By Pablo Marshall, Diego Rochow, Sergio Faúndez

This article analyses the enfranchisement process of the prison population in Chile. Although institutions were reluctant to grant the vote to this group for several years, in 2022, new policies allowed prisoners to suffrage for the first time. The Voto Preso movement, a set of organisations struggling for prisoners’ political participation, played a fundamental role in this transformation. However, incarcerated people's participation in constructing the movement's demands and strategies was scarce. Drawing on eleven interviews with key movement actors, the article sheds light on the main discourses by which it promoted the materialisation of Chilean prisoners’ voting rights. The article also critically scrutinises the consequences of prisoners’ limited inclusion in the Voto Preso movement. Finally, the article discusses how its analytical approach may open new avenues for studying prisoner dis/enfranchisement as a situated boundary issue.

Howard J. Crim. Justice. 2025;64:3–23 pages

By Hanna Hernandez. & Vasiliki Georgoulas-Sherry

Rates of recidivism have been commonly used as a key measure for public safety and in assessing the effectiveness of the criminal justice system – sentencing, jails, prisons, community supervision, treatment and reentry programming. Tracking recidivism can provide necessary information to support successful integration into the community following a prison sentence – which promotes community and public safety. Furthermore, understanding the individuals who are more likely to recidivate, and assessing demographic differences amongst the years can provide even more knowledge for supporting successful reentry. To evaluate long-term recidivism in Washington, the Washington Statistical Analysis Center (SAC) applied for and received the 2021 State Justice Statistics (SJS) grant from Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). Under this grant from BJS, the SAC first drew on publicly available data from the Washington State Department of Corrections (DOC) to evaluate the long-term recidivism trends of incarcerated individuals released from prison (Georgoulas-Sherry & Hernandez, 2024). To expand on the findings, this report utilizes the same cohort to further evaluate the racial and sex similarities and differences in recidivism rates.

Olympia: Washington State Statistical Analysis Center, 2024. 31p.

By Fouzia Awan, Jared Stahl, Alec Bukata, Bergen Sorby, Anna Newberry, Sarah Frahm

Pursuant to Section 133(20), Chapter 376, Laws of 2024, the Washington State Office of Financial Management (OFM) contracted with Western Washington University’s Center for Economic and Business Research (CEBR) to provide a comprehensive analysis of communication rates for incarcerated individuals across the United States. This report examines the costs associated with various communication methods — including voice calls, video conferencing, email, and text messaging — offered by contracted vendors in each state. Included in the report is an overview of the payments made by each state to their communication vendors, outlining the rate structures applicable to incarcerated individuals and their families over time. Additionally, it presents data on the total amounts paid by families to vendors each fiscal year. The report features a comparative analysis of rate structures over time, alongside historical communication fees. It also aims to forecast market trends from 2024 to 2030, providing insights into expected changes. Furthermore, the report identifies states that offer any form of communication — whether voice, video, email, or text — free of charge to both the initiating and receiving parties. It includes specific dates when these states began offering free communication services. Additionally, the report examines any access limitations for incarcerated individuals to these services once they are provided free of charge, as well as how communication policies have evolved in these states as a result.

Olympia, WA: Washington State Office of Financial Management (OFM) , 2024. 31p.

By Noreen Wallace, et al.

