By Richard Wright, William J. Sabol

Thaddeus L. Johnson

The roughly 175,000 convicted robbers currently serving time in the U.S. eventually will be released. Over half of them will have been there before. Locked up as mostly young men and women, they will return to the communities they left behind, possessing little more than a criminal record and the clothes on their back. Many will find themselves owing supervision fees to the state; almost all will face legal barriers to employment, decent housing, political participation, and other sources of social inclusion. What can the criminal justice system—a system designed to prevent and deter lawbreaking— realistically do to keep them from returning to prison? This Article explores that question by drawing on published accounts from a sample of 86 individuals actively involved in committing armed robberies, many of whom have returned to crime after being released from prison. The emphasis throughout is on the ways in which pervasive social exclusion, both a cause and a consequence of their lawbreaking, challenges our ability to “reintegrate” such offenders who in reality were not integrated to begin with.

103 Marq. L. Rev. 1179 (2020)

By Elliott Young

McNeil Island prison was the first federal penitentiary in the U.S. West from its founding in 1875 through the 1930s. Thousands of immigrants were imprisoned there for violations of immigration laws, and also for drug and alcohol charges. It was at McNeil Island that in the late 1880s scores of Chinese were sentenced to six months hard labor for merely being present in the country without authorization, an offense that was not (and still is not) a criminal offense. This article reveals that the overlap between immigration and criminal law, known as crimmigration, began at the dawn of immigration enforcement.

Pacific Historical Review, Vol. 88, Number 1, pps. 48–85. ISSN 0030-8684, electronic ISSN 1533-8584 © 2019

By Victoria Knight

to understand the kinds of practical steps and activities needed to help support people on probation with digital resources as a means to nourish their desistance journeys. The digitization of the justice sector is complicated, and at times fraught with tensions and anxiety, and it shines a light on important factors like human rights, equality and safety. Slowly evidence is emerging that identifies some of the beneficial outcomes for people on probation – especially where digital resources can help improve human flourishing in different ways. In addition, staff are crucial in the digitization journey and are important brokers in empowering probationers to live a life without crime and reduce their risk of reoffending, now in a digitized world. The paper focuses on digital resources and services for people on probation that can implicitly or explicitly support, initiate and facilitate their desistance.

Academic Insights 2025/03

Manchester, UK: HM Inspectorate of Probation, 2025. 15p.

By Andrew Blum

Rise Up Industries emerged from the work of Kairos Prison Ministry in the early 2010s. During an event organized by Kairos at the Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego, Father Greg Boyle of Homeboy Industries5 in Los Angeles challenged Joseph Gilbreath, a Kairos volunteer, to establish something similar in San Diego. In response, Gilbreath, Ross Provenzano, and other Kairos volunteers founded RUI in 2013. The mission statement of RUI reads: Rise Up Industries minimizes gang involvement by providing integrated gang prevention, gang intervention, and post-detention reentry services. RUI describes their longer-term goal for this three-pronged approach as breaking the “intergenerational cycle of gang violence.”  RUI began by launching their 18-month reentry program in 2016, after just over three years of research on the needs in San Diego and the organizations already working on reentry services in San Diego County. According to RUI leadership, they launched the reentry program first in part because alumni of the reentry program could then participate in their gang prevention and intervention efforts. RUI is currently laying the foundation for more robust gang prevention programming through a series of speaking engagements, in which reentry program participants and alumni speak with at-risk and justice-involved youth with the goal of assisting them in making more positive life choices. As part of these efforts, RUI is also developing an MOU with Monarch School. Monarch School is a school in San Diego that educates children impacted by homelessness. Participants in the program will continue to regularly visit the school to speak with the students. RUI’s future plans for its gang prevention and intervention initiatives will be discussed in more detail below. 

San Diego: University of San Diego, Joan B. Kroc Institute for Peace and Justice,  2022. 25p.

