By Vera Institute of Justice

Postsecondary education in prison has positive effects for students who are incarcerated, their families and communities, public safety, and safety inside prisons. Research has demonstrated that postsecondary education reduces incarceration, makes prisons safer places to live and work, and improves employment and wages. Nationally, taxpayers also see major benefits, with every dollar invested in prison-based education yielding more than four dollars in taxpayer savings from reduced incarceration costs. Most people in prison are both interested in and academically qualified for postsecondary education (64 percent), yet only a tiny fraction of people in prison completes a credential while incarcerated (9 percent). This gap between educational aspirations and participation is driven largely by a lack of capacity due to limited funding.

New York: Vera Institute of Justice, 2023. 3p.

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

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

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

Sandra Babcock, Nathalie Greenfield and Kathryn Adamson

This article presents a comprehensive study of 48 persons sentenced to death between 1990 and 2023 who presented as women at the time of their trials. Our research is the first of its kind to conduct a holistic and intersectional analysis of the factors driving women’s death sentences. It reveals commonalities across women’s cases, delving into their experiences of motherhood, gender-based violence and prior involvement with the criminal legal system. We also explore the nature of the women’s crimes of conviction, including the role of male co-defendants and the State’s use of aggravating factors. Finally, we reveal for the first time the extent to which capital prosecutions are dominated by men—including judges, elected District Attorneys, defense attorneys, and juror forepersons—and explain why gender matters in determining who lives and who dies.

We present our data against the backdrop of prevalent theories that seek to explain both the rarity of women’s executions and the reasons why certain women are singled out for the harshest punishment provided by law. We explain why those frameworks are inadequate to understand the role that systemic gender bias plays in women’s capital prosecutions. We conclude by arguing for more nuanced research that embraces the complexities in women’s capital cases and accounts for the presence of systemic and intersectional discrimination.

Cardozo Law Review, Forthcoming (Written April, 2024}.

By Andrew Jordan,  Ezra Karger,  Derek Neal

   We examined 70,581 felony court cases filed in Chicago, IL, from 1990–2007. We exploit case randomization to assess the impact of judge assignment and sentencing decisions on the arrival of new charges. We find that, in marginal cases, incarceration creates large and lasting reductions in recidivism among first offenders. Yet, among marginal repeat offenders, incarceration creates only short-run incapacitation effects and no lasting reductions in the incidence of new felony charges. These treatment-impact differences inform ongoing legal debates concerning the merits of sentencing rules that recommend leniency for first offenders while encouraging or mandating incarceration sentences for many repeat offenders. We show that methods that fail to estimate separate outcome equations for first versus repeat offenders or fail to model judge-specific sentencing tendencies separately for cases involving first versus repeat offenders produce misleading results for first offenders.  

 Working Paper 31939. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research, 2024. 73p.

By Reprieve

Researchers at Reprieve conducted an in-depth comparative study of botched lethal injection executions in the modern era of the U.S. death penalty, cross-referenced against the 1,407 lethal injection executions carried out or attempted during that period. The research found that: • Black people had 220% higher odds of suffering a botched lethal injection execution than white people. • Botched lethal injection executions occurred whether a one-drug or a three-drug protocol was used, and regardless of whether the primary drug was sodium thiopental, pentobarbital or midazolam. • Botched lethal injection executions typically lasted a very long time. Over a third lasted over 45 minutes; over a quarter lasted an hour or more. • The odds of a botched lethal injection execution increased by 6% on average for each additional year of age. • In the state of Arkansas, 75% of botched lethal injection executions were of Black people, despite executions of Black people accounting for just 33% of all executions.

In the state of Georgia, 86% of botched lethal injection executions were of Black people, despite executions of Black people accounting for just 30% of all executions. • In the state of Oklahoma, 83% of botched lethal injection executions were of Black people, despite executions of Black people accounting for just 30% of all executions. • Secrecy and haste were found to be factors contributing to increased rates of botched and prolonged executions.   

New Orleans LA: Reprieve. 2024, 36pg

By The Reducing Reoffending Third Sector Advisory Group (RR3)

   The Reducing Reoffending Third Sector Advisory Group (RR3) provides the key interface between the voluntary sector, and the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) and His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS), in order to increase mutual understanding and build a strong and effective partnership. The group is made up of senior leaders from the voluntary sector and meets quarterly with civil servants to provide guidance and feedback on MoJ policy developments. The RR3 convenes Special Interest Groups (SIGs) to advise on specific areas of policy and practice as the need arises. This Employment SIG has focused on the barriers to employment faced by people, both in prison and on their release into the community. This focus has been caveated with the acknowledgement that there are many people in prison who require additional, pre-employment support in order that they can gain the skills and the confidence that they need to secure employment at an appropriate juncture. For this group, the focus has been not on the immediate steps needed to secure employment, either in prison or in the community, but on addressing more complex needs that present obstacles to gaining employment in the future. Following an introduction into the current employment situation faced by people leaving prison and recent initiatives implemented in prisons to boost employment outcomes, the paper focuses on the following areas: 1) Prison workshops 2) The financial security of people in prison 3) Employer and training provider engagement 4) Addressing complex needs 5) Service coordination

Suffolk, UK: Clinks. 2024, 17pg

By The Council of State Governments Justice Center

This report highlights the significant progress made in reducing recidivism across the country over the past 15 years. Since its passage in 2008, the Second Chance Act has invested in state and local efforts to improve outcomes for people leaving prison and jail, with a total of nearly 1,200 grantees from 48 states and 3 territories administering programs that have served more than 400,000 people.