The implementation of the standard determinate sentence 40 (SDS40) scheme in July 2024 and the subsequent announcement of the Government’s sentencing review have placed at centre stage the ability of the Probation Service to supervise and manage people effectively in the community. To achieve the best results, the Probation Service needs sufficient, well-trained staff to meet those demands. This thematic inspection therefore comes at a timely moment. Since probation services unified in 2021, our inspection reports have routinely described significant shortfalls in the number of probation practitioners, resulting in excessive workloads for many, which have had a negative impact on the quality of work undertaken. Strategic plans have acknowledged the need to recruit practitioners, and this has been undertaken at pace; from the start of the 2021 financial year to the end of the 2023/2024 financial year, over 3,500 trainee probation officers have started training. While wholly commendable and necessary, recruitment at this scale places considerable demands on existing resources and has further depleted the number of practitioners, as staff have been recruited into the management and support roles required for the new recruits. Despite successful recruitment campaigns that have attracted many trainee probation officers and probation services officers, there are still shortages at the frontline, exacerbated by increased attrition rates. The staff group is also not sufficiently diverse, and further work is needed to understand why there are some disproportionate outcomes for certain groups in the recruitment processes. While probation staff can make a huge positive difference to people’s lives, the work is also demanding and, at times, stressful. Probation practitioners have often been operating with high, and in some cases excessively high, workloads, which has undoubtedly had an impact on the quality of work. The success of community supervision depends on skilled practitioners who can build rapport, assess risks, and rehabilitate people on probation. However, we have found that practitioners are not always sufficiently equipped with the necessary skills and knowledge to work with the cases they are allocated. A closer look at the current training arrangements shows that considerable efforts have been made to meet the demands of high new starter numbers. However, there is still room to improve the way that training is delivered, to equip practitioners better with the skills to work effectively with people on probation. The recruitment of trainee probation officers has now rightly moved away from seeking only to attract graduates, and a range of pathways is now available to attract a more diverse workforce. The programme is intense and not all recruits are prepared for the demands it places on them. To maximise the prospect of positive outcomes, it is essential that recruits are tested adequately, to ensure that those who are appointed have the potential and commitment to become competent probation officers. Evaluation of the recruitment and training methods used for each intake is needed to have a better understanding of what produces the most effective outcomes. There is considerable investment in training, and it is vital that this investment is focused on building a stable and committed staff group who want to remain within the Service. Considering the pace of probation training, it is crucial that the support arrangements for newly qualified officers are strengthened to allow them to hone their skills before taking on full caseloads; failing to do this can place pressures on new officers that can be overwhelming and counterproductive to long-term development and retention. HM Prison and Probation Service recognises the reasons why many staff leave; high workloads and the ongoing pressures faced by the Service are common factors. Given the considerable demands of the work, and its impact on public protection, pay is also inevitably an issue. Pay needs to reflect the significant level of risk and responsibility that probation staff hold. Another key issue is the tension between practitioners’ professional priorities and the expectations placed on them by the service. More needs to be done to harmonise these expectations and ensure that practitioners feel proud of the valuable work they do, to change lives and keep communities safe.    The sentencing review that is now under way was triggered by the capacity pressures in the prison system. Increased supervision in the community will inevitably be considered and the public needs to feel confident that community supervision is safe and effective. Well-resourced, trained, and supported probation staff make this possible. Overall, while there are initiatives aimed at improving staff experiences, challenges remain in building a capable and stable workforce. We have made recommendations based on our findings which, if followed, should lead to positive improvements in the recruitment, retention, and training of probation staff

Manchester: HM Inspectorate of Probation January 2025  65p.

By Amnesty International

This report details how people accused of using drugs are subject to arbitrary detention in drug “treatment and rehabilitation” centres, in a continuation of the punitive approach to the Philippines’ “war on drugs”. Based on interviews with 56 people, 26 of whom were accused of using and/or selling drugs, this report investigates human rights violations – such as torture and other ill-treatment, forced or otherwise unreliable confessions, and violations of the right to health – that people endure before, during and after their compulsory stay in drug detention centres. The Philippine government must move away from punitive and harmful responses to drugs. Instead, it must adopt evidenced-based approaches that respect the dignity of all people and put health and human rights at the centre.

London: Amnesty International, 2024. 68p.

By Marco Castillo, Sera Linardi, Ragan Petrie:

Many previously incarcerated individuals are rearrested 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, and one extra visit reduces rearrests three years after study enrollment by six percentage points. The results are driven by Black participants who are more likely to take up treatment and benefit the most from visits. The study speaks to the importance of considering first-stage heterogeneity and heterogeneous treatment effects.

IZA DP No. 17522

Bonn: IZA – Institute of Labor Economics, 2024. 46p.

By Bowen Cho

In this report, we invite readers to explore the historical, racialized, disablist, and political economic contexts of mass incarceration, including the ways that incarceration has expanded beyond prisons, jails, and correctional supervision in the 21st century. As well, publics often think of incarceration narrowly, such that they make invisible the containment of Disabled people in institutional and extra-carceral systems. This report is in part a corrective and counterpoint to policy papers on disability and criminal legal reform published by non-disability advocacy and mental health advocacy organizations in recent years. Because the ideologies of eugenics, ableism, and disablism are thriving in the 21st century, disability is often used as a rhetorical frame arguing for the restriction of carceralism for certain groups and its expansion for others. Mass incarceration in the 21st century includes physical confinement, but also accounts for the rapidly expanding, technocratic industries of e-carceration and psychotropic incarceration. Our conceptions of physical confinement must go beyond prisons and jails, and include detention centers, psychiatric hospitals, nursing homes, and residential treatment facilities. One cannot replace the other. Recognition of incarcerated people must similarly be expanded to include detained immigrants, people under electronic monitoring and surveillance, and people experiencing involuntary psychiatric commitment. Black people and Indigenous people continue to be disproportionately impacted by policing and carceralism, particularly in the increased criminalization of poverty, houselessness, and mental illness, and the ways that these statuses intersect with racism and disablism.

