By Mia Bird, Omair Gill, Johanna Lacoe, Molly Pickard, Steven Raphael and Alissa Skog

Criminal sentences resulting in admission to a California state prison are determined by both the nature of the criminal incident as well as the criminal history of the person convicted of the offense. Cases with convictions for multiple offenses may lead to multiple sentences that are either served concurrently or consecutively. Characteristics of the offense (such as the use of a firearm) or aspects of the person’s criminal history (such as a prior conviction for a serious or violent offense) may add to the length of the base sentence through what are commonly referred to as offense or case enhancements, respectively. California’s Three-Strikes law presents a unique form of sentence enhancement that lengthens sentences based on an individual’s criminal history. Consider an individual with one prior serious or violent felony conviction (one “strike”) who is subsequently convicted of another felony. Under Three Strikes, the sentence for the subsequent felony will be double the length specified for the crime regardless of whether the new conviction is for a serious or violent offense. For an individual with two prior violent or serious felony convictions, a third conviction for a serious or violent felony would receive an indeterminate prison term of at least 25 years to life, with the exact date of release determined by the Parole Board.

Los Angeles: California Policy Lab, 2022. 45p.

By Santiago Tobón

I study the effects of prison quality on recidivism using individual-level data from Colombia. To estimate causal effects, I leverage the quasi-random assignment of inmates to newer, less crowded, and higher service prisons. For inmates assigned to newer facilities, I find that the probability of returning to prison within one year is 36% lower. Criminal capital, access to rehabilitation programs, and negative prison experiences—which could trigger changes in intrinsic preferences over illegal occupations—seem to be important mechanisms. The program led to substantial welfare gains, even when assuming a low social cost per crime.

Preprint, 2020. 47p. Published in Review of Economics and Statistics, 2022.

By Michelle Butler, Gavin Slade and Camila Nunes Dias  

This paper finds qualified support for the use of Skarbek’s (2011, 2014) governance theory to understand the emergence of prison gang-like groups in Kyrgyzstan, Northern Ireland and Brazil. However, Skarbek’s (2011, 2014) governance theory has little to say about how many prison gangs emerge and how they organise comparatively outside the US context. This paper argues that variation in the number of gangs and their monopolization of informal governance can only be explained by considering importation and deprivation theories alongside governance theories. These theories factor in variation in prison environments and pre-existing societal divisions imported into prison, which affect the costs on information transmission and incentives for gang expansion. In particular, the paper pays attention to the wider role social and political processes play in influencing whether monopoly power by prison gangs is supported and legitimized or not.

Trends Organ Crim (2022) 25:427–442 

By The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights

This report examines current approaches to reforming the pre-trial and bail systems in the U.S. criminal justice system. The report reveals that between 1970 and 2015, there was a 433% increase in the number of individuals who have been detained pre-trial, and pre-trial detainees represent a larger proportion of the total incarcerated population.

Washington, DC: U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 2022. 281p.

By The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, Rhode Island Advisory Committee 

The Rhode Island Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights submits this report regarding licensing as a barrier to employment post-conviction in Rhode Island. The Committee submits this report as part of its responsibility to study and report on civil rights issues in the state. The contents of this report are primarily based on testimony the Committee heard during an in-person public meeting held on April 30, 2019, as well as virtual meetings held on May 20, 2020 and June 30, 2020. The Committee also included related testimony submitted in writing during the relevant period of public comment. The following report begins with a summary of the testimony the Committee received on this topic. It then identifies primary findings as they emerged from this testimony. Finally, it makes recommendations for addressing related civil rights concerns. While other important topics may have surfaced throughout the Committee’s inquiry, matters that are outside the scope of this specific civil rights mandate are left for another discussion.  

Washington, DC: U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 2021. 38p.

By C. Geltner

From the cover: Corporal punishment is often seen as a litmus test for a society’s degree of civilization. Its licit use purports to separate modernity from premodernity, enlightened from barbaric cultures. As Geltner argues, however, neither did the infliction of bodily pain typify earlier societies nor did it vanish from penal theory, policy, or practice. Far from displaying a steady decline that accelerated with die Enlightenment, physical punishment was contested throughout Antiquity and the Middle Ages, its application expanding and contracting under diverse pressures. Moreover, despite the integration of penal incarceration into criminal justice systems since the nineteenth century, modem nation states and colonial regimes increased rather than limited the use of corporal punishment. Flogging Others thus challenges a common understanding of modernization and Western identity and underscores earlier civilizations' nuanced approaches to punishment, deviance, and the human body. Today as in the past, corporal punishment thrives due to its capacity to define otherness efficiently and unambiguously, either as a measure acting upon a deviant's body or as a practice that epitonuzes — in the eyes of external observers — a culture's backwardness.