By David Spencer 

We need more prisons. Amongst the “small stratum of intellectuals, semi-intellectuals and hooligans” who have a “politically motivated contempt for law and order” , it may well be fashionable to suggest otherwise. However, a lack of prison places has led to the Government choosing to release prison inmates earlier than they would otherwise have been. Police officers have been instructed to consider “pausing” arrests due to the lack of prison space. The judiciary have been told to consider prison capacity limits when sentencing those convicted of criminal offences. The most prolific offenders, when convicted of ‘indictable-only’ or ‘eitherway’ offences, are imprisoned on only 46.2% of occasions. A substantial majority of the public, 80% according to recent polling, believe the country should build more prisons. The Labour Party’s 2024 General Election Manifesto said: “Labour recognises that prisons are of national importance and therefore will use all relevant powers to build the prisons so badly needed.” In this report, we outline: 1. The current state of the prison estate and Prison Service: demonstrating that the English and Welsh prison system is in an utterly parlous state and as a result failing across almost every aspect of its core purpose. A wholesale change in leadership and culture across the Prison Service is required. 2. How many more prison places the system requires: recommending a substantial increase in the size of the prison estate with an additional 43,000 prison places (and an additional 10,000 prison cells to eliminate overcrowding) over the next decade. 3. The costs involved: to deliver the substantial increase in the prison estate, we recommend a reallocation of funding from other Government departments, with an increase in public spending on prisons of approximately £6.5bn in capital expenditure and approximately £1.7bn in annual resource expenditure. 4. The necessary changes to the regulatory regime: the Government has announced that it intends for prisons to receive planning permission through the Crown Development Route in order to reduce the amount of time taken for new prisons to receive planning permission. All future prisons should receive planning permission through this route. 5. What type of prisons the Government should deliver: the substantial prison building programme we propose will require an expansion of all types of the male prison estate, with new standards in the design and a shift in the location of the estate to ensure that every prisoner is able to undertake the necessary training, education and rehabilitation we envisage. Building a new generation of prisons is a challenging prospect. A great, or an even greater challenge, will be simultaneously creating a prison system which treats those in the State’s care in such a way that on release prisoners have a greater chance of leading productive lives, without continuing to commit crime. Properly incentivising prisoners towards such an objective is vital – that is why we condemn the current practice of automatic early release for almost all prisoners. We recommend a shift to a system of ‘earned early release’. In addition, the Government should examine previous recommendations in this domain made by Policy Exchange – relating to sentencing reform, prison reform and a bolstering of the entire community sentence regime.8 On additional funding: there is no scope to increase overall government spending. So any increase in funding to finance additional prisons must come from reductions in other sorts of public spending. This paper does not lay out in detail what other spending ought to be cut, but with government spending as a share of GDP at a post-war high, there is ample scope for the level of savings that would be required. Civil service staffing, the benefits bill, overseas aid and the regime for uprating pensions should all be reviewed. This Labour Government has come to believe that it has only a ‘narrow path’ to tread when it comes to law and order. On one side maintaining the confidence of the law-abiding majority; on the other acting in the interests of the ‘stakeholders’ and noisy activists who seek a more ‘progressive’ approach to those who choose to commit crime. This is exactly the kind of challenge that Labour Party strategists will have to navigate amidst its own internal ‘coalition politics’. It is also a debate which readily plays out in the Parliamentary Labour Party. On one side are those MPs, often hailing from the ‘Red Wall’, who understand that only a Labour Party that is “tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime” has any chance of retaining and winning support beyond a narrow sliver of ultra-progressives. On the other side are the Labour MPs who have, amongst other activities, vigorously campaigned against joint enterprise laws (which are key in the fight against crime) and claimed that some communities are “over-policed” despite those communities simultaneously being ravaged by knife and gang crime. Labour’s challenge in Government is to show to ordinary working people that it understands that the greatest threats they face come not from State oppression in the form of more prison places, but rather from an insufficiency of law and order – thus empowering the criminals and gangs who wilfully immiserate their lives. Too often Ministers, senior civil servants and the judiciary are insulated from the real-life consequences of their decisions relating to law and order. Many do not live or walk on dangerous and messy streets, or have to live next to those who have made criminality and anti-social behaviour a way of life. If Government wishes to genuinely serve the public – the vast majority of whom are living productive and law-abiding lives – Ministers must recognise that a less permissive environment for crime is required. Central to that is that the minority of people who do commit most crime should be far more likely to be in prison than is currently the case. This report shows Ministers how to deliver on a core element of such a plan     

London: Policy Exchange 2025. 55p.

By Kristen M. Zgoba, Rusty Reeves, Anthony Tamburello and Lisa Debilio

The relative contributions of mental illness and substance use disorders to criminal recidivism have important clinical and policy implications. This study reviewed 36 months of postrelease data for nearly 10,000 New Jersey state inmates released in 2013 to ascertain the rearrest rate of those diagnosed with mental illness, substance use disorders, both, or neither. We also examined whether certain characteristics suggestive of higher risk of psychiatric decompensation were associated with higher rates of rearrest. Released inmates who were diagnosed with a substance use disorder (without a mental illness) while incarcerated had the highest rate of rearrest upon release, followed by inmates diagnosed with both mental illness and substance use disorder together, inmates with neither a substance use disorder nor a mental illness, and lastly by inmates diagnosed with mental illness alone. These differences were statistically significant only between inmates with substance use disorders and those without a substance use disorder. Among those with a diagnosed mental disorder, there were no statistically significant differences in recidivism based on diagnosis or based on prescription of antipsychotic medication, injectable antipsychotic medication, or involuntary antipsychotic medication. These results support correctional institutions assertively addressing substance use disorders, especially for individuals returning to the community.