Berkeley, CA: Disability Rights Education and Defense Fund (DREDF) , 2024. 120p.

By Nicholas Shapiro, Terence Keel

The rising number of jail deaths in the United States has left impacted community members, state actors, media, and scholars questioning if these rates are a reflection of the overall declining health of the nation or are due to factors specific to the carceral environment. This fact sheet contributes to this national dialogue through the analysis of autopsies for 58 deaths that occurred in Los Angeles County Jails over a 9-year period. Our study shows that young Black and Latinx men are not dying merely from "natural causes" but from the actions of jail deputies and carceral staff. Our findings support the efforts of community members and lawmakers attempting to reform the cash bail system in Los Angeles County as three quarters of the deaths in our study were individuals held in pre-trial detention. Moreover, our study supports the urgent need to reduce the jail population to expedite the closing of Men’s Central Jail and the potential life saving benefits of jail diversion programs for the people of Los Angeles County. We focus on autopsies because they are fundamental to establishing the causes and manner of death in carceral facilities that have limited public accountability. 

Los Angeles, UCLA Carceral Ecologies Lab, BioCritical Studies Lab, 2022. 9p.

By Melissa Serafin, Julie Atella, Piere Washington, Sophak Mom

Reentry and community context Within three years of release from state prisons, federal prisons, and local jails, about half of people are reincarcerated and two-thirds are rearrested (Office of the Assistance Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, n.d.). Existing research highlights how challenges to reentry are compounded in rural communities because they are often underserved and under-resourced. Employment, housing, transportation, and limited social and health services are all common barriers for individuals reentering rural communities, and access to reentry programming is often limited (Benavides et al., 2023; Ward et al., 2016; Ward, 2017; Zajac et al., 2014). Additionally, the opioid crisis has significantly impacted rural communities, including those in Maine (Maine Governor’s Office of Policy Innovation and the Future, 2023). The rate of overdose fatalities in Maine increased from 0.3 per 1,000 population in January 2017 to 0.6 in January 2022, and the rate in Waldo County also increased from 0.2 in 2017 (8 total) to 0.5 in 2022 (20 total; Maine Drug Data Hub, 2024). Overdose fatalities most notably increased during the COVID-19 pandemic: the fatality rate in Maine increased 33% between 2019 and 2020, with 83% of deaths in 2020 due to opioids. Without opportunities, resources, and support, people reentering rural communities may experience hopelessness and criminogenic needs contributing to recidivism (Ward, 2017; Pettus-Davis & Kennedy, 2019). The findings from the current project also identified many of these challenges. Limited access to and availability of resources and services like internet, public transportation, health care and insurance, employment options, and affordable housing across counties and the state were stressed as barriers hindering the success of the program. Housing was identified as a particularly significant challenge, and this is compounded by the lack of viable employment options that provide a livable wage. The median cost for a studio efficiency or one-bedroom apartment in Waldo County, Maine in 2023 was $916-$922, and a two bedroom was $1,174 per month (RentData, 2024). According to the Maine Department of Labor (2024), the minimum wage in 2023 was $13.80 per hour in the state. Individuals employed full time, earning minimum wage, and who rent at least a studio efficiency would then be considered “cost-burdened”1 or “severely cost-burdened”2 (Office of Housing and Urban Development, 2014). Rent burden contributes to lacking the means to afford other necessities such as food, clothing, child care and more. Furthermore, the National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC, 2024) notes the extreme shortage of rentals that are affordable to households whose incomes are at or below the poverty guideline or 30% of their area median income. In addition to the shortage of affordable housing and within the vicinity of the VOANNE network—within a four-city radius—there were no homeless shelters, nor mental health facilities with detox beds, and only one sober house. While VOANNE provides tents and camp supplies in more dire cases, and connects some participants with temporary transitional housing (including motels), they have access to very few permanent housing supports. Experiencing housing insecurity and homelessness can also negatively impact substance use. For example, efforts to stay awake to protect belongings and avoid violence is associated with developing and worsening substance use disorders (Mehtani et al., 2023). Existing research and findings from the current evaluation indicate that transportation is often a significant challenge for individuals reentering rural communities (Benavides et al., 2023; Ward, 2017; Zajac et al., 2014). While Maine does have some public transportation, rural areas have limited public transportation. Some communities have fixed route bus services that do not operate 24 hours a day and seven days a week, but these may only be in some counties (Eichacker, 2021). Limited public transportation means limited independence upon reentry to get to and from places like the DMV, a job interview, or to work. Additionally, some participants in the current evaluation did not possess driver’s licenses, further limiting their transportation options. This evaluation also identified how lack of phone service and high-speed internet make communication difficult and pose a barrier to building independence and integrating into society. Previous research has also identified these as significant reentry barriers (PettusDavis et al., 2019). Correctional system initiatives In response to the challenges that individuals face while reentering their communities, VOANNE and their partners have implemented several initiatives. Specifically, VOANNE has prioritized building trusting and collaborative partnerships with law enforcement agencies; this evaluation identified the strength of these partnerships. These partnerships facilitate opportunities to strengthen impact, such as the ability to provide services and programming within county jails while individuals are incarcerated. Additionally, postrelease offices and community spaces provide critical support to individuals who are reentering their communities after incarceration, and VOA’s diversion programming allows VOANNE to serve anyone who could benefit from services (e.g., not just individuals who are or have been incarcerated). VOANNE has also been able to expand to providing services in additional counties and correctional facilities over time.

