By Paul McGorrery and Zsombor Bathy

An aggregate prison sentence involves a court imposing a single prison sentence on multiple criminal offences rather than a separate prison sentence on each offence. Table 1 illustrates the difference between aggregate and non-aggregate prison sentences. In the first example, the offender has received a single aggregate prison sentence of two years for aggravated burglary and theft. And in the second example, the offender has received separate non-aggregate prison sentences for the same two offences. The end result in both examples is identical – a two-year total sentence – but the method of arriving at that total sentence differs.

There are a number of advantages to aggregate sentencing. It can significantly improve court efficiency, especially in cases with a large number of charges. It can avoid the impression of ‘artificiality’ in the sentencing process, particularly if there is an impression that the court has determined the most appropriate total effective sentence that is proportionate to the overall offending, but then has adjusted the various charge-level sentences and cumulation orders to achieve that result. It can also reduce calculation errors that may occur when charge-level sentences are made wholly or partly cumulative or concurrent, again especially in cases with a large number of charges. Aggregate sentencing can also, however, reduce transparency in sentencing, limit courts’ ability to assess current sentencing practices and, as this paper shows, result in some offences receiving sentences in excess of their maximum penalty. There has, to date, been no examination of Victorian courts’ use of aggregate prison sentences since their introduction in 1997. The aims of this paper are to utilise court data to review trends in the use of aggregate prison sentences in Victoria, and to then consider issues arising from their use.

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

By Benjamin van Rooij, Malouke Esra Kuiper, and Alexis Piquero

Legal punishment, at least in part, serves a behavioral function to reduce and prevent offending behavior. The present paper offers an integrated review of the diverse mechanisms through which punishment may affect such behavior. It moves beyond a legal view that focuses on just three such mechanisms (deterrence, incapacitation, and rehabilitation), to also include other socializing, delegitimizing, compliance obstructing, and offence adapting mechanisms in how punishment may influence offending. The paper assesses the quality of existing empirical knowledge about the different effects of punishment and the conditions under which these effects exist. It concludes that punishment has at least thirteen different influences on crime prevention, five positive and eight negative. It shows that such effects are conditional, depending on the offender, offence, punishment, and jurisdiction. Furthermore, it shows that the effects vary in their directness, proximity, onset and longevity. It concludes that our current empirical understanding does not match the complex reality of how punishment comes to shape crime. In light of this, the paper develops a research agenda on the integrated effects of punishment moving beyond limited causal mechanisms to embrace the fuller complexity of how sanctions shape human conduct by adopting a complexity science approach.

UC Irvine School of Law Research Paper Forthcoming.Amsterdam Law School Research Paper No. 2024-13. Center for Law & Behavior Research Paper No. 2024-01

By Public Safety Canada

Indigenous offenders continue to be disproportionately represented at all levels of the Canadian criminal justice system and the federal government is committed to addressing this over-representation of Indigenous people. The Indigenous Community Corrections Initiative (ICCI) was created to help close the gaps in service for Indigenous Peoples in the criminal justice system and address the government commitment to respond to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) Calls to Action, in particular actions 30 and 32 regarding the over-representation of Indigenous offenders in custody. The objectives of the Initiative are to support the development of alternatives to custody and to provide reintegration support for Indigenous offenders. Public Safety Canada (PS) was allocated $10M over five years in Budget 2017 for the ICCI. While the target population for the Initiative was Indigenous federal offenders, the Department accepted proposals that included Indigenous adult offenders who had been convicted of an offence with a sentence of less than two years (generally classified as provincial offenders). The call for proposals closed in November 2017 and PS received 126 submissions. An initial assessment screened out 62 proposals that did not meet the objectives of the ICCI and a secondary assessment of the remaining proposals ended with 15 projects selected for funding. Due to the program being approved late in the 2017-18 fiscal year, the program was not able to fund projects until 2018-19. After a successful re-profiling of funds, the ICCI was able to add an additional project in 2018 which brought the total to 16 funded projects.

