By John Clegg, Sebastian Spitz, Adaner Usmani, and Annalena Wolcke

The literature on the prevalence and causes of punishment has been dominated by research into the United States. Yet most of the world's prisoners live elsewhere, and the United States is no longer the country with the world's highest incarceration rate. This article considers what we know about the prevalence and causes of incarceration around the world. We focus on three features of incarceration: its level, inequality, and severity. Existing comparative research offers many insights, but we identify methodological and theoretical shortcomings. Quantitative scholars are still content to draw causal inferences from correlations, partly because (like qualitative scholars) they are often limited to studying the present and the developed world. More data will allow better inferences. We close by defending the goal of building precise and generalizable theories of punishment.

Annual Review of Criminology, Volume 7, Page 211 - 231

By David H. Cloud; Brie Williams; Regine Haardörfer, et al

Question What is the association between exposures to extreme heat and suicide-watch incidents in a state prison system without air-conditioned living units?

Findings This case series of 6576 facility-incarceration days found that extreme heat was significantly associated with a 30% increase in the incident rate of daily suicide-watch incidents.

Meaning These findings suggest that extreme heat may increase vulnerabilities to situations that lead to suicide-watch placements for incarcerated people, bolstering calls for heat mitigation and decarceral interventions to assuage heat-induced harms among incarcerated populations.

Importance Extreme heat poses a distinct risk to the 2.1 million incarcerated people in the United States, who have disparately high rates of behavioral health conditions. Suicide is a leading cause of death among people in prisons.

Objective To examine associations of extreme heat, solitary confinement, and an indicator of suicidal behaviors among incarcerated men in a Deep South US prison system.

Design, Setting, and Participants This longitudinal case series panel study included adult men in prisons in Louisiana, a state with one of the largest prison systems in the United States that has been engaged in litigation due to lack of air conditioning and extreme heat. The unit of analysis was prison facility-days. A facility-level data set was created by merging administrative data files, which included demographic characteristics, health classification, housing location and movement, disciplinary records, and involvement in suicide-watch incidents for all incarcerated men in Louisiana during the observation period. Individual-level variables were aggregated to facility-days to merge in daily maximum heat index data from the US Local Climatological Data, which were linked to the zip codes of prisons. The observation period was January 1, 2015, to December 31, 2017. Data set construction occurred from August 2020 to September 2022, and analysis was conducted from December 2022 to February 2023.

Exposure The focal exposure was extreme heat days. Daily maximum heat index data were categorized into 6 bins (<30 °F, 30-39 °F, 40-49 °F, 50-59 °F, 70-79 °F, and ≥80 °F) and as an indicator for any facility-day where the maximum heat index exceeded the 90th percentile of heat indices for total days in observation period. Conditional fixed-effects negative binomial regression models were used to calculate incident rate ratios to test associations between extreme heat and suicide watch incidents, while controlling for covariates.

Main Outcomes and Measures The focal outcome was daily count of suicide watch incidents that were recorded in a carceral system database. Covariates included daily percentages of incarcerated persons at each prison with serious mental illness diagnosis, daily rate of solitary confinement, and total facility population.

Results The sample of 6 state-operated prisons provided 6576 facility-days for the analysis. Results suggest a dose-responsive association between extreme heat and daily counts of suicide-watch incidents; compared with days with temperatures between 60 and 69 °F, the rate of daily suicide incidents increased by 29% when the heat index reached the level of caution (ie, 80-89 °F) and by 36% when reaching extreme caution (90-103 °F) (80-89 °F: incidence rate ratio [IRR], 1.29; 95% CI, 1.17-1.43; P < .001; 90-103 °F: IRR, 1.36; 95% CI, 1.15-1.61; P  95% CI, 1.18-1.45; P < .001).

Conclusions and Relevance Findings suggest an association between extreme heat and an indicator of suicidality among an incarcerated sample, contribute to an emerging literature exploring linkages between climatological events and health outcomes in prisons, and may have implications for legal interventions and advocacy seeking to abate heat-induced morbidity and mortality in carceral contexts.

JAMA Netw Open. 2023 Aug; 6(8): e2328380.

