By AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL

From the Introduction: Amnesty International’s research on the global use of the death penalty in 2022 revealed a spike in the number of people known to have been executed worldwide, including a significant increase in executions for drug-related offences. This negative trend contrasts with a countervailing positive tendency: a substantial number of countries have taken decisive steps away from the death penalty in 2022, marking remarkable progress against the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment. Known executions, excluding the thousands believed to have taken place in China, significantly increased by 53% on those for 2021, from 579 (2021) to 883 (2022). The executions recorded in 2022 were the highest since 2017 (993).2 Secrecy and restrictive state practices continued to impair an accurate assessment of the use of the death penalty in several countries, including China, North Korea and Viet Nam.

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL GLOBAL REPORT 2022. 46p.

By Richard Wortley

FROM THE COVER: This book examines the control ofproblem behaviour in prison from a situational crime prevention perspective. Following the success of situational crime prevention in community settings, Richard Wortley argues that the same principles can be used to help reduce the levels of assault, rape, self-harm, drug use, escape and collective violence in our prison systems. This pioneering new study proposes a two-stage model of situational prevention that moves beyond traditional opportunity-reduction: it attempts to reconcile the contradictory urges to control prison disorder by 'tightening-up' and hardening the prison environment on the one hand, and 'loosening-off and normalising it on the other. Combining a comprehensive synthesis and evaluation of existing research with original investigation and ground-breaking conclusions, Situational Prison Control will be of great interest to academics and practitioners both in the areas of corrections and crime prevention more generally.

Cambridge. University of Cambridge Press. 2002.263p. CONTAINS MARK-UP

By Edda Frankot

This open access book analyses the practice of banishment and what it can tell us about the values of late medieval society concerning morally acceptable behaviour. It focuses on the Dutch town of Kampen and considers the exclusion of offenders through banishment and the redemption of individuals after their exile. Banishment was a common punishment in late medieval Europe, especially for sexual offences. In Kampen it was also meted out as a consequence of the non-payment of fines, after which people could arrange repayment schemes which allowed them to return. The book firstly considers the legal context of the practice of banishment, before discussing punishment in Kampen more generally. In the third chapter the legal practice of banishment as a punitive and coercive measure is discussed. The final chapter focuses on the redemption of exiles, either because their punishment was completed, or because they arranged for the payment of outstanding fines.

Bern: Palgrave Macmillan, 2022. 140p.

Edited by Janet Weston and Virginia Berridge

This Witness Seminar, held at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in May 2017, brings together some of those involved in influencing and implementing prison policy decisions surrounding HIV and AIDS in the 1980s and 1990s. AIDS first appeared in Europe in the early 1980s, and prisons were soon identified as sites that would face particular challenges. Injecting drug use was one of the primary modes of HIV transmission, and the large numbers of drug users passing through prisons meant that the prevalence of HIV was feared to be high. Added to this were suspicions about the frequency of risky sexual activity and injecting drug use within prisons. Prisoners were not only thought to be at a higher risk of already having HIV or AIDS, but prisons themselves were seen as an ideal environment for the spread of infection amongst inmates, potentially also from inmates to staff, and ultimately from released prisoners to the wider population. Urgent decisions had to be made about how to minimise disruptions prompted by diagnoses or fears of HIV and AIDS, how to reduce the risks of HIV transmission, and how to look after prisoners already affected. The emergence of HIV and AIDS highlighted many of the existing tensions and problems surrounding healthcare for prisoners. Witnesses described the reluctance of the prison service to acknowledge and tackle difficult issues, but also observed that there did not seem to have been an HIV or AIDS epidemic within prisons in England and Wales. What also emerged was a sense of some of the ongoing difficulties facing the prison service, in terms of lost gains in healthcare services, mounting overcrowding, and a failure to learn the lessons of the past.

London: London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, 2017. 67p.

By Heino Stöver, Anna Tarján, Gergely Horváth & Linda Montanari 

People who inject drugs are often imprisoned, which is associated with increased levels of health risks including overdose and infectious diseases transmission, affecting not only people in prison but also the communities to which they return. This paper aims to give an up-to-date overview on availability, coverage and policy framework of prison-based harm reduction interventions in Europe. Available data on selected harm reduction responses in prisons were compiled from international standardised data sources and combined with a questionnaire survey among 30 National Focal Points of the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction to determine the level of availability, estimated coverage and policy framework of the interventions. …. While 21 countries address harm reduction in prison in national strategic documents, upon-release interventions appear only in 12.

Conclusions. Availability and coverage of harm reduction interventions in European prisons are limited, compared to the community. There is a gap between international recommendations and ‘on-paper’ availability of interventions and their actual implementation. Scaling up harm reduction in prison and throughcare can achieve important individual and public-health benefits.