Approximately 2.2 million people, or nearly 1 percent of the United States population, were incarcerated in jails or prisons at the end of 2016.1 The vast majority of these individuals, nearly 97 percent, are expected to eventually return to the community.2 More than two thirds (68%) of persons released from prison will be rearrested within the first three years of release, and 83 percent will be returned to the criminal justice system within nine years of release.3 The societal and financial costs of incarceration and recidivism are burdensome.4 Thus, measuring and reducing recidivism is a high priority for most departments of corrections.5

Research indicates that former inmates with mental illness recidivate at a rate similar to undifferentiated offenders, though inmates with substance use disorders recidivate at a higher rate than undifferentiated offenders. Inmates with both mental illness and substance use disorder recidivate at an even higher rate. Additionally, persons with serious mental illness, such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, tend to have higher recidivism rates than those with other psychiatric disorders. The matter is complex, however, because other criminogenic factors, such as hostility, impulsivity, and antisocial attitudes and peers, may better account for crime among both those with and without mental illness diagnoses. Moreover, the effort to disentangle mental illness, substance abuse, and other criminogenic factors in the relationship to crime is nothing new. Most famously, the MacArthur Violence Risk Assessment Study, conducted between 1992 and 1995, explored the relationship between mental illness and violence, and the implications of that study continued to be debated for years after the conclusion of the study.19

Evidence suggests that better engagement in treatment for persons with mental illness on reentry does reduce the risk of committing a serious crime. Participation in mental health court reduces the risk of violent offending for justice-involved individuals with mental illness.20 Mela and Depiang reported that clozapine delayed the time to reoffending for former inmates prescribed an antipsychotic medication.21 More broadly, routine outpatient treatment, including medication, reduces the likelihood of arrest among persons with severe mental illness.

Notwithstanding the study by Mela and Depiang, little research has been done to consider the effects on recidivism of being prescribed an antipsychotic medication in prison, being prescribed injectable antipsychotic medication, or being prescribed medication involuntarily during incarceration. In the Clinical Antipsychotic Trials of Intervention Effectiveness (CATIE), nearly 75 percent of the patients discontinued their medications during the 18 months of the study. CATIE confirmed what psychiatrists already knew: that nonadherence with antipsychotic medication is the norm rather than the exception. In turn, such disengagement from treatment may contribute to incarceration among those diagnosed with severe mental illness.25 Supporting this concern, a prospective study from the United Kingdom reported a higher rate of violence in released prisoners with untreated schizophrenia. There is no reason to suspect that offenders with mental illness prescribed antipsychotic medication are any more likely to take their medication upon release than other individuals with mental illness in the community. Thus, the prescription of antipsychotic medication itself in prison may predict criminal recidivism.

Research suggests that long-acting injectable antipsychotic medications reduce nonadherence and hospital recidivism.27 In our experience, however, an inmate patient for whom long-acting injectable or involuntary antipsychotic medications are prescribed may represent an even greater risk of crime upon release than those for whom voluntary oral antipsychotic medications are prescribed in prison. In the New Jersey Department of Corrections (NJDOC), patients are usually prescribed long-acting injectable antipsychotic medication due to histories of nonadherence with oral medication, and these patients also often have histories of dangerousness associated with mental illness. Furthermore, inmate patients prone to nonadherence are often prescribed the medication involuntarily (on a long-term, non-emergency basis). Thus, we suspected that upon leaving prison, patients who had been prescribed injectable or involuntary treatment would stop taking their medications in the community, become symptomatic, and pose an increased risk for criminal recidivism.

In this study, consistent with the scientific literature, we hypothesized that the three-year recidivism rate of offenders with a mental illness, but not a substance use disorder, would be similar to the rate of offenders with neither problem; that the three-year recidivism rate of offenders with a substance use disorder would be higher than the rates of offenders without a substance use disorder, and of those with a mental illness alone; and that the three-year recidivism rate of offenders with both a mental illness and a substance use disorder would be higher than any of the other three groups. Among the group of offenders diagnosed with mental disorders, we hypothesized that, relative to other offenders with an identified mental illness, three-year recidivism rates would be higher among those with a psychotic disorder or a mood disorder diagnosis, those prescribed an antipsychotic medication upon release, those prescribed a long-acting injectable antipsychotic medication upon release, and those prescribed involuntary medication upon release.

Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law Online February 2020, 7p.