St. Paul, MN: Wilder Research, 2024. 43p.

By Tom Jackson, Rachel Crorken, Sheenik Mills, and Carla Ayrton

This report presents findings from a one-year process evaluation that explored the delivery of unpaid work in England and Wales. The qualitative research design included a total of 102 interviews with: people on probation (25), beneficiaries (6), probation staff (62), and members of the judiciary (9); six focus groups with unpaid work staff; and ethnographic observations of 18 unpaid work projects. The evaluation was designed to assess what works in the delivery of unpaid work following the unification of the probation service and the £93 million investment to aid unpaid work delivery following the Covid-19 pandemic. The main findings from the evaluation are: Identity and purpose of unpaid work • All staff interviewed, believed the purpose of unpaid work is first and foremost a punishment, but it must also have elements of reparation in which people on probation give back to the community. Overall, staff were confident that unpaid work was meeting its aims as a punishment, which they viewed as the time people on probation give up attending their order. Staff also thought that unpaid work met reparative aims by ensuring that work carried out benefits the wider community. • Perceptions on whether unpaid work is rehabilitative were mixed. Staff explained how unpaid work can be rehabilitative for some individuals by providing an opportunity to learn ‘soft’ and practical skills. However, the rehabilitative potential of unpaid work was not applicable to everyone and was dependent on employment status, the type of project, and the individual’s willingness to engage with rehabilitative efforts. People on probation’s experience of unpaid work • People on probation identified relationships with supervisors as an important factor that affected their experience of unpaid work. A good relationship with a supervisor could encourage them to return and attend projects led by the same supervisor. Meaningful projects could increase compliance by encouraging people on probation to return to projects they believed had value. These were usually described as projects that would have benefits for the local community, and/or where people on probation had the opportunity to learn new skills, particularly if they thought these could lead to employment. • Many people on probation brought up communication issues they had with probation practitioners. These communication issues could make completing hours of unpaid work difficult either because their unpaid work hours were not set up in time or because people on probation could not contact probation to discuss issues they had with attending projects, making it hard to rearrange hours. • Many people on probation who were interviewed felt that wearing high-visibility vests, with unpaid work branding, caused them to experience unnecessary stigma and shame which could have negative impacts on their mental health. People on probation and supervisors thought, in particularly public areas, having to wear the branded high-visibility vests could impact compliance

Ministry of Justice Analytical Series

London: Ministry of Justice, 2024. 76p.