Ottawa: Public Safety Canada, 2021. 30p.

By Edward E. Rhine, Kelly Lyn Mitchell, and Kevin R. Reitz

Paroling authorities play an important, if often unrecognized role, in American prison policies. Discretionary parole processes decide the actual release dates for most individuals subject to confinement in 34 states. Additional leverage over time served is exercised through parole boards’ revocation and re-release authority. The degree of discretion these back-end officials exert over the dosage of incarceration is vast, sometimes more than that held by sentencing courts.

Any comprehensive program to change American prison policy must focus to a significant degree on prison-release discretion, where it exists, and its relationship to time served. During the buildup to mass incarceration, many parole boards became increasingly reluctant to grant release to eligible prisoners. Today, if it were possible to reverse this upward driver of prison populations, parole boards could be important contributors to a new evidence-based status quo of lower prison rates in many states. Reasonable objectives of reform include policy-driven increases in the likelihood of parole release, and more rational decision making overall about time served.

This report describes twelve “levers of change,” each associated with potential reforms in the realm of discretionary parole release. The reforms are called “change levers” because, once a lever is pulled, it is designed to impact prison populations by altering parole grant rates and durations of time served. The report identifies 12 areas of innovation that, to some degree, have already been tried by a number of states. In most cases, from a distance, it is impossible to evaluate the quality of each state’s implementation of one or more change levers, or the results that have been achieved. But the fact that states have begun to experiment in specific areas shows that there is an appetite for reform. In addition, actual experimentation indicates that some of the groundwork has been laid for evaluation, improvement, and dissemination of promising ideas to many additional states.

Some levers have become embedded in the decision protocols of parole boards over the past 20 years and more, while others have emerged only recently. One of the goals of this report is to demonstrate how combining the levers is key to reform. This report maps the terrain of the 12 identified change levers, to the degree permitted by available information. The map shows a huge amount of state-by-state variation, even without hands-on study of each system. The report further classifies individual levers based on the number of jurisdictions in which they have been identified, and their potential impact on states’ prison populations.

St. Paul, MN: Robina Institute of Criminal Law and Criminal Justice, 2022. 36p.

By Michelle S. Phelps

Between 1980 and 2007, probation rates in the United States skyrocketed alongside imprisonment rates; since 2007, both forms of criminal justice control have declined in use. Although a large literature in criminology and related fields has explored the causes and consequences of mass incarceration, very little research has explored the parallel rise of mass probation. This review takes stock of our knowledge of probation in the United States. In the first section, I trace the expansion of probation historically, across states, and for specific demographic groups. I then summarize the characteristics of adults on probation today and what we know about probation revocation. Lastly, I review the nascent literature on the causal effects of probation for individuals, families, neighborhoods, and society. I end by discussing a plan for research and the growing movement to blunt the harms of mass supervision.

Annual Review of Criminology, Annu. Rev. Criminol. 2020. 3:261–79

By Ben Jarman and Claudia Vince

This report presents the findings of a prisoner consultation carried out by PRT’s Building Futures programme. Around 100 responses were received from people in prison to four questions relating to their progression.

The report looks at what is meant by risk reduction and assessment, and progression both in terms of offending behaviour courses and the personal progression of prisoners. It also examines the relationship between risk and progression, and the lack of clarity felt by prisoners.

The report identifies missed opportunities for the progression and development of long-term prisoners but makes recommendations to improve the system.

London: Prison Reform Trust, 2022. 76p.