By Lois M. Davis, Louis T. Mariano, Melissa M. Labriola, Susan Turner, Andy Bogart, Matt Strawn, Lynn A. Karoly

This report presents findings from the three years of the California County Resentencing Pilot Program, which was established to support and evaluate a collaborative approach to exercising prosecutorial discretion in resentencing. Nine California counties were selected and were provided with funding to implement the prosecutor-initiated resentencing (PIR) three-year pilot program. In each pilot county, participants in the pilot were to include a county district attorney (DA) office and a county public defender (PD) office and may have included a community-based organization.

RAND, a nonprofit research organization, was selected by the California State Legislature as the independent evaluator of the pilot program. The pilot term was September 1, 2021, through September 1, 2024; the evaluation term was September 1, 2021, through January 31, 2025. The evaluation in this report comprises three components: a descriptive and outcomes analysis of data collected by DA offices and supplemented by data from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, a qualitative implementation assessment, and a cost study to estimate the resources required to implement the pilot activities. Subsequent reports will present the recidivism outcomes.

Key Findings

PIR filled a gap in sentencing policies by focusing on crimes against persons.

The program was not a single intervention at the county level but rather a set of different types of interventions by the nine pilot counties and was implemented in the context of other resentencing legislation.

Each county developed its own eligibility criteria for resentencing consideration. The criteria focused on such factors as the age of the inmate, the crime committed, and the length and other details of the sentence.

Factors that facilitated implementation include a history of collaboration between the DA and PD, leadership support, positive political climate, adequate resources, close coordination with the courts, and the use of stipulation.

Factors that hindered implementation include a less-supportive political context, differing views between DAs and PDs, inclusion of more-serious and more-complex cases, staffing shortages, and the complexity of reentry planning.

Among 1,146 case reviews initiated during the reporting period, 240 cases were referred to the court for resentencing; the DA offices decided not to refer 710 cases that they had reviewed; and 196 cases were still under DA review or were deferred for future review.

Of the 233 cases for which courts had ruled on a resentencing motion, 227 resulted in resentencing, and 174 of those individuals have been released from prison.

Resources for pilot-related activities were primarily for personnel.

Total expenditures for the six counties most actively engaged in the pilot reached nearly $28 million over the three years.

Recommendations

There is a need to clarify the respective roles of DAs and PDs and for an accountability mechanism to encourage them to work more closely together.

There need to be more-realistic time frames for the resentencing process, including the number of cases reviewed and length of time for DA review of cases to serve as benchmarks for counties to meet.

Eligibility criteria should be revisited and possibly streamlined, in addition to some standardization of what factors should be considered in the review of cases and decisions of whether to recommend to the court for resentencing.

A more formal arrangement between California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and the counties is needed to tackle the complexity of resentencing under PIR and improve access to clients and documentation.

Training is needed for the DA and PD staff, especially in such areas as the overall PIR initiative, case reviews, and offender central file analysis.

Key factors that helped streamline the resentencing process were the use of stipulation and having a dedicated court assigned to PIR cases. In the future, counties implementing PIR might consider using these two mechanisms.

Funding agencies could consider allocating the community-based organization contract funding to the PDs to implement and varying the size of the funding according to the size of the incarcerated population in a county.

Reentry planning requires further examination.

Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 2025.

By Robin Olsen, Constance Hull, Barbara Pierce, Ashlin Oglesby-Neal

Many states have enacted comprehensive justice system reforms to reduce the use of incarceration and community supervision with the aim of focusing resources on people at higher risk of reoffending and investing in strategies to achieve better outcomes for people and communities. Missouri (in 2012) and Oregon (in 2013) passed legislation to implement earned discharge from supervision for people who fulfill their supervision conditions. The states use two different approaches; Missouri’s approach awards credits automatically for each month of compliance while Oregon’s approach includes a review of compliance at the midpoint of supervision to consider earned discharge and gives local supervision authorities discretion over implementation of the policy. We conducted interviews with stakeholders and analyzed administrative data in both states to examine the implementation and effects of the earned discharge policy reform. Our analysis found that people who receive earned discharge serve less of their original supervision sentence (2 years shorter on average in Missouri and 13 months shorter on average in Oregon) and less of their sentence when compared to people who successfully complete supervision in other ways. Importantly, rates of the use of earned discharge can vary across a state when discretion at the individual or county-level is a large component of the policy design. The analysis also found that people closing their supervision terms through earned discharge or earned compliance credits have similar recidivism rates compared to people who were otherwise eligible for earned discharge but who successfully complete supervision in other ways. This brief offers recommendations that Missouri, Oregon, and other jurisdictions can consider to build on these reforms, including clearly and simply defining eligibility for earned discharge, and reducing the discretion of judges or supervision staff to determine people’s eligibility to ensure consistency and equity in the application of earned discharge.