By Kristin Turney, Naomi F. Sugie, Estéfani Marín, Daniela E. Kaiser

Anticipatory stress—or worries about the future that produce emotional distress—may explain some of the deleterious repercussions of incarceration for health. We use nearly 500 interviews with incarcerated men and their family members to describe anticipatory stress stemming from the stressor of jail incarceration, a commonly experienced but understudied type of confinement distinct from prison incarceration. We identify and explain how jail incarceration involves a powerful confluence of factors that give rise to anticipatory stress about adjudication, family relationships, the well-being of loved ones, and reintegration. We describe three types of anticipatory stress proliferation between incarcerated men and their families. First, anticipatory stress commonly proliferates from incarcerated men to their children's mothers and their own mothers, with anticipatory stress being particularly salient when it involves the possibility of major changes, system irrationality, and powerlessness. Second, family members can experience anticipatory stress regardless of whether their incarcerated loved one reports anticipatory stress, shaped in part by men's extensive criminal legal contact. Third, family members with weak relationships with incarcerated men generally do not experience anticipatory stress despite the anticipatory stress endured by their incarcerated loved ones. This study provides a framework for understanding how other stages of criminal legal contact contribute to health inequalities among incarcerated people and their families.

Criminology, Volume 62, Issue 4, 2024, pages 830-858

By Margaret Colgate Love

The problem of collateral consequences calls to mind Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.’s famous line: “The life of the law has not been logic: it has been experience.” U.S. criminal law itself is not theoretically pure. In the area of civil law, in particular commercial law, dozens of uniform laws are on the books, drafted by experts, many of which, such as the Uniform Commercial Code, have been widely adopted. But in a country where we evaluate criminal justice polices based on a melange of principles - retributivist, utilitarian, economic, religious, pragmatic, intuitive, and emotional - there is and could be no Uniform Penal Code.1 Criminal law is inconsistent across states, and even within states, in its underlying justification or rationale, and the reasons that particular rules or practices exist. The Model Penal Code has been widely influential, but—as designed—states adopted only the pieces they liked, and heavily modified them. Disagreement about how to treat someone who has been arrested or prosecuted after their criminal case is concluded is, if anything, even more intense. The collateral or indirect consequences of their experience may be divided into four main types: Loss of civil rights, limits on personal freedom (such as registration or deportation), dissemination of damaging information, and deprivation of opportunities and benefits, each of which may be justified and criticized for different reasons. Accordingly, criminal law practitioners and scholars disagree about the fundamental nature and purpose of collateral consequences. To the extent the public at large ever thinks about them, they also hold a range of views. There is no consensus about whether collateral consequences in general or particular ones should be understood as further punishment for crime or prophylactic civil regulation, as a reasonable effort to control risk or as an unconstitutional and immoral perpetuation of Jim Crow, or, perhaps, understood in some other way. Advocates, analysts, and lawmakers will never be in a position to argue persuasively “because collateral consequences rest on Principle X, it follows that they should apply in and only in Condition Y, and must be relieved under Circumstance Z.” Yet, the practical problem of collateral consequences looms large. With their massive expansion in recent decades, those who experience collateral consequences firsthand know that they cannot become fully functioning members of the community without finding a way to overcome them. The economic dislocations caused by the Covid-19 pandemic underscore the practical implications of collateral consequences: With individuals desperate for money and opportunity, and businesses hungry for workers, the need for a sensible policy to minimize employer concerns about risk is clear. And while there remains no compelling necessity for all states to have the same penalties for armed robbery or cattle rustling, collateral consequences are a national economic problem affecting whole communities that might justify a federal, or at least a uniform, solution. Fortunately, agreement on underlying principles is not required to agree on particular policies.2 Most Americans agree that people arrested or convicted of crime should not be relegated to a permanent subordinate status regardless of the passage of time, successful efforts at rehabilitation and restitution, and lack of current risk to fellow Americans. Finding ways to restore their legal and social status is a compelling necessity, given the array of collateral consequences adversely affecting tens of millions of Americans, their families and communities, the economy, and public safety itself. To adapt a line from Justice Anthony Kennedy’s 2003 speech on criminal justice to the ABA, too many people are subject to too many collateral consequences for too long. At the same time, substantial majorities likely agree that public safety requires excluding those convicted of recent criminal conduct from situations where they present a clear and present danger of serious harm. Even if it is impossible to identify a s

Washington, DC: Collateral Consequences Resource Center (CCRC) , 2022. 129p.