By Scott H. Decker and David C. Pyrooz

There is considerable speculation that prisons are a breeding ground for radicalization. These concerns take on added significance in the era of mass incarceration in the United States, where 1.5 million people are held in state or federal prisons and around 600,000 people are released from prison annually. Prior research relies primarily on the speculation of prison officials, media representations, and/or cross-sectional designs to understand the imprisonment-extremism nexus. We develop a tripartite theoretical model to examine continuity and change in activism and radicalism intentions upon leaving prison. We test these models using data from a large probability sample of prisoners (N = 802) in Texas interviewed in the week preceding their release from prison and then re-interviewed 10 months later using a validated scale of activism and radicalism intentions. We arrive at three primary conclusions. First, levels of activism decline upon reentry to the community (d = -0.30, p < .01), while levels of radicalism largely remain unchanged (d = -0.08, p = .28). What is learned and practiced in prison appears to quickly lose its vitality on the street. Second, salient groups and organizations fell in importance after leaving prison, including country, race/ethnicity, and religion, suggesting former prisoners are occupied by other endeavors. Finally, while we identify few correlates of changes in extremist intentions, higher levels of legal cynicism in prison were associated with increases in both activism and radicalism intentions after release from prison. Efforts designed to improve legal orientations could lessen intentions to support non-violent and violent extremist actions. These results point to an imprisonment-extremism nexus that is diminished largely by the realities of prisoner reentry.

PLoS ONE 15(11):. 2020. e0242910. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal. pone.0242910

By Jill Curran, Brendan Saloner, Tyler N.A. Winkelman, et al

Question: How commonly are medications for chronic conditions used in jails and state prisons compared with community settings in the US? Findings In this cross-sectional descriptive study of incarcerated and non-incarcerated populations in the US from 2018 to 2020, use of prescription medications for chronic conditions was consistently lower in jails and state prisons compared with community settings. After adjusting for disease prevalence, the relative disparity was 2.9-fold for diabetes, 5.5-fold for asthma, 2.4-fold for hypertension, 1.9-fold for hepatitis B or C, 3.0-fold for human immunodeficiency virus, 4.1-fold for depression, and 4.1-fold for severe mental illness. Meaning This analysis suggests that prescription medications for chronic conditions may be substantially underused in jails and state prisons in the US relative to the non-incarcerated population, after accounting for the differential burden of disease in these settings.

JAMA Health Forum. 2023;4(4):e230482. doi:10.1001/jamahealthforum.2023.0482

By Terry Schuster, Kristin King

During a summer marked by record-setting heat waves, the state of New Jersey housed roughly 3,500 people in prison housing units with no air conditioning. About 3,000 correctional police officers were also assigned to these non-temperature-controlled spaces. On July and August site visits, the Office of the Corrections Ombudsperson measured temperatures in 80 percent of the state’s populated housing units and conducted brief interviews with incarcerated individuals and staff. Temperatures inside individual prison cells were as high as 88 degrees Fahrenheit during the July site visit and 94 degrees during the August visit. People in state prisons described temperatures in their living spaces as “unbearable,” “beyond hot,” and “like Hell.” The Ombuds office heard reports of people engaging in assaultive behavior in order to be transferred to air-conditioned disciplinary housing assignments. The office also heard reports from staff and labor leaders that high heat increased irritability and slowed responses to prison security incidents. Three prisons—Bayside State Prison, East Jersey State Prison, and Garden State Correctional Facility— account for more than three-quarters of the state’s non-air-conditioned prison beds. Another three prisons, including the two largest facilities, are fully air-conditioned. And the remaining three state prisons have a mix of temperature-controlled and non-temperature-controlled housing units. Because people detained in prison facilities cannot leave of their own accord and have limited control over their movement, possessions, and environment, the state assumes a responsibility for their humane treatment, including a responsibility to protect them from potential harms associated with extended exposure to heat and cold. Department of Corrections executive and facility leaders have taken proactive and reactive steps to mitigate the heat and have worked closely with the Office of the Corrections Ombudsperson to address areas of concern. They should be applauded for their efforts, utilizing the resources they have, to reduce the risks of heat stroke and other heat-related illnesses and security risks. These risks, however, will continue to surface each summer absent state appropriations for major building repairs.

Trenton: New Jersey Office of the Corrections Ombudsperson, 2022. 14p.