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.

By Graeme R. Newman

The practice of mass incarceration has come under increasing criticism by criminologists and corrections experts who, nevertheless, find themselves at a loss when it comes to offering credible, practical, and humane alternatives. In Civilization and Barbarism, Graeme R. Newman argues this impasse has arisen from a refusal to confront the original essence of punishment, namely, that in some sense it must be painful. He begins with an exposition of the traditional philosophical justifications for punishment and then provides a history of criminal punishment. He shows how, over time, the West abandoned short-term corporal punishment in favor of longer-term incarceration, justifying a massive bureaucratic prison complex as scientific and civilized. Newman compels the reader to confront the biases embedded in this model and the impossibility of defending prisons as a civilized form of punishment. A groundbreaking work that challenges the received wisdom of “corrections,” Civilization and Barbarism asks readers to reconsider moderate corporal punishment as an alternative to prison and, for the most serious offenders, forms of incapacitation without prison.

The book also features two helpful appendixes: a list of debating points, with common criticisms and their rebuttals, and a chronology of civilized punishments.

Albany NY. SUNY Press. 2019. 272p.

NOTE: This file is a prepublication proof and may contain occasional errors.

By ACLU Smart Justice Nebraska

Fairness and freedom should not depend on how much money an individual possesses. Nebraskans who are struggling financially should have the same experience in the legal system as anyone else. Yet today, despite United States Supreme Court precedent and safeguards at the federal and state level, Nebraskans are still routinely confined simply because they lack the resources to pay fines or post bail or bond. This report reveals the findings of an intensive ACLU of Nebraska court watching project, the first of its scope in the state. ACLU staff and interns spent roughly three months in 2022 observing bail and sentencing hearings to document how recent reforms from the Nebraska Legislature — part of the nationwide movement to reform modern-day debtors’ prisons — are being implemented. What this project uncovered is a cause for concern. Observations from a combined 2,300+ bail and sentencing hearings show systemic disregard of laws meant to protect Nebraskans who are struggling financially. They also show continued reflexive practices that perpetuate a modern “debtors’ prison,” where Nebraskans are routinely confined simply because they cannot afford to post cash bail or pay fees or fines. This publication discusses the legal framework behind bail, fees and fines in Nebraska’s criminal legal system before detailing the court watching project’s findings and offering recommendations for reform. As readers progress through its pages, it is critical to remember that if the system were functioning as the Constitution and state law envision, in most cases, any person assigned cash bail or assessed a cou  

Lincoln, NE: American Civil Liberties Union - Nebraska, 2022. 36p.

By Elsa Augustine, Slissa Skog, Johanna Lacoe and Steven Raphael

Criminal justice reform has gained bipartisan support at a national level in recent years. One common reform practice is to divert some defendants from traditional criminal justice proceedings to alternative programs that provide social services or attempt to address underlying drivers of criminal justice involvement. San Francisco referred over 16,000 individuals between 2008 and 2018 through the Collaborative Courts and Pretrial Diversion programs; overall one quarter of filed criminal cases were referred to diversion. A larger share of new filings were referred to diversion in recent years as San Francisco's filing rates decreased at a faster pace than the diversion referral rate. In keeping with the general criminal justice-involved population in San Francisco, individuals referred to diversion programs were more likely to be young men of color than the average San Franciscan. People who were referred to diversion programs had longer criminal justice histories than those whose cases were not referred, but were otherwise demographically similar. Referred cases had lower conviction rates than nondiverted cases, but referred individuals had higher rates of subsequent criminal justice contact, on average. Individuals who were re-arrested after a diversion referral were typically arrested on less severe offenses than the original offenses. While this paper does not present causal estimates of the effects of diversion programs, future research will estimate the impacts of a referral to diversion on case outcomes and subsequent criminal justice contact, among other outcomes.

Los Angeles: California Policy Lab, 2020. 36p

By Aurelie Ouss and Megan T. Stevenson

Dozens of jurisdictions across the country are engaging in bail reform, but there are concerns that reducing monetary incentives will increase pretrial misconduct. We provide new evidence on this question by evaluating a prosecutor-led bail reform in Philadelphia. In February 2018, Philadelphia’s district attorney announced that his office would no longer request monetary bail for defendants charged with certain eligible offenses. This was an advisory change; bail magistrates retained final say. Using a difference-in-differences approach we find that this policy led to a 22% increase in the likelihood a defendant will be released with no monetary or supervisory conditions, but had no impact on pretrial detention. This provides a unique opportunity to evaluate the primary justification for cash bail: that it provides incentive for released defendants to appear in court. We find no evidence that cash bail or pretrial supervision has a deterrent effect on failure-to-appear or pretrial crime. We argue that one explanation is that asymmetric reputational penalties cause magistrates to set bail higher than necessary. In addition, our study provides evidence on the role of discretion within criminal justice reform. We find that discretion led to racial disparities in implementation, and diluted the impacts of the reform.

