of the ‘feminisation’ of the probation service in England and Wales render it unique. Such change has occurred against the backdrop of attempts to present the service in more ‘masculine’ terms, to increase punitiveness while maximising its efficiency. This article seeks to move explanations for feminisation beyond gender stereotypes about care work. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with 38 members of staff from across the probation estate, and with particular regard to the unification of services, it explores the demographic and cultural dynamics of feminisation. The article argues that the sustained (and ongoing) devaluation of probation's professional project, pay and working conditions have impacted retention and recruitment in such a way that has filtered into the gender composition of the service.

Leeds, UK: Probation Journal, 2023, 21p.

By The American Civil Liberties of Alabama (ACLU)

In the third year of our Statehouse-to-Prison Pipeline Report, the ACLU of Alabama monitored 876 bills introduced in the 2023 legislative session. During this time, legislators failed to pass meaningful criminal legal reform policies or adequately address the humanitarian crisis in Alabama’s prisons. The state of Alabama continues to invest in harsher sentencing, overpolicing, and surveillance that (1) fuels our overcrowded prisons and (2) damages public safety. Addressing social problems exclusively through the criminal punishment system hurts us all. This report highlights the type of bills that damage our state and positive bills that we believe help our communities. Alabamians deserve a legislature that passes bills to fund our public schools, expand access to quality healthcare, and improve their lives - not a legislature focused on funneling them into overcrowded and deadly prisons

Montgomery, AL: ACLU of Alabama, 2023. 26p

By Kathryn Bird and Melena Ward

Probation services in England and Wales are delivered through the Probation Service, which is responsible for protecting the public and reducing reoffending, both by delivering and enforcing the punishments and orders of the court and by supporting rehabilitation through empowering people on probation to reform their lives. The Probation Service is a statutory criminal justice agency and is part of Her Majesty’s Prisons and Probation Service (HMPPS) working together to supervise adult individuals at all levels of risk. People under the age of 18 who are serving sentences in the community are supervised by Youth Offending Teams, which are coordinated by local government authorities and overseen by the Youth Justice Board (a non-departmental public body). The Probation Service’s operations are divided into twelve Probation Regions (eleven in England and one in Wales), each of which is overseen by a Regional Probation Director (RPD) who works closely with other local and national partners to deliver effective supervision and can commission rehabilitative services from external voluntary and private sector providers.

Utrecht: CEP, Confederation of European Probation 2021. 54p.

By M. Camello, M., R. Shute, & J.D. Ropero-Miller

Individuals on community supervision are often required to abstain from alcohol and drug use and are typically subjected to substance use monitoring to verify sobriety, as a condition of their supervision. Providing reliable, timely, and cost- effective monitoring of alcohol and drug use for persons on community supervision as a condition of their release is a serious challenge given high-volume caseloads and concerns with public safety. This technology brief highlights technologies and solutions used to monitor alcohol and drug use for persons on community supervision. This is the third document in a four-part series on technologies to support the monitoring and supervision of individuals on pretrial release, probation, and parole (i.e., community supervision).

Research Triangle Park, NC: RTI International. 2023. 22p.

By The Robina Institute of Criminal Law and Criminal Justice

KEY POINTS • Despite the common practice of drug testing as a condition of supervision, there is no research that focuses on the effectiveness of drug testing on its own in reducing recidivism and drug use. • Increased drug testing as part of an Intensive Supervision Program (ISP) approach does not reduce re-offending but does increase the detection of technical violations and revocations. • Random drug testing alongside swift, certain, and fair sanctions shows evidence for reducing recidivism and drug use in the short-term but shows no benefit once the individual goes back to supervision as usual. • Drug testing works well as a way to monitor compliance with supervision conditions, but there is no evidence that it reduces re-offending or drug use when used apart from other supervision practices.

St.:Paul, MN: Robina Institute of Criminal Law and Criminal Justice , 2020. 4p.

By Sandra M. Bucerius, William Schultz and Kevin D. Haggerty

Many observers describe prison subcultures as inherently and irredeemably antisocial. Research directly ties prison subcultures to violence, gang membership, and poor reintegration. In extreme cases, research has also suggested that prison subcultures contribute to incarcerated people joining radical groups or embracing violent extremist beliefs. These claims, however, ignore key differences in the larger cultural and social context of prisons. We examine the relationship between prison subcultures and prison radicalization based on semi- structured qualitative interviews with 148 incarcerated men and 131 correctional officers from four western Canadian prisons. We outline several imported features of the prison subculture that make incarcerated people resilient to radicalized and extremist messaging. These features include 1) national cultural imaginaries; 2) the racial profile of a prison, including racial sorting or a lack thereof; and 3) how radicalization allowed incarcerated men and correctional officers to act outside the otherwise agreed-to subcultural rules. Our research findings stress the importance of contemplating broader sociocultural influences when trying to understand the relationship between radicalization and prison dynamics and politics

Criminology, 2023.