Washington, DC: Urban Institute, 2022. 51p.

By Jesse Jannetta,

, Travis Reginal, Daniel Lawrence, Caitlin Flood, Emily LaGratta

Procedural justice, a framework for authority figures to treat people with fairness and respect, can improve probation supervision and core supervision outcomes. With support from Arnold Ventures, the Urban Institute, the American Probation and Parole Association (APPA), the Center for Court Innovation (CCI), and LaGratta Consulting partnered on an effort to develop and pilot a new procedural justice training curriculum—the Evaluation of Procedural Justice in Probation—outlining new tools and practices for probation officers. Analyses of interactions between supervising officers and people under supervision, survey responses regarding perceptions of supervision, and analyses of administrative data provided mixed findings, with some preliminary indications that participating in the procedural justice training may make probation officers’ treatment of people under supervision fairer and more respectful and improve supervision outcomes. However, the conclusions that can be drawn from even those results supportive of intervention impact are subject to significant limitations, given the nonexperimental nature of the design and the small number of observations in some of the data collected.

Washington, DC: Urban Institute, 2021. 46p.

By Penal Reform International and Women Beyond Walls

Globally, the number of women who are criminalised and imprisoned is rising at an alarming rate. Data published in February 2025 shows that more than 733,000 women and girls are estimated to be in prison worldwide. The female prison population has increased by 57 percent since 2000. The number of women going to prison is growing at a faster rate than that of men. Due to challenges in obtaining accurate information and the systemic lack of prioritisation of this issue, the true scale of the issue is likely to be significantly underreported. Thousands more women – and their children, whether detained alongside them or left behind – are impacted by the well-documented harms of involvement with the criminal justice system. Despite its rapid growth, women’s detention is largely overlooked in policy-making and high-level forums on women’s rights. In 2021, research by Women Beyond Walls revealed that initiatives supporting incarcerated women and girls are critically underfunded, with 70 percent of 34 organisations across 24 countries receiving no funding from women’s rights or human rights donors. This lack of prioritisation and resources hinders efforts to reduce women’s incarceration globally. In the rare instances where imprisoned women are considered in policy conversations, they are often reduced to their caregiving roles, marginalising those who do not fit this stereotype and exposing them to harsher penalties, stigma, and policy neglect, which exacerbates their vulnerabilities and makes their struggles invisible. The global female prison population is estimated to have increased by 57 percent since 2000. The number of women going to prison is growing at a faster rate than that of men. To address the criminalisation and imprisonment of women, there is an urgent need to gain a more detailed understanding of the causes. This report published by Penal Reform International and Women Beyond Walls, both members of the Global Campaign to Decriminalise Poverty and Status, examines some of the laws and practices across the world that, while not explicitly targeting women, disproportionately criminalise them due to poverty, their vulnerability and/or their status as a woman. Poverty is not gender-neutral, and women are overrepresented amongst the poor, resulting in the criminalisation of poverty having an excessive impact on women. The report also exposes how gender discrimination and patriarchal norms target women due to their socially constructed status as women, with laws and practices that disproportionately or differently impact them due to their gender, such as restrictions on reproductive rights or sexuality

Women Beyond Walls, 2025. 56p.

By Jane Mitchell

In today's polarized political climate, criminal justice reform remains one of the few issues that spans partisan divides. Voices from across the political spectrum agree: the United States needs a new approach to incarceration. Our current system of mass incarceration is costly, ineffective, and inequitable. It perpetuates intergenerational cycles of crime and poverty and pushes communities deeper into destitution.

This Article proposes a radically new approach. It presents a diversionary alternative-to-prison model for people facing serious felony charges — the majority of the prison population today. The approach calls on courts to divert felony offenders away from prison toward 501c3-run campuses. Instead of going to prison, offenders live and learn at a residential campus for one to three years. While there, they engage in a holistic, evidence-based program targeting their individual needs. In exchange for completing the program, participants have their prison sentences suspended and records expunged. Participants return home with the skills, mindsets, and support networks needed to succeed in modern society. Critically, government agencies hold campuses accountable for outcomes using an administrative structure similar to that used by high-performing urban charter schools — incentivizing stakeholders to reduce recidivism and alleviate poverty.

After laying out the model on paper, this Article presents a case study of The Reset Foundation ("Reset"), a non-profit organization I launched to pilot the model in the San Francisco Bay Area from 2013 to 2018. Reset's experience suggests the model is a potentially powerful one for diverting felony offenders away from prison toward better life outcomes: with its first cohort of ten students, Reset eliminated ninety years of prison time. The case study simultaneously shows the complexities and challenges of implementing a model as comprehensive and systemic as this. To increase the chances of successful adoption, the public sector should instigate this work, not the non-profit sector, with significant support from local communities.