Harm Reduction Journal volume 18, Article number: 67 (2021) 

By  William Arbour, Guy Lacroix, Steeve Marchand

Increasing evidence suggests that incarceration can improve inmates' social reintegration under certain circumstances. Yet, the mechanisms through which incarceration may lead to successful rehabilitation remain largely unknown. This paper finds that participation in social rehabilitation programs can significantly reduce recidivism only when inmates are evaluated by an assessment tool which allows to identify their criminogenic needs. This suggests that targeting criminogenic needs is crucial for successful rehabilitation. We also find that inmates with a high risk score or who exhibit procriminal attitudes benefit little from participation. To control for selection, we instrument participation with program availability at the time and place of incarceration. We also use a coefficient stability approach to test for omitted variable biases. Both approaches yield similar results.

Unpublished paper, 2023. 44p.

By Matthew R. Durose and Leonardo Antenangeli

This report presents findings on recidivism of females from BJS’s study on persons released from state prison across 34 states in 2012. It compares females and males by their commitment offenses, recidivism patterns during the 5 years following release (from 2012 to 2017), and post-release offenses.

Washington DC: U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2023. 6p.

By Lauren G. Beatty and; Tracy L. Snell

This report provides statistics on whether prisoners were required to have a work assignment, the types of work they performed while incarcerated, and reasons they chose to have a work assignment if one was not required. Findings are based on data collected in the most recent Survey of Prison Inmates, which was conducted in 2016 through face-to-face interviews with a national sample of federal and state prisoners.

Washington, DC: U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2023. 7p.

By Matthew R. Durose and Leonardo Antenangeli

For the first time, BJS used prison records from the National Corrections Reporting Program and criminal history data to analyze various characteristics and the arrest history of persons admitted to state prison in the United States. The report presents findings on the age at first arrest, number of prior arrests, and length of criminal history of persons admitted to state prison in 2009 and 2014. It also examines the post-prison arrests during the 2 years following their release from prison.

Highlights

• More than 1 in 4 persons admitted to state prison in 34 states in 2014 had been sentenced for a violent offense.

• The 369,200 persons admitted to state prison in 34 states in 2014 had an estimated 4.2 million prior arrests in their criminal histories, including the arrest that resulted in their prison sentence.

• In both 2009 and 2014, persons admitted to prison had a median of nine prior arrests in their criminal histories.

• About 1 in 10 persons admitted in 2014 at age 24 or younger had at least one prior out-of-state arrest, and about 4 in 10 persons admitted at age 40 or older had at least one such arrest.

Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, 2023. 36p.

By Gabriel Tarde. Translated by Rapelje Howell

From the Introduction by Piers Beirne. ”…. Tarde's interventions in criminology are among the most elusive in the discipline. One among several reasons for this is that he was an insular and often bitter antagonist who cultivated neither the allies nor the disciples required of a systematic intellectual legacy. Indeed, almost to the end of his life, Tarde was unique among French academics in that, despising the intellectual domination of the metropolis, he had no secure position within the all-powerful French university system. Tarde's self-imposed isolation has doubtless contributed to the unfortunate fact that his many intellectual, political, and organizational interventions in the formative years of criminology tend nowadays to be relegated to the status of little more than a footnote in intellectual history….”

New Brunswick. Transaction. 2001. 606p. CONTAINS MARK-UP

Edited by Shampa Bissau and Zane Zalloua

From the Introduction: “Given the events of the last decade, the topic of torture, democ­racy, and the human body hardly needs any justification. Yet it is its apparent obviousness that makes the topic all the more urgent. What is torture? Who defines it? What are its immediate and long­term effects on the human body, on the social body, and the poliucal bond that ties these bodies together, that is, democracy. These quesuons resist easy answers. Torture, like any other contenuous concept, has its own twisted history. In this respect, we might do well to keep in mind Friedrich Nietzsche’s observation that “only that which has no history is definable.” The challenge at hand, however, is not simply to recognize that the interpretation of torture becomes an endless task and battle of interpretive wills, something that we never define once and for all. Rather, a genealogical perspective on the subject displaces the essentialist question “What is torture?" in order to ask instead “What meaning have we given to torture?” or “What is the function and purpose of torture today?” In other words, torture as such cannot be defined in isolation but refers back to systems of belief, social networks of power, and ideological worldviews thai invariably ascribe to torture a certain meaning. The nature of that meaning is precisely what is in question in contemporary debates on torture, and the authors in this volume approach that ques­tion from diverse angles.”

Seattle. University of Washington Press. 2011. 290p.