Amsterdam. Amsterdam University Press. 2014. 110p.

By The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights,  New Hampshire Advisory Committee

 This report details civil rights concerns the New Hampshire Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights examined regarding solitary confinement in New Hampshire. The Committee submits this report as part of its responsibility to study and report on civil rights issues in the state. The contents of this report are primarily based on testimony the Committee heard during virtual public meetings held on July 20, 2020; August 17, 2020; September 21, 2020; and December 9, 2020. The Committee also reviewed related testimony submitted in writing during the relevant period of public comment. The report begins with a brief background of the Committee’s proposed project, followed by a summary of the testimony the Committee received on this topic. It then identifies primary findings as they emerged from this testimony. Finally, it makes recommendations for addressing related civil rights concerns. While other important topics may have surfaced throughout the Committee’s inquiry, matters that are outside the scope of this specific civil rights mandate are left for another discussion.

Washington, DC: U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 2021. 63p.

By Terry-Ann Craigie, Ames Grawert, and Cameron Kimble 

Ascertaining through careful statistical analyses just how costly the mass incarceration system has been to the people ensnared by it is a major achievement. These findings reframe our understanding of the issue: As a perpetual drag on the earning potential of tens of millions of Americans, these costs are not only borne by individuals, their families, and their communities. They are also system-wide drivers of inequality and are so large as to have macroeconomic consequences. That insight is vital today. The unprecedented economic contraction triggered by the pandemic, and the federal government’s botched response, appears to be falling hardest on those who were already struggling, just like in past slumps. When employers cut back, employees with criminal records are all too often the first to be furloughed and the last to be rehired. And while major corporations get billions of dollars in relief, millions of the jobless are being largely left in the cold. Foreword America is approaching a breaking point. For more than four decades, economic inequality has risen inexorably, stunting productivity, weakening our democracy, and leaving tens of millions struggling to get by in the world’s most prosperous country. The crises that have rocked the United States since the spring — the coronavirus pandemic, the resulting mass unemployment, and a nationwide uprising for racial justice — have made the inequities plaguing American society more glaring than ever.  

New York: Brennan Center for Justice, 2020. 44p.

By Leticia Fernandez, Sharon Ennis, Sonya R. Porter and Elizabeth Carson

This report was produced by the U.S. Census Bureau, Center for Economic Studies (CES), under award number DJO-BJS-21-RO-0005. It explores the role that race/Hispanic origin, other demographic characteristics, and custodial/criminal history factors have on post-release mortality, including on the timing of deaths. It also assesses whether conditional release to community supervision or reimprisonment may explain the higher post-release mortality found among non-Hispanic whites. In the second part of the analysis, the report estimates standardized mortality ratios by sex, age group, and race/Hispanic origin using the U.S. general population as a reference. The data come from state prison releases from the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ National Corrections Reporting Program (NCRP). The NCRP records were linked to the Census Numident to identify deaths occurring within five years from prison release. NCRP records were linked to previous decennial censuses and survey responses to obtain self-reported race and Hispanic origin if available.

Washington, DC: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2022. 44p.

By Jake Phillips and Rebecca Roberts

In 2018/19, ten people died each week following release from prison. Every two days, someone took their own life. In the same year, one woman died every week, and half of these deaths were self-inflicted. 

This report, co-authored by Dr Jake Phillips of Sheffield Hallam University and Rebecca Roberts of INQUEST provides an overview of what is known about the deaths of people on post custody supervision following release from prison. It highlights the lack of visibility and policy attention given to this growing problem and calls for immediate action to ensure greater scrutiny, learning and prevention.

London: INQUEST, 2019. 17p.

By Caitlyn Norman

Prisoners have significantly greater levels of drug use than the general population, which is related to many adverse outcomes both during and post-imprisonment. Reducing the availability of drugs in prison can lead to a reduction in the drug use of prisoners but requires knowledge of the different drug smuggling routes and the implementation of effective security measures. The main smuggling routes identified in the literature are through visitors; mail; prisoners on reception, remand, or work release; staff; and perimeter throwovers, but they differ between prisons depending on various contextual factors and security measures in place. Based on a total of 81 studies from 22 different countries, the average prevalence of drug use during incarceration is 32.0% with a range from 3.4% to 90%. The types of drugs used in prisons vary among geographical regions, countries, and even regions within countries. The most common drug reported to be used by prisoners in most studies was cannabis, except in South Asia and Scotland, where heroin was more prevalent. The drugs used in prison tend to reflect the prevalence of drugs in the local community, except where a drug has advantages unique to use in prison. It is vital to examine the prevalence of drug use and different types of drugs used during incarceration to help inform drug treatment services, assist prison staff in identifying potential drug use or intoxicated prisoners, and advise prisons about the most prevalent drug smuggling routes so new security measures can be considered.