Kentucky Law Review, Volume 113, No. 2 (2025), 63p.

By Marco Castillo∗ Sera Linardi† Ragan Petrie‡

Many previously incarcerated individuals are rearrested in the months and years following release from prison. We investigate whether encouragement to use reentry support services reduces rearrest. Field experiment participants are offered a monetary incentive to complete different dosages of visits, either three or five, to a support service provider. The incentive groups increased visits compared to the control group, with those in the 3-visit treatment completing the most. Intent-to-treat effects on rearrest are null in the full sample, but Black participants who complete 3-4 visits are 21.8 percentage points less likely to be rearrested.

Unpublished paper, 2024. , 44p.

By the Independent Rikers Commission

. In October 2023, City Council Speaker Adrienne Adams re-appointed the Independent Rikers Commission, which was first established in 2016 by then-Speaker Melissa Mark-Viverito. Our renewed mission: to re-examine and refresh the plan to close the jail complex on Rikers Island, given the post-COVID-19 world and the New York City law that mandates Rikers close entirely by August 31, 2027. After adding new members to broaden our Commission’s base of expertise and representation, we undertook over a year of research, analysis, and consultations. This report provides our unanimous conclusions and recommendations.

New York: The Commission, 2025; 114p.

Final Report RAND Europe with research support from Rosie Meek, Kirsty Hudson, Sarah Senker and Charlotte Scott

RAND Europe was commissioned by the Ministry of Justice in 2022 to conduct a study exploring the lived experiences of two interventions in prisons in England and Wales: drug testing regimens and incentivised substance free living (ISFL) wings. Mandatory drug testing is routinely conducted in prisons to monitor drug trends, deter drug consumption (through sanctions), and identify individuals in need of further support. ISFLs are dedicated wings for prisoners who want to live in a drug-free environment, whether that be free from the consumption of drugs, the violence related to drugs, or the culture of drug use. Drug testing regimens and ISFLs feed into the delivery of His Majesty’s Prisons and Probation Service’s (HMPPS) drug policy for prisons, which is guided by three key aims: restrict supply, reduce demand and build recovery. This study aimed to understand how drug testing regimens are delivered, experienced, and perceived. Findings will shape the ISFL model by understanding the lived experience of staff and prisoners both on existing ISFL wings and elsewhere in the prison. Findings from this report will also be used to inform the design of a randomised controlled trial and process evaluation on ISFLs and a larger qualitative piece of work on implementation of drug testing. Data collection consisted of interviews and focus groups with prisoners, interviews with prison staff, and observations of drug testing suites and ISFL wings. Fieldwork took place in March and April 2023 in three prisons: a category C men’s prison in the North of England; a category B/C men’s prison in Wales; and a closed women’s prison in the South of England. Key findings on drug testing regimens Drug testing regimens appear to be designed with limited consideration of the variation and uniqueness of each prison and its population. The research identified practical limitations for prisoners on remand or serving short sentences in accessing support services. Female prisoners experienced the process of being tested as degrading due to the different way that they provide a sample in comparison to men. The illicit use of prescription medication, sourced through the prison’s medication hatch and traded among prisoners, was reported to be prevalent in all three sites. There was no immediate way for prison staff to know whether a positive result was the result of misuse or legitimate prescription use. The process for confirming this, via medical records, was described as lengthy and, at times, inappropriately punitive to prisoners legitimately taking prescription medication. Several staff and prisoners commented that the regimens were testing for substances that were widely understood not to be consumed in the sites. Drug testing regimens were not always seen to be effective as a therapeutic tool to support prisoners or address underlying needs that drive drug use. Generally, prisoners were either indifferent to, or supportive of, drug testing itself. The punitive responses to positive drug tests were felt to do little to deter drug use, in the absence of support being offered. Most participants, particularly in the men’s prisons, felt that drug testing was currently ineffective at deterring drug use in part due to inconsistent implementation. Additionally, for some at the South of England prison the ‘benefit’ of taking drugs to help deal with mental health issues and prison life, outweighed the ‘cost’ of getting caught. Key findings on ISFL wings There were mixed perceptions about the value of ISFL across the prison population. In the North of England and Welsh prisons, staff and prisoners were generally positive about the operation of the ISFL and attributed this to a calm atmosphere, positive and supportive relationships with staff and other prisoners, extended time out of cells and additional support services to help prisoners address their mental health needs. At the South of England prison, the ISFL was struggling to differentiate itself from other wings which staff and prisoners attributed to a lack of incentives specific to the ISFL. ISFLs were described by both staff and prisoners as having ‘a bad rep’ and creating ‘ill feeling’ among prisoners on other wings. This was put down to jealousy and resentment about the additional privileges and a perception that prisoners on ISFLs were colluding with management. ISFL referral processes differed significantly in implementation across the three prisons. All three wings used some form of referral criteria for recruiting participants. However, how referral worked in practice seemed ad hoc, informal and varied from site to site. The process for being able to reside on the wing was also unclear to many prisoners. Approaches to dealing with positive drug test results from ISFL residents also differed across the sites. In the North of England prison, a ‘two strikes’ approach to excluding prisoners from the wing appeared to be implemented consistently, while in the Welsh prison there was more flexibility for prisoners who volunteered information that they had used drugs. In the South of England prison no such penalty was applied. Talking therapies and purposeful activities were important in supporting recovery. The peer-led component of therapies and the opportunities to build supportive relationships with other residents through additional time out of cells and in shared spaces was felt to be effective in helping prisoners to understand the drivers of their drug use and how to address their mental health needs. The importance of a stable, safe environment and providing activities tailored to the needs of the population was highlighted by interviewees. Many believed that an ISFL should primarily be a settled environment where prisoners can access help to support their needs, and that a mix of prisoners, with and without histories of drug use, was beneficial in creating this environment. However, the environment in the ISFL at the South of England prison was described as ‘disruptive’ as it included prisoners who had not chosen to be on the ISFL, and other wings were described as offering a more therapeutic, communal environment. At this prison, staff also reported that the incentives on offer were typically more popular in a male, rather than female, prison (e.g., gym weights or pool tables) and female prisoners described different motivations for taking drugs. Findings underlined that the types of drugs consumed, reasons for drug consumption, and mental health and other needs vary by sex.