For the past 15 years, federal, state, local, and Tribal governments, as well as community-based organizations across the country, have been focused on reducing recidivism like never before. This report answers three critical questions:

What progress has been made?

• State-level reincarceration rates are 23 percent lower since 2008.

• Fewer returns to custody mean that more people can rejoin their families and contribute in their communities. States are achieving these rates with changes in policy and by increasing opportunities and resources to support employment and connections to behavioral health care and housing.

How much could states save by reducing recidivism further?

• Despite the progress made, states will spend an estimated $8 billion on reincarceration costs for people who exited prison in 2022.

• Scaling effective policies and reentry models can reduce the economic and human costs of recidivism, while creating meaningful opportunities for returning people to contribute to the workforce and their families and communities.

Are states ready to expand their efforts?

• In the past year, leaders in Missouri, Alabama, North Carolina, and Nebraska have set bold goals for reducing recidivism and improving reentry outcomes further by 2030.

• The goals include increasing access to treatment, mental health services, and medical care; improving individuals’ economic independence by ensuring they are better prepared for work and have access to employment; and increasing access to stable housing.

New York: Council of State Governments Justice Center, 2024.

By Penal Reform International and the Life Imprisonment Worldwide Project

This briefing, co-published by Penal Reform International and the Life Imprisonment Worldwide Project, therefore examines informal life imprisonment worldwide, drawing on key findings from international research. It places these findings in the context of the UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (Nelson Mandela Rules) and other relevant criminal justice and human rights standards.

This briefing calls on policymakers and practitioners to reflect on informal life sentences and to include within them the more general constraints that should apply to the use of all forms of life imprisonment. It also provides specific recommendations on the imposition and implementation of informal life sentences.

There is growing recognition that life imprisonment is a severe sentence that, if it is used at all, should be imposed sparingly, implemented humanely and give people serving life sentences hope of release when they cease to pose a danger to society. Informal life imprisonment can be as harsh, and in some cases even harsher, than formal life imprisonment. Whilst attention has been given to formal life imprisonment, little is known about informal life sentences. Failure to examine the imposition and implementation of informal life sentences allows for a further class of harsh sanctions and their shortcomings to go unnoticed.

London: PRI. 2024, 24pg

By Shirin Bakhshay

The American public has complex views on criminal punishment. They are driven primarily by retributive motivations. But they have other justice considerations, such as restoration and rehabilitation, that can be activated in different ways. Laypersons are also motivated to psychologically distance and dissociate from those they perceive to be criminal “others” and to see punishment itself as a kind of dissociation, embodied by the prison form. The psychological processes that produce these beliefs lead to an insistence on prison as a necessary criminal justice outcome, despite reservations about its effectiveness and concerns about the state of mass incarceration and punitive penal policy more generally.

This Article builds on the psychology of punishment literature to offer a deeper understanding of the dissociative theory of punishment and how it produces the belief in the necessity of prison. Drawing on original, qualitative focus group data and analysis, this Article identifies the specific psychological mechanisms that motivate dissociation, explains the role of the belief in retributive justice as part of this process, and offers nuanced insights into the contours of the dissociative theory and the way people psychologically reason about criminal punishment.

