By Róisín Mulgrew

The State duty to prevent preventable prisoner deaths is easy to state and substantiate. Yet prisoner death rates are increasing around the world and are often much higher than those in the community. To understand why this is happening, the findings and recommendations of the country reports of international oversight bodies and thematic reports from international rapporteurs are synthesised with contemporary rights-informed penal standards, multi-disciplinary scholarship, non-governmental organization reports and media extracts. On the basis of this knowledge, this reform-oriented article explores the impact of structural, societal and environmental factors on natural and violent prisoner deaths and how these factors operate cumulatively to create dangerous and life-threatening custodial environments. The paper makes recommendations to reaffirm and enumerate the positive obligation to protect prisoners’ lives, develop specialist standards, adopt a broader approach to prison oversight and create a specific United Nations mandate on prisoner rights.

Human Rights Law Review, 2023, 23, 1–25

Prepared by W. Grinton Berry

The Actes and Monuments (full title: Actes and Monuments of these Latter and Perillous Days, Touching Matters of the Church), popularly known as Foxe's Book of Martyrs, is a work of Protestant history and martyrology by Protestant English historian John Foxe, first published in 1563 by John Day. It includes a polemical account of the sufferings of Protestants under the Catholic Church, with particular emphasis on England and Scotland. The book was highly influential in those countries and helped shape lasting popular notions of Catholicism there. The book went through four editions in Foxe's lifetime and a number of later editions and abridgements, including some that specifically reduced the text to a Book of Martyrs. (Wikipedia)

London John Day 1563. NY. Abingdon Press. 1913. 413p.

By Nils Christie

Inflicting pain is a serious matter, often at variance with cherished values such as kindness and forgiveness. Attempts might therefore be made to hide the basic character of the activity, or to give various "scientific" reasons for inflicting pain. Such attempts are systematically described in this book, and related to social conditions. None of these attempts to cope with pain seem to be quite satisfactory. It is as if societies in their struggle with penal theories oscillate between attempts to solve an insoluble dilemma. Punishment is used less in some systems than in others. On the basis of examples from systems where pain is rarely inflicted, some general conditions for a low level of pain infliction are formulated. The standpoint is that if pain is to be applied, this should be done without a manipulative purpose and in a social form resembling that which is normal when people are in deep sorrow. Most of the material is from Scandinavia, but the book draws extensively on the crime control debate in the United Kingdom and USA.

Oxford. Martin Robertson. 1982. 117p.

By Theodor Reik

"What is the origin of the sense of collective guilt that plagues Western man? What is the crime for which man suffers an need for punishment? Dr. Theodor Reik, one of the world's leading psychoanalysts, became absorbed in this problem from many discussions with Freud. Over the years he has examined what he considers the basic myth of our civilization: the story of Adam's Fall culminating in the Passion of Christ. With the suspense of a detective story, he untangles the myth in its many expressions, tracing clues in the Bible, using the findings of psychologists and anthropologists as explanatory evidence for a startling conclusion: Man's crime, committed in prehistory, lingering in his motives and haunting him with inevitable remorse, is the sin of pride, of hybris: the killing of God, the ambition to be God.

MYTH AND GUILT opens new and suggestive avenues for understanding the religious and social motives of man and their expression in the human community."

NY. Grosset & Dunlap. 1970. 434p.

Cesare Beccaria. Translation, Introduction and annotations by Graeme R. Newman and Pietro Marongiu.

Cesare Beccaria's influential treatise On Crimes and Punishments is considered a foundational work in the field of criminology. Three major themes of the Enlightenment run through the treatise: the idea that the social contract forms the moral and political basis of the work's reformist zeal; the idea that science supports a dispassionate and reasoned appeal for reforms; and the belief that progress is inextricably bound to science. All three provide the foundation for accepting Beccaria's proposals.

It is virtually impossible to ascertain which of several versions of the treatise that appeared during his lifetime best reflected Beccaria's thoughts. His use of many Enlightenment ideas also makes it difficult to interpret what he has written. While Enlightenment thinkers advocated free men and free minds, there was considerable disagreement as to how this might be achieved, except in the most general terms.

The editors have based this translation on the 1984 Francioni text, the most exhaustive critical Italian edition of Dei delitti e delle pene. This edition is the last that Beccaria personally oversaw and revised. This translation includes an outstanding opening essay by the editors and is a welcome introduction to Beccaria and the beginnings of criminology.

New Brunswick. Transaction. 2016. 191p.