By Wendy Sawyer and Peter Wagner

Can it really be true that most people in jail are legally innocent? How much of mass incarceration is a result of the war on drugs, or the profit motives of private prisons? How has the COVID-19 pandemic changed decisions about how people are punished when they break the law? These essential questions are harder to answer than you might expect. The various government agencies involved in the criminal legal system collect a lot of data, but very little is designed to help policymakers or the public understand what’s going on. As public support for criminal justice reform continues to build — and as the pandemic raises the stakes higher — it’s more important than ever that we get the facts straight and understand the big picture. Further complicating matters is the fact that the U.S. doesn’t have one “criminal justice system;” instead, we have thousands of federal, state, local, and tribal systems. Together, these systems hold almost 2 million people in 1,566 state prisons, 102 federal prisons, 2,850 local jails, 1,510 juvenile correctional facilities, 186 immigration detention facilities, and 82 Indian country jails, as well as in military prisons, civil commitment centers, state psychiatric hospitals, and prisons in the U.S. territories. This report offers some much-needed clarity by piecing together the data about this country’s disparate systems of confinement. It provides a detailed look at where and why people are locked up in the U.S., and dispels some modern myths to focus attention on the real drivers of mass incarceration and overlooked issues that call for reform.

Easthampton, MA: Prison Policy Initiative, 2022. 58p.

By The Vermont Law and Graduate School, Center for Agriculture and Food Systems

Approximately 2 million people are incarcerated in the United States. While law- and policymakers have focused some attention on improving conditions for individuals who are incarcerated, the issue of food in prisons has not been at the forefront of prison policy reform. In recent years, there has been increased attention focused on this issue in New England—a region marked by some successful efforts that reduced costs, increased access to fresh local foods, and provided skills and training. Many correctional officials and food service managers in the New England region and beyond are working hard with limited means in a policy landscape that often makes it difficult to increase the quality of prison food. This report is intended to assist policymakers, correctional facility administrators, food service managers, food justice advocates, and the public in understanding the complex set of constitutional, federal, and state laws and policies impacting the prison food system to identify opportunities for reform in the New England region. People of color are disproportionately represented in the prison population; incarceration rates are 1.3 to 6 times higher for people of color than for white people. Notably, Black Americans comprise 38 percent of the prison population despite constituting 13 percent of the US population. In some New England states these disparities are even more stark. Both Connecticut and Maine maintain a disparity of 9:1 between Black and white individuals who are incarcerated, and Massachusetts leads the country in ethnic disparities. While poverty represents both a substantial cause and effect of incarceration, many individuals who are incarcerated also demonstrate additional factors of socioeconomic marginalization, including food and nutrition insecurity, low educational attainment, and high unemployment rates, as compared to the general population. In the US, rates of food insecurity and very low food security are “significantly higher than the national average” for non-Hispanic Black and Hispanic households. Consequently, for Black individuals who are incarcerated, food insecurity may present a challenge prior to, during, and after incarceration. Additionally, since many individuals continue to experience food and nutrition insecurity upon release due to difficulty securing employment, the health impacts can be ongoing. Much public attention focuses on privately owned prisons, yet less than eight percent of the prison population is housed in them. In fact, most individuals who are incarcerated are held in publicly operated federal or state prisons, facilities which are often required to follow procurement policies and guidelines for purchasing food. This provides an opportunity for states to consider developing procurement policies directed at the same goals as other institutional procurement policies: economic development through local preference and improved health.

South Royalton, VT: Vermont Law and Graduate School, 2023. 54p.