Georgetown Law Journal, Vol. 111, No. 6, 2023, 84pg

By Columbia Legal Services

  Washington’s prisons are public institutions run by the state Department of Corrections (DOC). The purpose of state correctional institutions is ostensibly to rehabilitate individuals, and to do so without a profit motive or by facilitating profit-seeking behavior. However, the state realizes enormous cost-savings from underpaying its captive labor force as little as $1.00 per hour. People incarcerated perform essential operations jobs like cleaning units and bathrooms or working in food service, all for meager pay far below Washington’s statewide minimum wage. People in prison also often perform unpaid labor as DOC fails to approve all jobs as paid positions. Washington State has recognized in other settings that underpaying detained workers is wrong. In 2017, Washington State sued the GEO Group—a for-profit corporation running the private immigration detention center in Tacoma—for failure to pay its workers (people in custody in the detention center) in accordance with Washington’s minimum wage law. At the time, the GEO Group was paying workers in custody $1.00 per day. The State brought this lawsuit – and has so far prevailed – on the basis that private prisons must comply with Washington State wage laws. And yet, the State has not taken similar steps to protect people in state, local, or municipal prisons and jails. Instead, state law currently exempts people housed in public carceral facilities from the definition of “employees” for the purposes of Washington’s minimum wage and labor standards laws. Further, people in Washington state prisons face severe consequences if they refuse to work, including lengthier prison sentences. This system of coerced and underpaid labor within DOC is nothing short of modern-day slavery. And, in keeping with this sordid legacy, people in prison face ongoing discrimination on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, ability, and immigration status—all of which are barriers to gaining and maintaining the employment people need to avoid punishment and to earn enough to pay for basic necessities. Correctional Industries (CI) is the division within DOC that operates businesses and employs people in custody in Washington prisons. CI reported over $133 million in revenue and over $38 million in assets in fiscal year 2023. The majority of CI workers fall into one of two classes of employment: Class II and Class III. Class II jobs are generally referred to as “CI jobs,” and entail working outside the prison unit, either in an operations role (e.g., food production, laundry, etc.), or producing other goods and services (e.g., furniture manufacturing) that CI then sells to various government agencies and nonprofit organizations. Class II workers usually earn between $0.80 and $2.85 per hour and are eligible for overtime pay.6 Class III jobs are generally considered “unit jobs,” and include porters, facility maintenance, and other essential tasks around the prison units. Despite the wide range of prison jobs, DOC fails to provide people in prison with sufficient opportunities for real-world job training or skill acquisition, leaving people in custody unprepared to gain employment after release.   In response to growing awareness and concern over labor exploitation in prisons, in 2023, the state legislature allocated funds to increase the wage floor for Class III jobs from $0.42 to $1.00 per hour. However, DOC then capped worker earnings at $40 per week.7 Even with this raise, people in DOC custody are paid far below the 2024 state mandated minimum wage of $16.28 per hour, and meanwhile the cost of living in prison is rising.

Seattle: Columbia Legal Services. 2024, 62pg

By Kesha A. Moore

As the coronavirus continues to spread in the U.S. and surge in an increasing number of states, it is critical that we consider the role of jails in the transmission of the virus. Even with highly effective social distancing outside of the jails, our national rates of COVID-19 deaths are projected to rise by 98% due to infections in jails. Jails act as a revolving door for the spread of COVID-19 in our communities. Inhabitants of the jails — both staff and incarcerated persons — come from our communities and soon return to them. Thus, the strategy of social distancing to limit the spread of COVID-19 can only be effective if it includes jails, which are a primary vector for the infection. 

New York: NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Thurgood Marshall Institute, 2020.

By Michele Goodwin

 Nearly sixty years ago, Dr. King penned the illuminating Letter from a Birmingham Jail, marking the persistence of criminal punishment in the lives Black Americans seeking inclusion, equality, and freedom. Symbolically, his confinement both foreshadowed the strange and troubling role incarceration would play in the lives of Black Americans generations to come and illustrated the connective fabric of slavery to his present conditions. The profundity of the letter cannot be ignored, nor the space from which Dr. King wrote it—incarcerated after peacefully protesting to advance civil rights for Black Americans. Decades later, many of the concerns undergirding the impetus for Dr. King’s powerful missive, including voter suppression, persist. Similarly, equality in education remains an unanswered goal and incomplete vision for the civil rights movement. In fact, the modern challenge no longer demands inclusion and desegregation alone—the urgent objectives undergirding  Brown v. Board of Education —but rather sparing Black children from unequal surveillance, punishments, and the “school to prison” pipeline. Yet, equality in voting and education—as crucial as they are—did not comprise nor define the full vision for the civil rights movement or emancipation from enslavement for that matter. The path to substantive civil liberties and civil rights—and freedom in a meaningful sense—included dismantling discrimination in housing, employment, healthcare, food access, and criminal justice forged by lawmakers. 

Boston: Harvard Civil Rights-Civil Liberties Law Review, 2022. 68p.

By Peter Leasure, Douglas A. Berman and Jana Hrdinova

In the current study, we provide an overview of federal law on intermittent confinement, present data on the use of intermittent confinement in the federal system and weekend incarceration in the state system, discuss existing research on intermittent confinement and weekend incarceration, and present results of a survey of federal probation officers on their opinions of intermittent confinement. Overall, the results of the study indicated that intermittent confinement and weekend sentences are rarely used in federal and state systems (relative to traditional incarceration sentences). Additionally, we found that a single federal district (Texas West) accounted for the majority of federal intermittent confinement cases across several years of data. Results of the survey of federal probation officers showed that logistical issues with intermittent confinement and incarceration facility availability may be a cause for low numbers of intermittent confinement sentences. The finding about logistical issues with intermittent confinement was consistent with previous research. Informed by these findings, directions for future research are discussed in detail.

Drug Enforcement and Policy Center. February 2024, 174pg