By Justin D. Strong, Keramet Reiter, Gabriela Gonzalez, Rebecca Tublitz, Dallas Augustine, Melissa Barragan, Kelsie ChesnutI, Pasha Dashtgard, Natalie Pifer, Thomas R. Blair

We examine how solitary confinement correlates with self-reported adverse physical health outcomes, and how such outcomes extend the understanding of the health disparities associated with incarceration. Using a mixed methods approach, we find that solitary confinement is associated not just with mental, but also with physical health problems. Given the disproportionate use of solitary among incarcerated people of color, these symptoms are most likely to affect those populations. Drawing from a random sample of prisoners (n = 106) in long-term solitary confinement in the Washington State Department of Corrections in 2017, we conducted semi-structured, in-depth interviews; Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS) assessments; and systematic reviews of medical and disciplinary files for these subjects. We also conducted a paper survey of the entire long-term solitary confinement population (n = 225 respondents) and analyzed administrative data for the entire population of prisoners in the state in 2017 (n = 17,943). Results reflect qualitative content and descriptive statistical analysis. BPRS scores reflect clinically significant somatic concerns in 15% of sample. Objective specification of medical conditions is generally elusive, but that, itself, is a highly informative finding. Using subjective reports, we specify and analyze a range of physical symptoms experienced in solitary confinement: (1) skin irritations and weight fluctuation associated with the restrictive conditions of solitary confinement; (2) un-treated and mis-treated chronic conditions associated with the restrictive policies of solitary confinement; (3) musculoskeletal pain exacerbated by both restrictive conditions and policies. Administrative data analyses reveal disproportionate rates of racial/ethnic minorities in solitary confinement. This analysis raises the stakes for future studies to evaluate comparative prevalence of objective medical diagnoses and potential causal mechanisms for the physical symptoms specified here, and for understanding differential use of solitary confinement and its medically harmful sequelae.

PLoS ONE, 2020, 20 p.

By Laurin Bixby, Stacey Bevan, and Courtney Boen

Disabled people are disproportionately incarcerated and segregated from society through a variety of institutions. Still, the links between disability and incarceration are underexplored, limiting understanding of how carceral institutions punish and contribute to the social exclusion of disabled people. Using data from the 2016 Survey of Prison Inmates, we estimated disability prevalence in state and federal prisons, assessing disparities by race, ethnicity, and sex, and we examined inequities in previous residence in other “punitive” and “therapeutic” institutions. Sixty-six percent of incarcerated people self-reported a disability, with Black, Hispanic, and multiracial disabled men especially overrepresented in prisons. Compared with nondisabled incarcerated people, disabled incarcerated people were more likely to have previously resided in other institutions, such as juvenile detention facilities and psychiatric hospitals. Together, our findings advance the understanding of disability in carceral institutions, highlighting the need for policy interventions redressing the mechanisms contributing to the high incarceration risks of disabled people and the disabling nature of prisons and other carceral institutions.

Health Affairs Vol. 41, NO. 10, 2022, 28 p.

By Keramet Reiter, Joseph Ventura, David Lovell, Dallas Augustine, Melissa Barragan

Objectives. To specify symptoms and measure prevalence of psychological distress among incarcerated people in long-term solitary confinement. Methods. We gathered data via semistructured, in-depth interviews; Brief PsychiatricRating Scale (BPRS) assessments; and systematic reviews of medical and disciplinary filesfor 106 randomly selected people in solitary confinement in the Washington StateDepartment of Corrections in 2017. We performed 1-year follow-up interviews and BPRS assessments with 80 of these incarcerated people, and we present the results of our qualitative content analysis and descriptive statistics.Results. BPRS results showed clinically significant symptoms of depression, anxiety, orguilt among half of our research sample. Administrative data showed disproportionately high rates of serious mental illness and self-harming behavior compared with general prison populations. Interview content analysis revealed additional symptoms, including social isolation, loss of identity, and sensory hypersensitivity.Conclusions. Our coordinated study of rating scale, interview, and administrative data illustrates the public health crisis of solitary confinement. Because 95% or more of all incarcerated people, including those who experienced solitary confinement, are even-tually released, understanding disproportionate psychopathology matters for developing prevention policies and addressing the unique needs of people who have experienced solitary confinement, an extreme element of mass incarceration.

Am J Public Health. 2020, 7 p.

By The Confederation of European Probation.