WIREs Forensic Science, e1473. 

By MichaelSherman and Gordon Hawkins

From the cover: Throughout the nation, federal and state legislators are debating a deceptively simple question: “Should we build more prisons?” Their answers could cost tens of billions of tax dollars and may have major implications for crime control, prisoners’ rights, and other vital areas of public policy. Yet the current debate is too often shallow and partisan. The right says, “Just build”; the left says, “Don’t build”; and thoughtful lawmakers feel caught between two uncompromising positions. Moreover, they are being pressed to decide in a crisis atmosphere in which only current facts are considered. This book integrates elements of liberal and con­servative views and shows that a broader, reasoned approach is necessary. The prison construction debate, Sherman and Hawkins maintain, must be seen in a broad context. Affected by deep traditions of the past, current decisions will in turn have far- reaching consequences in the future. Nor can the debate be conducted as a purely technical exercise. The authors write, “To see the prison crisis exclu­sively as a problem of crowding and conditions is positively dangerous. It addresses effects while ignoring causes. ... It may aggravate the very problem it purports to solve.”

Chicago. University of Chicago Press. 1981. 187p.

By Andrew Von Hirsch

Report of the Committee for the Study of Incarceration. Preface by Charles E. Goodell, Chairman. Introduction by Willard Gaylin And David J. Rothman.

From the preface: “In early 1971, the Field Foundation asked me to chair this study. There was growing disenchantment with prisons, and with the disparities and irrationalities of the sentencing process. Yet reformers lacked a rationale to guide them in their quest for alternatives, save for the more-than-century- old notion of rehabilitation that had nurtured the rise of the penitentiary. The purpose of our study was to consider afresh the fundamental concepts concerning what is to be done with the offender after conviction. The members of the Committee were chosen from a wide variety of disciplines, extending well beyond traditional correctional specialties. The project was staffed and organized during the spring and summer of 1971, and began its deliberations that fall…..What emerges from our study is a conceptual model that differs considerably from the dominant thinking about punishment during this century. The conventional wisdom has been that theT sentence should be fashioned so as to rehabilitate the offender and isolate him from society if he is dangerous. To accomplish that, the sentencer was to be given the widest discretion to suit the disposition to the particular criminal. For reasons which this book explains, we reject these notions as unworkable and unjust. ..”

NY. Hill And Wang •A division of Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 1976. 200p.

Edited by Kenneth C. Haas and Geoffrey P Alpert

From the preface: Our purpose in bringing together the readings in the third edition of The Dilemmas of Corrections (entitled The Dilemmas o/Punishment in its first edition) is to present a timely, issue-oriented perspective on corrections. From the vast number of articles and reports on corrections, we have chosen forty-one that demonstrate what Shaw noted so many years ago: there have been recurring attempts to reform shabby prison operations; there have been recurring attempts to find simple answers for complex penal problems; and more and bigger prisons have been constructed. ..A close analysis of the literature on corrections reveals a tendency to criticize each and every aspect, What is written about jails and prisons tends to leave the reader with the impression that practitioners do nothing at all, or actively and maliciously oppress a selected segment of society. While it may be a trend to damn every aspect of corrections, it is in many ways unfair. As we read these articles, we [must] keep in mind that most administrators and line staff want to do what is right and what is decent. Unfortunately, the political and budgetary restraints placed upon correctional officials make it extraordinarily difficult to manage prisons and other correctional programs effectively.”

Prospect Heights. Illinois. Waveband Press. 1986.619p.

By Kenneth C. Haas and Geoffrey P. Alpert

From the Preface: “Prisons, as they were established in the United States, were to be positive contributions to the New World. They were to be institutions in which the idle, the unmotivated, the hooligans, and the cruel were sent to be transformed into active, energetic, useful, and kind members of our society. Somehow, somewhere, something went wrong. Critics have offered too few constructive solutions for change and too many quick- fixes……

Prospect Heights, Illinois. Waveland Press, Inc. 1986. 422p.

By Ernest van den Haag and John P. Conrad.