By Douglas Hay, Peter Linebaugh, John G. Rule, E. P. Thompson and Cal Winslow

From one point of view eighteenth-century England, with its settled aristocracy and gentry, its polite arts and culture, its urbane politics of interest and influence, appears as a stable, self-assured civilization. Historians have often described it as such. From another point of view it appears very differently. Year after year new capital offenses were enacted. In the heart of London great crowds asembled at hte regular publichang- ing days, and there were riots beneath the gallows at Tyburn for the possession of the bodies of the condemned. Highwaymen beset the roads of London. Large parties of armed smugglers invested parts of the coast. The estate papers of the great some- times reveal that they were more concerned about wholesale poaching on their lands than they were about rentals or crops.

This book explores these contrasts: a settled ruling class which could only rule through forms of judicial terror; a popu- lace deferential by day but deeply insubordinate by night; a class justice which defended property through the fair form of law. Instead of general description, the authors offer a number of detailed studies. An important introductory chapter discloses the way in which the law replaced religion at the center of the ideology of England's rulers, and analyzes the astonishing adaptability of the legal system to the same pressures of ni- fluence, interest, and property which dominated political life.

NY. Pantheon. 1975. 357p. CONTAINS MARK-UP

By Philip Bean

From the Preface: In 1976 I wrote Rehabilitation and Deviance as an intended polemic against the then prevailing view that rehabilitation was the only acceptable and humanitarian means of dealing with offenders. It brought forth from those who supported rehabilitation a considerable amount of hostility but no real debate. It was almost as if rehabilitation had become a belief system which was open to challenge only from the non-believers. However, in the last f o u ryears the subject matter has movedon a great deal, and it seems now as if the time is right to produce a less polemical and wider view of the issues involved in punishment. What follows therefore i san attempt to examine the major arguments relating to punishment, to show how those arguments relate to justice, and to show how a penal system would operate if any of those argumentsdominated. There is also a concluding chapter on the punishment of children - an area neglected by traditional forms of philosophical inquiry but now assuming increasing importance. The book is written mainly from a philosophical standpoint, for ti seemed to me that criminology must draw on its philosophical foundations fi ti is to continue its development. It also seemed as fi the argument about punishment was a moral one requiring constant justification.

London. Oxford. 1981. 222p. CONTAINS MARK-UP

By Joshua D. Houy

Fines and fees for legal violations finance American criminal justice systems but often at a severe cost to those incurring fines and fees. While fines and fees are a long-standing feature of the United States criminal justice system, the use of fines and fees recently captured attention of scholars in the wake of questions prompted by recent social, political, and legal developments. The central question is: What, if any, association is there between race, socioeconomic disadvantage, and county fine and fee issuance? The main hypothesis is: Fine and fee issuance of the most populous counties positively and significantly associate with race and socioeconomic disadvantage. To test this hypothesis, census data and multivariate regressions are exploited to examine associations between county fine and fee issuance, race, and socioeconomic disadvantage. Conflict-oriented theory serves to rationalize findings. A conflict theorist would expect areas with comparatively low socioeconomic status and high concentrations of certain minorities to fine relatively heavily. The findings from this study indicate confirmation that counties with a higher percentage of Black residents issue more fines and fees on a per capita basis than counties with a lower percentage of Black residents. Yet, the findings from this study fall short of indicating counties with comparatively low socioeconomic status are more likely to issue fines and fees.  

Vermillion, SD: University of South Dakota, 2022. 134p.

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 

By Charlie Brooker and Karen Tocque

There is a high prevalence of mental illness in probation including suicide. It is important for probation staff to recognise mental illness and to refer on to an appropriate agency once it is detected. Probation’s staff knowledge about mental illness was therefore examined across Europe in this study using a well validated measure – the Mental Health Literacy Scale (MHLS). Response rates within services and countries varied widely from 0-74%. Scores on the MHLS also varied considerably from 113-138 with an average score of 128. This overall average score is similar to other groups of the population such as university students and the clergy. There was a strong association between knowledge and confidence in working with people with a mental illness. The policy implications of these findings are discussed. It is clear there is a continuing role for CEP in this arena especially in the light of the Council of Europe’s recent White Paper on mental health in probation and in prisons.   

Utrecht: Confederation of European Probation, 2023. 33p.

By Ashley Nellis

The social, moral, and fiscal costs associated with the large-scale, decades-long investment in mass imprisonment cannot be justified by any evidence of its effectiveness. Misguided changes in sentencing law and policy –not crime– account for the majority of the increase in correctional supervision.  Mass incarceration instigates numerous poor physical, psychological, and economic outcomes for the people who experience imprisonment, for their families, as well as for the broader community. Imprisonment leads to declining prospects for employment and results in lower earnings in the longer term. Food insecurity, housing instability, and reliance on public assistance are also associated with prior imprisonment. Children of incarcerated parents suffer tremendously; imprisonment of a parent leads to significant declines in academic and MASS INCARCERATION TRENDS health outcomes for children. High levels of incarceration also destabilizes entire communities, leading to dissolution of informal networks that are known to serve as barriers to neighborhood crime. Trust in law enforcement deteriorates as community members experience elevated levels of victimization and the loss of community members, friends, and family members to incarceration.   