London: Ministry of Justice, 2024. 106p.

By Niloufer Taber and Asha Muralidharan

The Second Chance Pell Experimental Sites Initiative (SCP), launched by the U.S. Department of Education (ED) in 2015, provides need-based Pell Grants to people in state and federal prisons. The initiative examines whether expanding access to financial aid increases incarcerated adults’ participation in postsecondary educational opportunities. This program gives invited colleges the opportunity to provide credentialed college education programs within state and federal prisons using federal aid for incarcerated students who qualify. In 2016, ED invited 67 colleges in 28 states, and in 2020, it expanded SCP to include a total of 130 colleges from 42 states and Washington, DC. In 2022, SCP expanded again to include a total of 200 colleges in 48 states, Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico.1 The Vera Institute of Justice (Vera) provides technical assistance to the participating colleges and corrections departments to ensure that the programs provide highquality postsecondary education in prison and after release. This report summarizes the first six years of the experiment and primarily focuses on information from the 2021–2022 financial aid year, using survey responses from 75 participating colleges with enrolled students funded through SCP during this period.2

New York: Vera Institute of Justice, 2023. 14p.

By Katy Swaine Williams

This small study confirms that undertaking education, employment and other purposeful activity in prison is of fundamental importance for young women (aged 18–24) during their imprisonment and after their release. While in prison, having access to the right opportunities can offer satisfaction and a sense of pride and achievement; it can provide a distraction from worries and a valuable sense of purpose. Physical activity, including use of the gym, and purposeful social interaction are particularly valued. Education, employment and other purposeful activities for young women in prison can also help young women to envisage a positive future after their release and offer a practical stepping stone towards further study, employment, or simply development of a hobby that is beneficial to their wellbeing. Conversely, where young women in prison are denied opportunities for education or employment which they value, or indeed other purposeful or socially interactive activity, this is likely to be severely detrimental. The histories of several young women who took part in this study included childhood trauma, domestic abuse – including coercive control – and exploitation, which had had a direct impact on their engagement with education. Some of the young women identified lack of access to mental health assessment and support as a key barrier to their engagement in activities and overall wellbeing, and a cloud over their present and future. Some complained they could not access education and work opportunities in prison until they had undertaken their Maths and English Level 1, which felt to them like an arbitrary barrier. Several women found inactivity and excessive time in their cell very difficult to cope with and wanted more opportunities for purposeful activity and social interaction, including through team sports. Others described the satisfaction they gained from purposeful activity in prison, including work. Each of the participants described past achievements in education, employment and family life of which they were proud, and aspirations for the future as well as worries and fears. Through this study we aim to help inform improvements to ensure that every young woman can experience the benefits of education, employment and other purposeful activity while in prison. We hope it will also be of interest to education providers in the community. We urge the Ministry of Justice to renew its efforts to develop a Young Women’s Strategy, to do so through co-production with young women, and to include a distinct focus on education, employment and other purposeful activity. The aim should be to develop tailored support which is gender-specific, age-specific, and is accessible to all young women – including Black, minority ethnic and migrant young women. This work should draw on learning from youth offending teams and the children’s secure estate, and widely held knowledge of the specific needs and characteristics of girls and young women. It should include universal provision of maturity assessments as well as assessments of Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND), provision of necessary support to meet identified needs, and investment in a wider range of education, employment and other purposeful activity in prison, including team sports. Staff delivering education and work opportunities will need to be highly skilled in order to engage young women and support their development. Barriers to participation should be removed, including through timely mental health assessments and delivery of therapeutic support where needed. Probation services should review their approach to supporting young women into formal learning and employment in prison and post-release. Progress must be measured through publication of data and insights from young women. Our recommendations are set out in full at the end of the report