By Helen Taylor and Lorana Bartels

This project scoped whether application software for a mobile or similar device (an app) that supports Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people on bail or parole is regarded as appropriate, useful and beneficial within the ACT Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander communities involved with the justice system. To do this, the scoping project sought the views and advice of participants in the Galambany Circle Sentencing Court (Galambany) (i.e. the potential end-users of such an app), as well as the views of key stakeholders across several organisations that engage with Galambany and the justice system more generally, to determine whether to recommend to the ACT Government that such an app be developed. The aims of this research project were to: • ascertain whether an app that supports people on bail or parole is a priority for, and is of value to, Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander communities in the ACT that engage with Galambany; and • if so, gain input from Galambany participants (the potential end-users) and Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander and other professional stakeholders, who work in the ACT criminal justice system, on what app features would be useful in supporting compliance with bail and parole conditions, to inform the potential development of an app. The first section examines criminal justice data on the issues of bail, remand, parole and Indigenous incarceration. Data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS), indicate that, in the March 2022 quarter, 40% of Indigenous adults in custody at the Alexander Maconochie Centre (AMC) were unsentenced. In addition, 27% of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in prison in the ACT on 30 June 2021 had a justice procedure offence, which includes breach of bail or parole, as their most serious offence; this was much higher than for non-Indigenous prisoners in the ACT (23%) or both cohorts nationally (10% and 7% respectively) (ABS, 2021a). This highlights the need for measures that help Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people comply with their bail, parole and other justice orders, in order to reduce Indigenous incarceration. The second section examines the increasing availability and use of mobile technology for behaviour change. Such technological advances have created opportunities within the justice context and the past decade has seen the development and use of mobile technology in the criminal justice system. This section outlines the theoretical framework in which the research is situated, which draws on behavioural economics, especially nudge theory. The behavioural economics literature in general, and that on nudges in particular, is relevant for the design of criminal justice apps, as it provides a number of (non-coercive) influences on behaviour and thinking that can be used to improve justice outcomes. The third section outlines the methodology and ethics approval process undertaken for this research. The project adopted a mixed-methods approach, involving the use of semi- structured interviews, focus groups and analyses of secondary source material. Semi-structured interviews and focus groups were conducted with two different stakeholder groups: professional stakeholders (Group 1) and Galambany clients, as people with lived experience of bail and/or parole (Group 2). In the fourth section, we thematically analyse responses from the semi-structured interviews and focus groups with Group 1 and Group 2 participants. Participants highlighted a range of challenges that make complying with bail and parole conditions harder, including the lack of stable housing, access to transport and other practical issues related to reporting requirements, trouble keeping track of appointments and a lack of structure in their daily lives. Participants also identified what they would consider to be the most useful features of a mobile app designed to help them comply with bail and/or parole conditions. These included an appointment reminder function, a list of useful information and contacts, and reminders of trigger times (those times during the day or week in which a person is particularly vulnerable). Nearly all of the people we spoke to (34 out of 35; 97%), supported the idea of an app to help people comply with their bail and/or parole conditions. However, a number of concerns were raised by participants, in particular how the data from an app would or could be used and whether the app would be able to track a person’s whereabouts. These concerns were raised by both Group 1 and Group 2 participants. The report concludes with the recommendation that a mobile app to help support people on bail and/or parole be developed and piloted, but that serious consideration regarding security and privacy concerns needs to be taken into account, in the development of any such app. The proposed app should be developed solely for the purpose of helping to support users’ success and should not be used as a compliance tool. It is further recommended that the app be trialled among a small cohort in the first instance, followed by an rigorous independent evaluation, to inform whether it is working as intended and is of utility to people on bail or parole.

Canberra: ANU Centre for Social Research and Methods, 2022. 53p.

By Todd D. Minton

This report provides statistics on the demographic characteristics, most serious offense, and conviction status of persons held in Indian country jails. It also describes facility characteristics, including capacity and staffing. The report supports the mandate established by the Tribal Law and Order Act of 2010 that requires BJS to establish and implement a tribal data collection system, to support tribal participation in national records and information systems, and to annually report to Congress the data collected and analyzed in accordance with the act.

Highlights

• After peaking in 2019 (at 2,890 persons) and declining sharply in 2020 (to 2,020 persons) due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the midyear jail population increased for the second consecutive year by midyear 2022 (2,250).

• Indian country jails admitted 5,570 persons during June 2022, a 4% decline from the 5,780 admissions during June 2021.

• The ratio of jail admissions to average daily population (ADP) was about 2.6 to 1 in June 2022 (5,570 admissions to 2,170 inmates), down from 5.5 to 1 in June 2012 (12,500 admissions to 2,253 inmates).