By Ben Laws

Recent calls from senior managers, human rights groups and academics continue to scrutinize the impact of solitary confinement. But much less attention has been paid to prisoners’ own motivations for segregation. By analysing interviews with 16 segregated men in a high-security prison (Category-A) in England, this article foregrounds motivation. The argument involves a detailed description of the complex, and sometimes contradictory, motives that may lead prisoners into seeking isolation. It further attempts to explore the relationship between segregation and the wider prison environment. For many prisoners, segregation has a ‘negative benefit’ or amounts to a form of ‘lesser evil’. Such phrasing hints at the difficult decisions that prisoners navigate and offers an alternative perspective on solitary confinement.

The British Journal of Criminology, 2021, 61, 1452–1468

Johan Axelsson, Leni Eriksson & Lina Grip

The literature on terrorism and the rehabilitation of terrorists is growing continuously, but primary studies of high quality are still scarce. In many countries, the number of clients convicted of terrorist offences is increasing. As such, prison and probation services serve as important actors in the prevention of recidivism and radicalisation. This scoping review identifies viable management and treatment methods and approaches to (a) prevent violent extremism in prison and probation services, and (b) manage violent extremist clients in prison and probation services. The findings of twentyseven primary studies highlight the importance of so-called soft approaches by building trust and resilience among violent extremist clients, and facilitating their prosocial engagement. Strength-based models could be considered as an alternative to the predominant risk-oriented practices in prison and probation services.

Terrorism And Political Violence. https://doi.org/10.1080/09546553.2023.2169144, 2023.

By Tammy Ayres, Ruth Hatcher and Emma Palmer

The Drug Recovery Prison (DRP) at HMP Holme House began in 2017 as a three-year pilot, jointly funded by NHS England (NHSE) and MOJ/HMPPS. The DRP aimed to address the supply of and demand for alcohol and illegal substances, improve treatment outcomes, and support ongoing recovery. The DRP process evaluation, jointly commissioned by MOJ and NHSE, aimed to understand how the pilot had been implemented, providing evidence on the roll out and capturing the perceptions and experiences of staff and prisoners.

Ministry of Justice Analytical Series, 2023. London: Ministry of Justice, 2023. 107p.

By Criminal Justice Testing and Evaluation Consortium

This technology brief is the third document in a four-part series (Figure 1) on technologies to support the monitoring and supervision of individuals on pretrial release, probation, and parole (i.e., community supervision). The goal of this series is to offer foundational insights from use cases, examine the challenges of community supervision, highlight example products, and discuss the future of select technologies and their implications for community supervision. This brief highlights technologies and solutions used to monitor alcohol and drug use for persons on community supervision.

CJTEC Retrieved October, 2023.

By Susan McNeeley, Valerie Clark and Grant Duwe

Individuals released from prison have an elevated risk of premature death, especially during the first few weeks after release. Furthermore, these consequences of incarceration may be exacerbated by racial and ethnic disparities. This study examined three types of post-release mortality – all-cause mortality, natural deaths, and unnatural deaths which include accidents, suicides, and homicides – among individuals released from Minnesota state prisons in order to identify characteristics and experiences that place individuals at risk. In addition, we conducted race-specific models examining these types of mortality among White, Black, and Native American releasees. The results of Cox regression models showed, first, that several personal characteristics were related to risk of death. Black, Asian, and Latino people had lower risk of mortality than White people, while Native American people had higher risk. Those affiliated with security threat groups (STG) had higher risk of death, as did those with more mental and physical health diagnoses and those with higher body mass index (BMI). Second, several aspects of criminal history and incarceration were related to post-release mortality. Sex offenders had lower risk of death, while those incarcerated for driving while intoxicated (DWI) had higher risk. Prison visitation reduced the risk of mortality. Risk of death was higher among those with more prior prison admissions, those incarcerated for supervised release revocations, and those with more discipline convictions – but was lower when individuals were incarcerated for longer periods of time. Third, the circumstances of release were related to risk of death. Individuals released to the Twin Cities Metropolitan area had higher risk of mortality, while those released to community programs had lower risk. Finally, the results also showed that, while many risk or protective factors appeared to be universal, some race-specific risk factors do exist.

St. Paul, Minnesota Department of Corrections, 2023. 43p.