London: Prisoner's Education Trust, 2024. 38p.

By George Pro , Ricky Camplain and,Charles H. Lea III

Racial discrimination and racial identity may compete to influence incarceration risk. We estimated the predicted days incarcerated in a national US sample of Black, Latino/Latina, and American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) individuals.

Methods

We used the 2012–2013 National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions-III (n = 14,728) to identify individual incarceration history. We used zero-inflated Poisson regression to predict the number of days incarcerated across racial discrimination and racial identity scores.

Results

Racial discrimination and identity varied between races/ethnicities, such that racial discrimination exposure was highest among Hispanic individuals, while racial identity was highest among Black individuals. Racial discrimination was positively associated with days incarcerated among Black individuals (β = 0.070, p<0.0001) and AI/AN individuals (β = 0.174, p<0.000). Racial identity was negatively associated with days incarcerated among Black individuals (β = -0.147, p<0.0001). The predicted number of days incarcerated was highest among Black individuals (130 days) with high discrimination scores.

Conclusion

Racial discrimination and racial identity were associated with days incarcerated, and the association varied by racial/ethnic sub-group. Informed by these findings, we suggest that intervention strategies targeting incarceration prevention should be tailored to the unique experiences of racial/ethnic minoritized individuals at the greatest risk. Policies aimed at reversing mass incarceration should consider how carceral systems fit within the wider contexts of historical racism, discrimination, and structural determinants of health.

PLoS ONE 17, 2022, 11p.

By Jessica L Adler and Weiwei Chen

In 2019, there were approximately ten million admissions to more than 3,000 US jails-facilities that had become increasingly deadly in the prior decades. Between 2000 and 2019, jail mortality rose by approximately 11 percent. Although incarceration is widely viewed as a health hazard, relationships between jail conditions and jail deaths are understudied. Using data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics and Reuters journalists, we assessed mortality rates and conditions in approximately 450 US jails in the period 2008-19. During those years, certain facility characteristics were related to mortality. For example, high turnover rates and high populations were associated with higher death rates. Greater proportions of non-Hispanic Black people in jail populations were associated with more deaths due to illness, and the presence of larger shares of non-US citizens was associated with lower overall mortality rates. Our findings suggest that heavy reliance on incarceration and the prevalence of broad health disparities escalate jail mortality.

Health Aff (Millwood). 2023, 16p.

By Audrey Macklin

The human right to leave any country protects an intrinsic interest in free movement and is also a vital pre-condition to seeking asylum. The right to leave attracts little academic interest, but it is quietly being eroded. Exit restrictions in States of origin or transit have become an instrument of extraterritorial migration control for European Union Member States seeking to prevent the arrival of unwanted migrants. This article first explores the revival of exit restrictions, focusing on agreements between European destination States and select African States of departure. It argues that the adoption of exit restrictions from one State to prevent entry to another creates the paradox of seamless borders, where regulation of exit and entry are harmonized and fused to serve the singular objective of preventing entry to the destination State. The article further argues that the political and discursive coupling of anti-smuggling and search-and-rescue regimes occlude the rightsviolating character of exit restrictions and enables breach of the right to leave to hide in plain sight. Additionally, current approaches to jurisdiction and State responsibility in regional and international courts render the prospect of destination State liability uncertain in circumstances where the destination State does not exercise legal and physical control over enforcement. The article draws on ‘crimmigration’ and border criminology literature to identify the common element of carcerality that connects confinement of migrants to the territory of departure States with migrant detention inside the territory. Beyond lamenting the erosion of exit rights, the article concludes by querying whether the erosion of the right to leave is symptomatic of a larger trend toward the regulation of mobility itself.

International and Comparative Law Quarterly. 2024;73(4):891-929.