From the cover: Never before has there been such a vigorous point- by-point debate in a book on so explosive a topic as the death penalty. Here Ernest van den Haag—a re­nowned conservative—and John P. Conrad—a re­spected liberal—debate with wisdom, sharpness, and vigor yet, in Arthur Goldberg's words, “with scholar­ship, civility, and passion” all questions pertaining to capital punishment. The debaters are well known for their meticulous scholarship and for their distinct compelling styles. Ernest van den Haag is the author of such works as The Jewish Mystique and Punishing Criminals. John P. Conrad's books include Justice and Consequences and In Fear of Each Other. Their debate will provoke the reader with hard-hitting and original arguments for and against the death penalty. Aside from the timeliness of the topic, this book will be appreciated for the sheer excitement of witnessing the ingenious interplay between two brilliant minds.

NY. Plenum. 1983. 302p.

Edited by Arthur L. Stinchcombe, Rebecca Adams, Carol A. Heimer, Kim Lane Scheppele, and Tom W. Smith
D. Garth Taylor.

From the cover: In the past thirty-five years, Americans have become more fearful of crime and more punitive toward criminals—at least in the sense of being more favorable toward capital punishment and other harsh penal­ties. But at the same time they have become more tolerant regarding a whole series of social and civil liberties issues generally associated with a more humane attitude toward criminals. This new book analyzes survey data collected over the years, especi­ally from the Gallup polls and the National Opinion Research Center’s General Social Surveys, in order to explore various aspects of these contradictory developments. The authors consider the hypothesis that rising crime rates cause increased fear of crime and that this in turn causes people to become more punitive. They find that exposure to high crime rates does cause in­creased fear but that fearful people are only slightly more punitive than other people. Furthermore, white people who live in high crime areas are no more punitive than peo­ple living in safer areas, and black people (who tend to live in high crime areas) are less punitive than people living in safer areas. To determine why the liberalization of public opinion on issues of race and civil liberties has not led to more tolerant atti­tudes on questions of crime and punish­ment, the authors examine in detail the relationship between general liberalism in regard to racial or civil liberties and more humane attitudes toward criminals. They also consider why increased fear of crime has not led to increased support for gun registration. This study breaks new ground by using recent innovations in the techniques of sur­vey analysis to study trends in public opin­ion and to analyze the causes of those trends. It thus represents a contribution to the lit­erature on subjective social indicators as well as a model for further explorations of the reasons for change in public opinion over time.

San Francisco, Josses-Bass Inc. Publishers. 1980. 168p.

Edited by Rudolph J. Gerber and Patrick D. McAnany, editors. Foreword by Norval Morris

From the cover: Contemporary Punishment provides a comprehensive and thoughtful overview of the criminal justice system. The authors present the various arguments for the justification of punishment and in the concluding section attempt to reconcile the discrepancies among the competing views. When the question is asked why society punishes criminals, the answer touches the foundations of our political, social and moral life. We have spent centuries dis­cussing how the coercive power of society will be applied to those who break the rules. As Max Weber has said; "It is a fact that most 'fundamental' questions are often left unregulated by law even in legal orders which are otherwise thor­oughly rationalized." This implies that each generation must wrestle with the problem and fashion an answer which satisfies its sense of justice.

London. University of Notre Dame Press. 1972. 263p.

By B. F. Skinner

In this profound and profoundly challenging book, the great behaviorist B. F. Skinner, re­garded by many as the most influential and con­troversial living psychologist, author also of the celebrated utopian novel Walden Two, makes his definitive statement about man and society. Insisting that the frightening problems we face in the world today can be solved only by dealing much more effectively with human be­havior, Skinner argues that our traditional con­cepts of freedom and dignity must be sharply revised. They have played an important histori­cal role in man’s struggle against many kinds of tyranny, he acknowledges, but they are now re­sponsible for the futile defense of a free and worthy autonomous man; they are perpetuating our use of punishment and are blocking the de­velopment of more effective cultural practices. Basing his arguments on the massive results of the experimental analysis of behavior in which he pioneered, he rejects traditional explanations of behavior in terms of states of mind, feelings, and other mental attributes in favor of expla­nations to be sought in an individual’s genetic endowment and personal history. He tells why, instead of promoting freedom and dignity as personal attributes, we should direct our atten­tion to the physical and social environments in which people live. It is the environment that must be changed rather than man himself if the traditional goals of the struggle for freedom and dignity are to be reached.

Alfred Knopf. 1971, 293p.

Edited by Kenneth E. Kerle, American Jail Association

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

Nelson-Hall. 1991. 299p.