By S. Rebecca Neusteter, Ram Subramanian, Jennifer Trone, Mawia Khogali, and Cindy Reed

Police in America arrest millions of people each year, and the likelihood that arrest will lead to jail incarceration has increased steadily. Ending mass incarceration and repairing its extensive collateral consequences thus must begin by focusing on the front end of the system: police work. Recognizing the roughly 18,000 police agencies around the country as gatekeepers of the system, this report explores the factors driving mass enforcement, particularly of low-level offenses; what police agencies could do instead with the right community investment, national and local leadership, and officer training, incentives, and support; and policies that could shift the policing paradigm away from the reflexive use of enforcement, which unnecessarily criminalizes people and leads directly to the jailhouse door.

New York: Vera Institute of Justice, 2019. 76p.

By David Downes

From chapter 1. Comparative criminology is nothing new. In their broadest sense, of contrasting institutional arrangements and/or forms of conduct between whole societies, comparative studies have long been an invaluable, though under-used, resourcein historical and socio-economic studies. Travels abroad can be as influential as journeyings at home in the realm of criminal and penal policies. It is difficult otherwise to account for such phenomena as the rapid rise of the penitentiary across the continents of Europe and North America in the first few decades oft h e nineteenth century. More recently, the appeal ofvictim-related measures has, from relatively small beginnings in the United States in the late 1960s, fanned out to most liberal democratic societies around the globe. From time to time, Britain has attracted streams of enquirers into the workings of the latest penal or reformative innovation. The Borstal system in the interwar period was much admired abroad.

Oxford. Clarendon Press. 1988. 236p. CONTAINS MARK-UP

By Ireland Department of Justice

The Programme for Government 2020: Our Shared future contains a broad range of policies and proposals that represent a coherent approach to enhancing and sustaining a more just and safe society. In September 2020, the Department of Justice established a working group including the Head of Criminal Justice Policy, the Director-General of the Irish Prison Service and the Director of the Probation Service to take forward the Government’s commitment to review policy options for prison and penal reform. The review considered commitments and ongoing developments across the justice sector and beyond, including those outlined in the Youth Justice Strategy 2021 - 2027, the Probation Service Strategy 2021-2024, the Irish Prison Service Strategic Plan 2019-2022, the Joint Irish Prison Service and Probation Service Strategic Plan 2018-2020, the Joint Action Plan on the Management of Offenders 2019-2021 and the Social Enterprise and Employment Strategy 2021 – 2023. The on-going work in relation to the Criminal Justice Sectoral Strategy and work on developing a Community Safety Policy was also taken into account.

Dublin: Ireland Department of Justice, 2022. 71p.

By James McGuire

The occurrence of violent assault in prison is a challenging problem. This Analytical Summary reports the findings of a rapid evidence assessment (REA) into the causes of physically violent assaults by male adult prisoners. The REA reviewed 97 research studies published since 1st January 2000. Key findings • Most of the published research is focused on imported characteristics – the personal characteristics of men who are violent in prison – and attempts to predict who they will be. Imported characteristics associated with prison violence include youth, history of earlier violence in prison or with violent convictions, membership of gangs, low self-control, anger, temper, mental health problems, and antisocial attitudes and personality. • The prison environment also plays a considerable role in how prisoners behave. Physically poor conditions, highly controlling regimes, or by contrast circumstances in which rules are unevenly applied or not adhered to or where prisoners do not experience staff decisions as fair or legitimate, can each heighten tensions and induce stresses potentially giving rise to conflict and assault. • Perhaps surprisingly, evidence that crowding in and of itself was a direct cause of violence was fairly weak. Research suggested that the effects of crowding are mediated through staff-prisoner interactions and that the crucial factor in maintaining order is the availability and the skills of unit staff. • Some features of prison activity make violence less likely. Places within a prison where prisoners are engaged in purposeful activities they consider valuable, such as workshops and education, are less prone to be sites of aggression. Violence is more likely to occur in places that offer less purpose, have fewer formal ground-rules, and lower staff oversight, such as cells. • A policy designed to reduce violence could be oriented towards situational control aspects of day-to-day prison management. That would require staff training in the use of styles and patterns of interaction that wield authority alongside instilling respect.

London: HM Prison and Probation Service, 2018. 9p.

By Andrew Coyle

'Few people can talk about prisons with the authority and experience that Andrew Coyle brings to his subject. A former prison governor, an academic author, an international activist and a practical reformer, Professor Coyle knows prisons inside and out, home and abroad, past and present. In ''Understanding Prisons'' he uses his impressive expertise to guide researchers through the changing world of the English prison. The result is an accessible, up-to-date, and highly informative book that will be welcomed by students and practitioners alike' - David Garland, NYU, author of ''The Culture of Control''.'Andrew Coyle has drawn on his lifelong experience of governing prisons in Scotland and England and, as the former Director of the International Centre for Prison Studies, Kings College, London, studying prisons worldwide. He has written a comprehensive account of the use of imprisonment and the character of prisons. He persuasively argues that our continued, extensive use of imprisonment cannot simply be explained or justified by the incidence of crime and could otherwise. His book merits close attention' - Rod Morgan, Chairman, Youth Justice Board.There are over nine million men, women and children in prison around the world, and the number of people in prison in England and Wales has increased significantly in recent years. Yet in many respects prison remains the last secretive public institution in our society. ''Understanding Prisons'' provides a unique, in-depth examination of prisons - how they function, what they achieve, and their historical and political context. The book: describes how prisons developed into their present form; looks at who is sent to prison and what happens to them while they are there; explains how the prison system and staff in England and Wales are organised; examines how order and control is maintained and how high security prisons operate; looks at prisoners' families and the wider community; and, offers a future vision of the prison system.This is essential reading for criminology and sociology students and researchers, criminal justice practitioners, the media and members of the public who are interested in learning more about the closed world of the prison.

Maidenhead, Berkshire, UK: Open University Press, 2005. 220p.