Working Paper, 2022. 59p

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 Alabama Apppleseed

We surveyed 980 Alabamians from 41 counties about their experience with court debt, including 879 people who owed money themselves and 101 people who were paying debt for others. Of the people who owed money themselves, we found: More than eight in ten gave up necessities like rent, food, medical bills, car payments, and child support, in order to pay down their court debt. Almost four in ten admitted to having committed at least one crime to pay on their court debt. One in five people whose only previous offenses were traffic violations admitted to committing more serious offenses, including felonies, to pay off their traffic tickets. The most common offense committed to pay off court debt was selling drugs, followed by stealing and sex work. Survey respondents also admitted to passing bad checks, gambling, robbery, selling food stamps, and selling stolen items. 44% used payday or title loans to cover court debt. Almost two-thirds received money or food assistance from a faith-based charity or church that they would not have had to request if they weren’t paying court debt. Almost seven in ten were at some point declared indigent by a court, and by almost every measure, indigent survey-takers were treated more harshly than their non-indigent peers. They were more likely to have been turned down for or kicked out of diversion programs for financial reasons, more likely to have their debt increased, be threatened with jail, or actually be jailed for non-payment of court debt. Almost half of the people who took our survey did not think they would ever be able to pay what they owe. The 101 people who took our survey who were paying debt for other people (usually family members) were more likely to be middle-aged African-American women than to belong to any other demographic group. While others their age were saving money for retirement, helping their children with college or other expenses, paying down mortgages, or taking vacations, these African-American women were disproportionately burdened with paying court debt for their families.

Montgomery, AL: Alabama Appleseed Center for Law and Justice, 2018. 66p.

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 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,  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 Alabama Appleseed

The deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Rayshard Brooks, Daniel Prude, and others have generated increased scrutiny of how the government and law enforcement treat Black people. These police killings of unarmed Black people are perhaps the starkest example of the many ways the state inflicts violence on individuals, contrary to both our legal and social code. But in Alabama and elsewhere, another, pernicious form of deadly state violence continues with far less scrutiny. Black people are dying violent deaths while in custody of the Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC), the largest law enforcement agency in the state — and they are dying in disproportionate numbers as compared to their white peers. This continuum of Black people being killed by police and in prisons amounts to two sides of the same coin. Police are the front end of law enforcement, and prisons are its back end. They are inseparably connected. In this report, Alabama Appleseed seeks to document and demonstrate the ways in which deaths — particularly deaths resulting from homicide, suicide, and COVID-19 in Alabama prisons — are prompted by the same issues of state violence and deliberate indifference to the safety of people in government custody as the police killings that have inflamed the country and energized the Black Lives Matter movement. Alabama Appleseed has identified, by name, 89 people who have died violent, preventable deaths from homicide, suicide, or drug overdose over the last six years while in the custody of the Alabama Department of Corrections. These incarcerated individuals lost their lives due to the State’s failure to provide “basic human needs, one of which is reasonable safety”. The neglect, violence, and death disproportionately impacts Black men, who are dying at over three times the rate of white men.  

Montgomery, AL: Alabama Appleseed Center for Law and Justice, 2021? 18p.

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 Rebecca Roberts, Claire Campbell and Deborah Coles

Every four days a person takes their life in prison, and rising numbers of ‘natural’ and unclassified deaths are too often found to relate to serious failures in healthcare. The lack of government action on official recommendations is leading to preventable deaths.

Deaths in prison: a national scandal exposes dangerous, longstanding failures across the prison estate and historically high levels of deaths in custody and offers unique insight and analysis into findings from 61 prison inquests in England and Wales in 2018 and 2019.

The report details repeated safety failures including mental and physical healthcare, communication systems, emergency responses, and drugs and medication. It also looks at the wider statistics and historic context, showing the repetitive and persistent nature of such failings.

With case studies of deaths and inquest findings, it tells the harrowing human stories behind the statistics (see page 9). INQUEST also details the experiences of bereaved families who struggle to access minimal legal aid for inquests, while prisons automatically receive millions in public funding.

London: INQUEST, 2020. 20p.

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 Robert Johnson

From the Preface: Hard Time is a book about prisons.The focus is on men, but core concerns of women are considered as well. The book explores what I believe are basic human dimensions of prison life and adjustment, and closes with an inclusive, person-centered vision of prison reform. Firsthand testimony and observations drawn from people who live or work in prisons are highlighted and specially marked with black squares (H) throughout the book. Most of the people we send to prison are men, roughly 94 percent. Most prisoners serve time in prisons that are, as living environments if not in terms of strict classification criteria, maximum-security institutions.1 The maximum- security prison for men has served as the explicit or implicit model—the point of departure if not the template—for virtually all men’s prisons and many women's prisons as well. Life in these prisons is depriving and painful. On that score at least, prisons vary in degree, not kind. The inhabitants of every prison serve hard time. Nothing can change this basic and enduring fact. That hard time can also be constructive time is, in my view, the key to understanding and reforming the prison.

Belmont, CA. Wadsworth/Thomson Learning.2001. 356p.