By Alexander Solzhenitsyn. Translated from the Russian by Ralph Parker.

One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is an undisputed classic of contemporary literature. First published (in censored form) in the Soviet journal Novy Mir in 1962, it is the story of labor-camp inmate Ivan Denisovich Shukhov as he struggles to maintain his dignity in the face of communist oppression. On every page of this graphic depiction of Ivan Denisovich's struggles, the pain of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's own decade-long experience in the gulag is apparent—which makes its ultimate tribute to one man's will to triumph over relentless dehumanization all the more moving.

An unforgettable portrait of the entire world of Stalin's forced-work camps, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich is one of the most extraordinary literary works to have emerged from the Soviet Union. The first of Solzhenitsyn's novels to be published, it forced both the Soviet Union and the West to confront the Soviet's human rights record, and the novel was specifically mentioned in the presentation speech when Solzhenitsyn was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1970. Above all, One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich establishes Solzhenitsyn's stature as "a literary genius whose talent matches that of Dostoevsky, Turgenev, Tolstoy" (Harrison Salisbury, The New York Times).

This unexpurgated, widely acclaimed translation by H. T. Willetts is the only translation authorized by Solzhenitsyn himself.

NY. E.P. Dutton. Signet. 1963. 155p.

By David Garland

This analysis of the punishment of offenders argues that the social meaning of punishment is poorly understood and needs to be explored if we are to discover ways of punishing that match our social ideals better than current punishments do.

The analysis emphasizes that the institutional framework of modern penology tends to narrow our perceptions of punishment and also to obscure its social ramifications. Thus, it is crucial to understand the major theoretical perspectives on punishment. These include Durkheim's emphasis on punishment's moral effects, Foucault's view that disciplinary punishments operate as power-knowledge mechanisms within broader strategies of domination, the cultural approach of Robert Elias, and the Marxist perspective. The analysis concludes that each approach represents an incomplete, but useful perspective on different aspects of punishment and that future discussions should consider punishment to be a complex social institution that should be analyzed as part of mainstream sociology.

Chicago. The University of Chicago Press, 1990. 308p.

By Christopher Hibbert

The Roots of Evil: A Social History of Crime and Punishment is a book written by Christopher Hibbert in 1963 which traces the development of the social justice system, mostly from an English perspective, though information about the continent and the United States is also included.

Cruel punishments have an inevitable tendency to produce cruelty...

— Sir Samuel Romilly 1813

With this conclusion, Hibbert traces the development and decline of cruel punishments, the guillotine in France and the modern prison in England, which still used hanging when the book was first published.[1] The chapter Causes and Cures contains the salient point that "There seems, indeed, no surer way of keeping a boy [or girl] from a life of crime than providing him with a happy and worthwhile childhood in a family which loves him and which he loves",[2] and suggests that while "a crime is only a crime when a law ... makes it so", pointing out that by the nineteenth century nine of the ten laws which Hebraic law punished with stoning "had ceased to be offences in civilized European societies".[3] Although "Drink and drugs and speed and sex are exciting, and so is crime and in cities the opportunity for crime are extensive and the rewards are high, the chances of escape are greater and most of the police are overworked and some of them may be corruptible."[4] While it is suggested that to change crime requires changing society, the last sentence of the chapter is "No completely satisfactory answers have yet been found."[5]

The last chapter, Progress and Palindrome, points out that "the solution lies not in making punishments more severe, but in making them more certain and in relating them to each individual criminal, so that if he is reformable he may be reformed."[6] Also, "there are germs of evil in the best of us and seeds of good in the worst",[7] and there are no quick and inexpensive solutions to the problem of crime, which requires changing the soil, more than changing the seeds.

Boston. Little Brown. 499p.1963.

By John H. Langbein

In Torture and the Law of Proof John H. Langbein explores the world of the thumbscrew and the rack, engines of torture authorized for investigating crime in European legal systems from medieval times until well into the eighteenth century. Drawing on juristic literature and legal records, Langbein's book, first published in 1977, remains the definitive account of how European legal systems became dependent on the use of torture in their routine criminal procedures, and how they eventually worked themselves free of it.

The book has recently taken on an eerie relevance as a consequence of controversial American and British interrogation practices in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. In a new introduction, Langbein contrasts the "new" law of torture with the older European law and offers some pointed lessons about the difficulty of reconciling coercion with accurate investigation. Embellished with fascinating illustrations of torture devices taken from an eighteenth-century criminal code, this crisply written account will engage all those interested in torture's remarkable grip on European legal history.