By Susan McNeeley and Doyun Koo

Prior research on violent victimization in prison suggests noncitizens may be less likely to experience violence while incarcerated. In an attempt to better understand this relationship, this study examined whether citizenship status predicts risk among a subsample of foreign-born incarcerated people. In addition, we modeled violent victimization separately for foreign-born and native-born individuals to identify any differences in risk factors between groups. We tested these relationships using a sample of 7,326 individuals incarcerated in Minnesota state prisons. The results of Cox regression models showed foreign-born citizens and foreign-born noncitizens had similar risk for violent prison victimization. We also found that some risk factors for victimization (age, physical health, MnSTARR 2.0 risk level, and idle status) differed across native-born and foreign-born incarcerated people.

St. Paul: Minnesota Department of Corrections, 2023. 27p.

USED BOOK. MAY CONTAINMARK-UP

By Andrea Pitzer

FROM THE COVER; “A Smithsonian Magazine Best History Book Of The Year” For more than one hundred years, at least one concentration camp has existed somewhere on earth. First used as battlefield strategy, camps have evolved with each passing decade, in the scope of their effects and the savage practicality with which governments have employed them. Even in the twenty-first century, as we continue to reckon with the magnitude and horror of the Holocaust, history tells us we have broken our solemn promise of "never again." Beginning with 1890s Cuba, Andrea Pitzer pinpoints the histories of concentration camps around the world and across decades. From the Philippines and Southern Africa to the Soviet Gulag and detention in China and North Korea during the Cold War, camp systems have long been used as tools for civilian relocation and political repression. Through telling the stories of individual prisoners swept into detention across the past century, One Long Night shows how camps became brutal and dehumanizing sites that claimed the lives of millions. Featuring a new afterword that places US border detention and family separation within the context of this dark history, One Long Night exposes our collective failure and its continued toll.”

New York, Back Bay Books. Little, Brown And Company. 2017. 494p.

USED BOOK. MAY CONTAIN MARK-UP.

By Annie Samuelli

FROM THE PREFACE: “From 1949 to 1961, I was one of a large community of women held in the political prisons of Communist Romania, all harshly convicted, not for their misdeeds but for what they actually represented. Since the advent of Communism, citizens who upheld faith, justice and the principles of democracy-from former prime ministers to simple peasants and confused members of the working class-now were convicted of treasonable activities on just those grounds. The elementary freedoms of opinion, speech, movement, religion and charity, hemmed in by arbitrary government decrees, had been virtually abolished, any transgression being paid for by long imprisonment. Persecution was directed as much against the aristocracy and bourgeoisie, ostensibly the chief targets of class warfare, as against any person, irrespective of origin, who consciously or not expressed criticism or the slightest opposition to the regime. For instance, spouses, parents, children are likewise incriminated as accessories after the fact, and whole families went to prison for having failed to denounce or for having harboured a fugitive from justice for his political beliefs or for violating one of the all-embracing Communist laws.

Thus the women's prisons were filled with representatives from all ranks of society, from the intellectual down to the illiterate. As I shared their lives day by day, night by night for twelve years, I had the opportunity of studying them closely, and it is mainly on them that this book is based.”

Washington, D.C.. Robert B. Luce, Inc. 1967. 241p.

USED BOOK. MAY CONTAIN MARK-UP

By Oleg V. Khlevniuk. Translated by Vadim A. Staklo. With editorial assistance and commentary by David J. Nordlander. Foreword by Robert Conquest

FROM THE FOREWORD: “Although it is sometimes suggested that the Gulag was in some way derived from an older Russia, one has only to read about Dostoevsky's experiences as a political prisoner in The House of the Dead to find many differences. By the early twentieth century a number of Russian people--far fewer of them in any case than in Soviet times--were either in prison or in "exile." The latter penalty, whose victims included Lenin and Stalin, simply meant forced residence at some distant village, with a monetary allowance, sometimes with wives, but with no barbed wire or penal labor. The Gulag is only one example of how the Soviet regime represented a huge decline in civilization in Russia. But it is a revealing one. Areas of the Stalinist experience still remain obscure…”

NY. Yale University Press. 2004. 449p.

USED BOOK. MAY CONTAIN MARK-UP

By Karlo Stajner. Translated By Joel Agee. With An Introduction By Danilo Kis

AUTHOR'S NOTE: “I was born Karl Steiner on January 15, 1902, in Vienna. After moving to Zagreb, the capital of the Yugoslav Republic of Croatia, in 1922, I adopted the Serbo-Croation spelling of my name, Karlo Stajner. In 1932, I emigrated to the Soviet Union, where I remained until 1956. Because of my Austrian origin, I was accused of being a Nazi agent and condemned to ten years at hard labor; a second ten-year term was later added to my sentence. After my release from prison in 1956, I returned to Yugoslavia and continued calling myself by my Serbo-Croatian name: Karlo Stajner. K.S.”

NY. Farrar Straus Giroux. 1988. 408p.