• Four in 10 inmates were held for violent offenses at midyear 2022, up from about 3 in 10 in 2012.

  Washington DC:U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2023. 16p.  

By Sana Khan, Emily West, Stephanie Rosoff

In response to the rapid spread of COVID-19 in 2020, jails across the U.S. implemented emergency strategies to reduce jail populations and mitigate the vi- rus’s spread. This included releasing people pretrial while they awaited their case resolution. At the same time, public data show that violent crime and homicides have increased nationally. These increases have put a spotlight on criminal legal reform efforts, with growing public discourse in some political and media circles suggesting that reforms are causing these increases. While the recent uptick in violence is real, this analysis shows that, on average, cities and coun- ties implementing jail population reform efforts successfully reduced jail populations without jeopardizing community safety. To explore whether increases in violent crime were related to the pandemic and criminal legal reforms, the CUNY Institute for State & Local Governance (ISLG) analyzed violent crime, incarceration, and rebooking data from sites participating in the Safety and Justice Challenge (SJC), a nationwide initiative to safely reduce jail populations. This data provided comprehensive information on individuals booked into and released from jail over time, allowing ISLG to capture trends in rebooking outcomes in sites with varying geographies, populations, and jail sizes. The rebooking analysis covers data through April 2021, which is more recent than many well-established data sources.

New York:  CUNY Institute for State & Local Governance, 2023. 21p.

By AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL

From the Introduction: Amnesty International’s research on the global use of the death penalty in 2022 revealed a spike in the number of people known to have been executed worldwide, including a significant increase in executions for drug-related offences. This negative trend contrasts with a countervailing positive tendency: a substantial number of countries have taken decisive steps away from the death penalty in 2022, marking remarkable progress against the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment. Known executions, excluding the thousands believed to have taken place in China, significantly increased by 53% on those for 2021, from 579 (2021) to 883 (2022). The executions recorded in 2022 were the highest since 2017 (993).2 Secrecy and restrictive state practices continued to impair an accurate assessment of the use of the death penalty in several countries, including China, North Korea and Viet Nam.

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL GLOBAL REPORT 2022. 46p.

By Ashley Nellis

The social, moral, and fiscal costs associated with the large-scale, decades-long investment in mass imprisonment cannot be justified by any evidence of its effectiveness. Misguided changes in sentencing law and policy –not crime– account for the majority of the increase in correctional supervision.  Mass incarceration instigates numerous poor physical, psychological, and economic outcomes for the people who experience imprisonment, for their families, as well as for the broader community. Imprisonment leads to declining prospects for employment and results in lower earnings in the longer term. Food insecurity, housing instability, and reliance on public assistance are also associated with prior imprisonment. Children of incarcerated parents suffer tremendously; imprisonment of a parent leads to significant declines in academic and MASS INCARCERATION TRENDS health outcomes for children. High levels of incarceration also destabilizes entire communities, leading to dissolution of informal networks that are known to serve as barriers to neighborhood crime. Trust in law enforcement deteriorates as community members experience elevated levels of victimization and the loss of community members, friends, and family members to incarceration.   

Washington, DC: The Sentencing Project, 2023. 17p.

Edited by Kenneth E. Kerle, American Jail Association

“People familiar with the American jail scene realize that jails rank at the bottom of the criminal justice hierarchy in influence. Courts, prosecuting attorneys, police, and even probation and parole offi­cials exert more political clout than jail administrators. Jail popu­lation figures have nearly doubled in a decade, and now more than 300,000 ADP (average daily population) are found in the 3,338 jails in the 3,000 plus counties and cities that operate these institutions of incarceration. During 1987, there were more than 17 million ad­missions and releases from county and city jails. These local gov­ernment agencies serve as the dumping grounds for the arrested criminal, the chronic drunk, the DWI (driving while intoxicated), the mentally ill, the homeless, and juveniles ranging from the run­away to the amoral killer.”

Nelson-Hall. 1991. 299p.