Chicago. he University of Chicago Press. 1976. 230p.

The 1970's have seen almost every aspect of parole decisionmaking come under sustained legal and political attack. Within a few years following the 1972 Morrissey decision, court rulings were handed down requiring a variety of due-process procedures for such matters as rescinding an unexecuted parole, increasing a term, granting a parole, and requiring disclosure of records. At the same time, parole boards, as principal actors in the sentencing process, were a target of political attack by legislators, leading academicians, criminal justice officials, and the public for inequities and lack of sentencing certainty produced by release decisions characterized as capricious and arbitrary. As a consequence of these pressures, legislators have taken action over the last 4 years to constrict the amount of discretion exercised by parole boards in many different areas, including decisions to parole, due-process procedures governing parole hearings and revocations, and disclosure of certain records. State legislatures have been especially concerned with the issue of sentencing. Statutes designed to modify, replace, or selectively prohibit indeterminate sentencing have dominated criminal justice legislative agendas. As 1980 closed, 12 States had passed various types of determinate sentencing laws to replace indeterminate statutes. Over the last 4 years, five States have created contract parole programs, and five passed laws establishing specific parole guidelines, in each case an effort to improve the exercise of indeterminancy. The most common response to dissatisfaction with paroling practices has been the passage of some form of mandatory sentencing. Thirty-seven States enacted this type of legislation, which prohibits indeterminate sentencing for specified categories of offenses/offenders. The trends for the near future are suggested by recent legislative history: States will continue to pass laws to limit the use of discretion by parole boards

By Jason Rydberg, Rebecca Stone, Christine C. Kwiatkowski

Many areas of the United States are experiencing an epidemic of drug overdose deaths, often involving opioids. In 2017, there were 70,237 drug overdose deaths in the United States, a rate 9.6% higher than 2016. 47,600 of these deaths involved an opioid (National Institute on Drug Abuse [NIDA], 2019). The opioid overdose epidemic has been described as a series of “waves.” The first wave began with increased prescribing of opioid analgesics in the 1990s driving an increase in prescription opioid overdose deaths. The second wave, starting around 2010, was characterized by a rapid increase in overdose deaths involving heroin. Beginning in 2013 and continuing today, many areas of the country are experiencing the “third wave” of the epidemic, characterized by a significant increase in overdose deaths involving synthetic opioids like fentanyl (Centers for Disease Control [CDC], 2018). Some experts have indicated that a coming “fourth wave” may be characterized by overdose deaths related to polysubstance use including opioids, cocaine, and psychostimulants (e.g. methamphetamine). Beyond these general trends, research shows that the nature of the overdose epidemic is region-specific. It could be said that there is not one overdose epidemic, but many epidemics that vary substantially by a region’s economic and demographic characteristics. This “geography of the U.S. opioid overdose crisis” was recently mapped by Shannon Monnat and colleagues (2019), who found that overall drug mortality rates are higher in counties characterized by more economic disadvantage, more blue-collar and service employment, and higher opioid-prescribing rates. Specifically, Michigan shows a pattern of increasing heroin-involved deaths in the west and south-west areas of the state, a mixture of emerging heroin, prescription opioids, and “synthetic+” (synthetic opioids alone or in combination with other opioids) in the rural north, and a “syndemic” (all types of opioids and combinations) in the southeast. In the Upper Peninsula, we see high and emerging heroin counties along the Wisconsin border, and synthetic+ counties along the peninsula’s eastern tip. These patterns map to economic and demographic patterns across Michigan. “Urban professional” areas are related to rapidly rising probability of “syndemic” classification (e.g. the greater Detroit area). Blue-collar worker presence is associated with the emerging heroin and syndemic classes, and service economy areas (e.g. the north half of the state) are associated with rising probability of membership in all five opioid classes (high prescription opioid, emerging heroin, high heroin, synthetic+, and syndemic). The prescription opioid class counties are more likely to be rural, economically disadvantaged, and have high scores on blue-collar and service economy indices. These results make it clear that there is no single solution to the overdose crisis. To understand and, importantly, to effectively respond to the crisis and reduce opioid-related mortality, we must have an in-depth understanding of the crisis in Michigan, both from the perspective of public health and of law enforcement. This research draws on data from a number of different sources to triangulate a comprehensive picture of illegal drug activity in the State of Michigan. These sources are leveraged to combine information gathered from law enforcement sources, prescription monitoring, mortality and vital statistics, and community demographics.