Probation organisations are dynamic organisations that usually have a tradition of accommodating and assimilating appropriate working methods commonly accepted within the society in which they operate. In a probation context, these working methods broadly aim to support both the essence and goals of probation. We can see evidence of this in the ongoing professional discussions, development projects, and technology being used and incorporated into probation practice. The purpose of these practice recommendations is to support jurisdictions to reflect upon certain issues before developing and using technology, undergoing digitalisation or considering hybrid working models. First, it is recommended for all organisations providing probation services to consider the goals of probation when considering using technology and digitising services. The second recommendation is to consider the essence of probation and the goals of probation when choosing technology or digitalised working processes. In practice, this could mean, for example, that the chosen technology should enhance building a positive and constructive working relationship with the client and facilitating rehabilitation and undertaking change work with the probation client. Another practical positive impact could be that co-work with other stakeholders and service providers becomes more flexible. The third aim of the practice recommendations is to share the benefits and good practices in using technology and digitalisation with members of the Confederation of European Probation (CEP) and other counterparts. The core purpose of these practice recommendations is to highlight the recommendations of the Council of Europe, such as the Probations Rules, Recommendations on community sanctions and measures, Electronic Monitoring and Artificial Intelligence defined, regarding the use of technology and digitalisation in probation. The fourth aspect is that all members of the European Union must consider and comply with the EU Directive on Data Protection and Security (GDPR). 

Utrecht, NETH: CEP Expert Group on Technology , 2024. 33p.

By Margaret Colgate Love

The problem of collateral consequences calls to mind Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.’s famous line: “The life of the law has not been logic: it has been experience.” U.S. criminal law itself is not theoretically pure. In the area of civil law, in particular commercial law, dozens of uniform laws are on the books, drafted by experts, many of which, such as the Uniform Commercial Code, have been widely adopted. But in a country where we evaluate criminal justice policies based on a melange of principles - retributivist, utilitarian, economic, religious, pragmatic, intuitive, and emotional - there is and could be no Uniform Penal Code.1 Criminal law is inconsistent across states, and even within states, in its underlying justification or rationale, and the reasons that particular rules or practices exist. The Model Penal Code has been widely influential, but—as designed—states adopted only the pieces they liked and heavily modified them. Disagreement about how to treat someone who has been arrested or prosecuted after their criminal case is concluded is, if anything, even more intense. The collateral or indirect consequences of their experience may be divided into four main types: Loss of civil rights, limits on personal freedom (such as registration or deportation), dissemination of damaging information, and deprivation of opportunities and benefits, each of which may be justified and criticized for different reasons. Accordingly, criminal law practitioners and scholars disagree about the fundamental nature and purpose of collateral consequences. To the extent the public at large ever thinks about them, they also hold a range of views. There is no consensus about whether collateral consequences in general or particular ones should be understood as further punishment for crime or prophylactic civil regulation, as a reasonable effort to control risk or as an unconstitutional and immoral perpetuation of Jim Crow, or, perhaps, understood in some other way. Advocates, analysts, and lawmakers will never be in a position to argue persuasively “because collateral consequences rest on Principle X, it follows that they should apply in and only in Condition Y, and must be relieved under Circumstance Z.”  Yet, the practical problem of collateral consequences looms large. With their massive expansion in recent decades, those who experience collateral consequences firsthand know that they cannot become fully functioning members of the community without finding a way to overcome them. The economic dislocations caused by the COVID-19 pandemic underscore the practical implications of collateral consequences: With individuals desperate for money and opportunity, and businesses hungry for workers, the need for a sensible policy to minimize employer concerns about risk is clear. And while there remains no compelling necessity for all states to have the same penalties for armed robbery or cattle rustling, collateral consequences are a national economic problem affecting whole communities that might justify a federal, or at least a uniform, solution. Fortunately, agreement on underlying principles is not required to agree on particular policies.2 Most Americans agree that people arrested or convicted of a crime should not be relegated to a permanent subordinate status regardless of the passage of time, successful efforts at rehabilitation and restitution, and lack of current risk to fellow Americans. Finding ways to restore their legal and social status is a compelling necessity, given the array of collateral consequences adversely affecting tens of millions of Americans, their families and communities, the economy, and public safety itself. To adapt a line from Justice Anthony Kennedy’s 2003 speech on criminal justice to the ABA, too many people are subject to too many collateral consequences for too long. At the same time, substantial majority likely agree that public safety requires excluding those convicted of recent criminal conduct from situations where they present a clear and present danger of serious harm. Even if it is impossible to identify a s     

Arnold, MO: Collateral Consequences Resource Center (CCRC) , 2022. 129p.