By Meghan McCormick, Bright Sarfo and Emily Brennan

Over 5 million American children under the age of 18 years, a disproportionate number of whom are Black or Latino, have had a residential parent jailed or incarcerated. While a number of existing studies identify parental incarceration as a key risk factor for poor child and family outcomes, there is more limited information describing programs that aim to promote positive outcomes for children with parents involved in the criminal justice system. This literature review analyzes published studies about family strengthening programs that seek to maintain and build healthy relationships between parents who are incarcerated and their children. The review is organized by six key areas of programmatic focus that the research team identified based on an initial scan of the literature, consultations with experts and programs in the field, and guidance from the Administration for Children and Families (ACF) within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Washington, DC: Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2021. 61p.

By Mackenzie Buday and Ashley Nellis

Private prisons incarcerated 99,754 American residents in 2020, representing 8% of the total state and federal prison population. Since 2000, the number of people housed in private prisons has increased 14%. Harmful crime policies of the 1980s and beyond fueled a rapid expansion in the nation’s prison population. The resulting burden on the public sector led to the modern emergence of for-profit prisons in many states and the federal system. Of the 1.2 million people in federal and state prisons, 8%, or 99,754 people, were in private prisons as of year-end 2020.

Washington, DC: The Sentencing Project, 2022. 3p.

By The Southern Poverty Law Center

The detention of immigrants has skyrocketed in the United States. On a given day in August 2019, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) held over 55,000 people in detention – a massive increase from five years ago when ICE held fewer than 30,000 people. Unsurprisingly, the United States has the largest immigration incarceration system in the world. What’s more, the federal government spends more on immigration enforcement than for all principal federal law enforcement agencies combined, according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General. As of April 2019, Florida had the sixth-largest population of people detained by ICE in the United States, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse at Syracuse University. On a daily basis, ICE currently detains more than 2,000 noncitizens in the state, mostly in South Florida, which is home to four immigration prisons: Krome Service Processing Center (Krome), owned by ICE; Broward Transitional Center (Broward), operated by GEO Group, a Boca Raton-based for-profit prison corporation; and two county jails, Glades County Detention Center (Glades) and Monroe County Detention Center (Monroe). Despite the fact that immigrants are detained on civil violations, their detention is indistinguishable from the conditions found in jails or prisons where people are serving criminal sentences. The nation’s immigration detention centers are little more than immigrant prisons, where detained people endure harsh – even dangerous – conditions. And reports of recent deaths have only heightened concerns.

Montgomery, AL: Southern Poverty Law Center, 2017. 104p.

By Kristin M. Tennyson, Ross Thomas, Alyssa Purdy and Tessa Guiton,

This report is the sixth in a series continuing the Commission’s study of the recidivism of federal offenders released in 2010. In this report, the Commission provides an analysis of data on the recidivism of federal offenders who participated in Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) vocational programs while incarcerated. The study examines whether completion of vocational programs offered by the BOP impacted recidivism among a cohort of federal offenders who were released from prison in calendar year 2010. The report combines data regularly collected by the Commission, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) criminal history records, and data on program completion and participation provided by the BOP.

Washington, DC: United States Sentencing Commission, 2022. 80p.

By DLA Piper

In March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic was declared. Overnight, prisons became a key public health concern for governments. Prisons – particularly overcrowded facilities and those with poor sanitation, hygiene and ventilation – are known to act as a source of infection, amplification and spread of infectious diseases. Urgent action was required to limit the transmission of COVID-19 to prisoners, staff and the broader community. Recognizing the challenge and potential serious health risks, governments globally took swift action to decongest their prison systems through releasing prisoners and limiting new admissions. This report analyses the approach to decongesting prison systems adopted by governments in 53 jurisdictions across Asia Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, North and Central America. The results of those 53 jurisdictional analyses have been summarized into key findings set out in Part 2 of this report and in an infographic at Annexure A.

London: DLA Piper, 2020. 52p.