East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University, Michigan Justice Statistics Center, School of Criminal Justice 2019. 55p

By Viet Nguyen

Criminal records can produce collateral consequences that affect access to employment, housing, and other outcomes. Adverse collateral consequences may be particularly acute for adults with limited professional capital and social networks. In recent years, there has been an expansion of prosecutor-led diversion programs that attempt to curb the effect of collateral consequences. However, the expansion of diversion programs may lead to net-widening if these programs simply substitute for cases that would have otherwise been dismissed. This study assesses the impact of an adult, misdemeanor diversion program on long-term recidivism outcomes and the future amount of court-imposed fees and sanctions. The misdemeanor diversion program reduced reconviction rates but produced a short-term net-widening effect by drawing in defendants whose cases would normally have been dismissed. The net-widening effects were curtailed over the longer term as the program significantly increased expungement rates. The results were driven by younger defendants. Implications of this study for theories of criminal desistance and policies around expunging criminal records are discussed.

Philadelphia: Working Paper, University of Pennsylvania, Criminology2022. 43p.

By John Irwin

Combining extensive interviews with his own experience as an inmate, John Irwin constructs a powerful and graphic description of the big-city jail. Unlike prisons, which incarcerate convicted felons, jails primarily confine arrested persons not yet charged or convicted of any serious crime. Irwin argues that jail disorients and degrades and instead of controlling the disreputable, actually increases their number by helping to indoctrinate new recruits to the rabble class. In a forceful conclusion, Irwin addresses the issue of jail reform and the matter of social control demanded by society.

Los Angeles, California University of California Press, Ltd. 1985. 160p.

By Robert Hughes

(Mr Hughes) has felt his way back into the past with passion and insight, mined an enormous mass of material and welded the results of his researches into a commanding narrative... Already widely known as an art critic, he now reveals his formidable gifts as a social htstonan "           —The New York Times

'Although The Fatal Shore is both lengthy and scholarly, it is alio fun to read One of Hughes's greatest gifts as a joumalist has always been his ability to express senous themes in accessible language. In his marvelous new history, he brings convict Australia to life both in his own words and those of its inhabitants……The idiosyncratic voices of the individual convicts he quotes imbue the narrative with the spark and savor of real life in all its chaotic, intimate detail. This kind of history is as exciting and entertaining as a good novel.” — Chicago Sun-Times

NY. Vintage. 1988. 743p.

By Ian O’Donnell

The Evidence Review of Recidivism and Policy Responses examined:

(i)  factors underpinning recidivist and prolific offending behaviour;

(ii) public policy interventions that tackle recidivism and prolific offending; and

(iii) effectiveness of these interventions and likelihood of successful transplantation to an Irish context.

The review findings concluded that:

• Suspended sentences or community service can be more effective in terms of reducing recidivism than short terms of imprisonment.

• Planned and structured early release, including parole, may reduce recidivism.

• Perception of fairness may have an impact on likelihood of recidivism. A perception of procedural unfairness can lead to alienation, resistance and noncompliance whereas a belief that one has been treated fairly may reduce the likelihood of future offending.

• There appears to be a significant treatment effect associated with cognitive behavioural interventions delivered both in community and custodial settings.

Dublin: Irish Department of Justice and Equality, 2020. 104p.

By Louise Kennefick and Eoin Guilfoyle

The Community Service Order (‘CSO’) was introduced to Ireland in 1983 as an alternative to custody in order to address concerns relating to prison overcrowding and rising crime rates. International consensus on the null to criminogenic effects of prison on reoffending rates has renewed calls for decarceration. At the same time, the evidence reviewed shows that community service results in lower recidivism rates and more positive outcomes for those who have offended and their community, when compared with short-term prison sentences. Notwithstanding these findings, the CSO remains underutilised in this jurisdiction. The purpose of this review is to evaluate research findings and knowledge from peer-reviewed journals, national and international policy materials, reports, and publications relating to community service spanning the key areas of strategic innovation, operational practice, legal structure, impact, evaluation and related developments. The recommendations contained in this report are intended to provide broad guidance to the Probation Service in the development of community service in Ireland, and to highlight key areas that require further investigation.  

Dublin: Irish Probation Service, 2022. 108p.