By Margaret Love

This report deals with a form of relief from the collateral consequences of a criminal conviction that is less far-reaching than expungement or other forms of record clearing but is potentially available to more people at an earlier point in time. These so-called “certificates of relief” do not limit public access to a person’s record, but they may be effective in reducing many conviction-related disadvantages in the workplace, including by providing employers and others with protection against the risk of being sued for negligence. At least as long as expungement and sealing remain unavailable to many people with a felony conviction record, or are available only after lengthy waiting periods, certificates of relief can provide an important addition to a state’s reentry scheme, and serve as a bridge to a more thorough forms of record relief like expungement. We believe that, rather than competing as alternative forms of relief, certificates, and expungement can operate as complementary parts of a structured system of serially available criminal record relief. Yet it appears that certificates have been largely ignored in many states by courts that are empowered to dispense them, as well as by the advocacy community whose clients might benefit from them. State court systems have failed to collect, track, or aggregate basic data like the number of certificate applications, grants, and denials, a failure that makes it almost impossible to evaluate a certificate’s effectiveness in a given state. At the same time, in a promising development, certificates are being used by prison and parole agencies to facilitate reentry for those exiting prison or completing supervision. Given the perceived limits of record clearing as a comprehensive reentry strategy, social science researchers have become interested in studying the effect of laws that aim to increase the positive information about individuals with a criminal record to counter the negative effect of the record itself. This report is intended to support these research efforts by describing the state of the law relating to certificates of relief in the 21 states that now offer them. A follow-up study will look at the state of executive pardoning  

Arnold, MO: Collateral Consequences Resource Center, 2024. 42p.

By Anneliese N. Luck

Jail incarceration remains an overlooked yet crucial component of the U.S. carceral system. Although a growing literature has examined the mortality costs associated with residing in areas with high levels of incarceration, far less is known about how local jails shape this burden at the intersection of race, sex, and age. In this study, I examine the relationship between county-level jail incarceration and age-specific mortality for non-Hispanic Black and White men and women, uniquely leveraging race-specific jail rates to account for the unequal racial distribution of jail exposures. This study finds evidence of positive associations between mortality and jail incarceration: this association peaks in late adulthood (ages 50–64), when increases in jail rates are associated with roughly 3% increases in mortality across all race–sex groups. However, patterns vary at the intersection of race, sex, and age. In particular, I find more marked and consistent penalties among women than among men. Additionally, a distinctly divergent age pattern emerges among Black men, who face insignificant but negative associations at younger ages but steep penalties at older ages—significantly larger among those aged 65 or older relative to their White male and Black female counterparts. Evidence further suggests that the use of race-neutral incarceration measures in prior work may mask the degree of harm associated with carceral contexts, because the jail rate for the total population underestimates the association between jail rates and mortality across nearly all race–age–sex combinations. These findings highlight the need for future ecological research to differentiate between jail and prison incarceration, consider the demographic distribution of incarceration's harms, and incorporate racialized measures of exposure so that we may better capture the magnitude of harm associated with America's carceral state.

Demography (2024) 61 (5): 1455–1482.

By The Justice Policy Institute

Most states have established release mechanisms for the aging population and those in prison who are battling a terminal illness, often referred to as compassionate release. Compassionate release policies typically permit individuals in prison to petition for early release after having served a pre-determined number of years for either health (medical parole) or advanced age (geriatric parole). However, the laws frequently have restrictive eligibility requirements and are applied sparingly, often when an individual is expected to survive only a matter of days or weeks. While Maryland has both medical and geriatric parole options, approval is fleeting. Data are limited but provide a glimpse into their restricted use. Between 2015 and 2020, the Maryland Parole Commission approved 86 medical parole applications and denied 253. Further, the Governor granted nine medical parole requests from individuals serving life sentences and rejected 14 requests. Most notably, the lowest yearly approval rating occurred during the height of the pandemic in 2020 at seven percent. The Justice Reinvestment Act of 2016 expanded geriatric parole eligibility by lowering the age threshold from 65 to 60 years old. However, petitions are rarely approved. Currently, there are about 650 individuals over the age of 60 in Maryland’s prison system who have served at least 15 years. These individuals are eligible to be evaluated for release. But, like in most states, Maryland seldom relies on these compassionate release policies to release the elderly and infirm from prison, despite posing a minimal risk to public safety and a significant cost burden on the state budget. Without substantial reforms to compassionate release in Maryland, the aging population will continue to grow, and the onus will be on the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services (DPSCS) to provide the adequate care.

Washington, DC: Justice Policy Institute, 2022. 14p.