By Josh Pacewicz and John N. Robinson III

This article investigates a trend in the Chicago region that defies conventional accounts of municipal politics and revenue-motivated policing: since the Great Recession, higher-income black suburbs have sharply increased collection of legal fines and fees. To explain this, we draw on a study of municipal officials to develop a racialization of municipal opportunity perspective, which highlights how racial segregation in the suburbs intersects with policies that encourage competition over tax revenue to produce fiscal inequalities that fall along racial lines. Officials across the region shared views about ‘good’ revenues like sales taxes paid mostly by nonresidents, but those in black suburbs were unable to access them and instead turned to ‘bad’ revenues like legal fines to manage fiscal crises—even where residents were fairly affluent and despite the absence of discriminatory intent at the local level. These findings invite inquiry into the racially uneven consequences of seemingly colorblind municipal fiscal practices in the USA and the distributional consequences of municipal governance in other national contexts.  

Socio-Economic Review, 2021, Vol. 19, No. 3, 975–1003   

By The Fines and Fees Justice Center

Fees are imposed on people accused of offenses in criminal, juvenile, municipal, and traffic courts around the country and are used to fund all types of court- or government-related programs, activities, or functions. For decades, justice fees have been a way that states raise revenue through a system of hidden taxes.1 Among these court-imposed costs, there is a particularly pernicious category of fees that are imposed on people simply because they are involved with the justice system. Whether they are called administrative assessments, surcharges, court costs, privilege taxes, docket fees, or something else, the one thing they have in common is that they are imposed in nearly every criminal, traffic, or local ordinance case—regardless of the offense, sentence, or specific circumstance of the particular case. Most are imposed only after conviction, but others, like docket fees, are imposed even if a person is acquitted or the charges are dismissed.2 For the purposes of this report, we collectively call these fees “assessments and surcharges,” recognizing that they may go by other names in different jurisdictions. Ultimately, these are “catch all” fees that legislatures impose to collect money exclusively from people drawn into a state’s various justice systems.3  

New York: Fines and Fees Justice Center, 2022. 28p.

By Emily Cunniffe

Detention and alternatives to detention can be used for immigration-related purposes in Ireland. Detention takes place in Garda Síochána stations and prisons. Throughout 2019, 477 people were detained in Irish prisons for immigration-related reasons, reducing to 245 people in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. Alternatives to detention, such as regularly reporting to a Garda station, however, tend to be used more routinely and in the first instance.
This study presents a comprehensive review of legislation and practice on detention and alternatives to detention in international protection and return
procedures in Ireland. It is based on the Irish contribution to a European Migration Network (EMN) report comparing the situation in EU Member States. Immigration detention in the EU and the UK has been the subject of considerable academic research; however, there has been comparatively less research on the situation in Ireland, particularly regarding alternatives to detention.

Dublin: The Economic and Social Research Institute. 2021. 109p.

By Hindpal Singh Bhui, Rebecca Stanbury. et al.

Black and minority ethnic (BME) groups are greatly overrepresented in the prison population: as of March 2020, 27% of prisoners were from a BME background, compared with only 13% of the general population. People who identify as ‘black’ are imprisoned at an even more disproportionate rate: they comprise only 3% of the general population but 13% of adult prisoners (UK Prison Population Statistics, 2020). HM Inspectorate of Prisons (HMI Prisons) inspection reports consistently show that BME prisoners report worse experiences and outcomes than white prisoners across a wide range of indicators covering most areas of prison life. The Lammy Review (published in 2017 and subtitled ‘An independent review into the treatment of, and outcomes for, Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic individuals in the Criminal Justice System’) drew extensively on HMI Prisons’ evidence and other sources to highlight under-identification of BME prisoners’ vulnerabilities, widespread feelings among BME prisoners of being treated less well than white prisoners and shortcomings in important systems of redress and internal assurance. People from a BME background have less trust in the criminal justice system than white people and worse perceptions of the system’s fairness, whether or not they have had any significant involvement in it (Lammy, 2017). The reasons for these perceptions are complex and under-researched, and result not just from criminal justice processes, but also from long-term patterns of social inequality and prejudice (Bhui, 2009). Developing a greater understanding of the perceptions of prisoners and disproportionalities in the prison system, and finding ways to address them, is an important task for those working in prisons. This thematic review is a small but original contribution to that effort. We will consider carefully how the findings might be built upon in future work. Little has been written on BME prisoners’ experiences of offender management and resettlement services, and there is very limited work on the increasingly influential concept of ‘rehabilitative culture’ and the degree to which efforts to achieve it have taken account of the specific experiences of BME prisoners.   

London: Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons, 2020. 58p.