Washington, DC: The Sentencing Project, 2023. 17p.

By Liz Komar, Ashley Nellis; and Kristen M. Budd 

As the United States marks 50 years of mass incarceration, dramatic change is necessary to ensure another 50 do not follow. In no small part due to long sentences, the United States has one of the world’s highest incarceration rates, with nearly two million people in prisons and jails. The destabilizing force of mass incarceration deepens social and economic inequity – families lose not only a loved one, but income and childcare. By age 14, one in 14 children in the United States experience a parent leaving for jail or prison.3 Individuals returning to the community face profound barriers to employment and housing. Meantime the communities most impacted by crime – poor communities and communities of color – disproportionately bear the burden of incarceration’s impacts. Long sentences affect young Black men disproportionately compared to every other race and age group. Twice as many Black children as white children have experienced parental incarceration.6 Mass incarceration entrenches cycles of harm, trauma, and disinvestment and consumes funds that might support investment in interventions that empower communities and create lasting safety. In the United States, over half of people in prison are serving a decade or longer and one in seven incarcerated people are serving a life sentence.8 To end mass incarceration, the United States must dramatically shorten sentences. Capping sentences for the most serious offenses at 20 years and shifting sentences for all other offenses proportionately downward, including by decriminalizing some acts, is a vital decarceration strategy to arrive at a system that values human dignity and prioritizes racial equity. This report begins by examining the evidence in support of capping sentences at 20 years. Countries such as Germany and Norway illustrate that sentences can be far shorter without sacrificing public safety. A wealth of criminological evidence makes clear that unduly long sentences are unnecessary: people age out of crime, and even the general threat of long term imprisonment is an ineffective deterrent. m Prison Sentence

Washington, DC: The Sentencing Project, 2023. 21p

By Justice Policy Institute

The Maryland Parole Commission (MPC) suffers from a series of systemic problems that result in the parole system’s inability to conduct its duties effectively. Safe at Home assesses how well parole practices in Maryland are aligned with other states, identifies inefficiencies in release decision-making, and provides options for changes to policy and practice informed by best practices in the field.

JPI conducted a comprehensive analysis of national parole practices and identified several policy options grounded in best practices in parole decision-making and supervision. JPI identified these policies by conducting interviews with system and field experts, attorneys, community members, and those with lived experience. These policy options are a mere blueprint that can help guide legislative and administrative actions better align the MPC with best practices across the country. Maryland decision-makers must now solicit input from a broad range of stakeholders, including community members, to operationalize these options into policy.

1. The MPC should adopt a structured decision-making tool that incorporates a validated needs assessment tool.

2. The MPC should operate under the presumption that the goals of punishment have been met at the time of initial parole eligibility. Parole release decision-making should be based solely on objective factors related to an individual’s future risk to public safety.

3. Supervision should be imposed selectively, with the length and conditions of supervision linked to risk. Conditions should be the least restrictive necessary to meet the goals of reentry and public safety. Resources should be frontloaded, and people should have the opportunity to shorten their parole term through good behavior.

4. The MPC should work closely with other criminal justice agencies and support agencies to develop a parole release plan that supports a successful reentry.

5. The MPC should employ transparency in parole release decision-making protocol and practices. The applicant and victim should be fully informed of the process and be allowed to participate actively.

6. Reasons for denial of parole must be made public, documented in writing, and appealable.

7. An applicant should have access to counsel and be provided all materials that the MPC will use to make its decision in advance of a hearing.

8. Establish standards for parole board member eligibility, including education and work/life experience.

9. The parole board must have transparent rules and procedures that reflect the input of all interested parties.

10. The parole board should adopt a robust set of performance measures that are publicly reported regularly.

JPI works with state leaders and community stakeholders to advance comprehensive policy options for consideration by the Maryland General Assembly, the Maryland Parole Commission, and other state decision-makers. Our work in Maryland is part of our broader efforts, in places like the District of Columbia, to draw attention to the harms of mass incarceration and long prison terms and support evidence-based reforms that provide options to earn release and safely return home.

Washington, DC: Justice Policy Institute, 2023. 59p.

 By The HM Chief Inspector of Prisons 

Most prisoners in England and Wales are adult men held in prisons, designated according to different security categories: A, B and C in closed sites, and category D prisoners in open prisons (for definitions see Appendix II). The allocation and management of men in the highest security prisons (category A) is the responsibility of a small number of prisons built to a higher security specification, making escape far more difficult. In March 2023, women and children made up less than 5% of the prison population. The small numbers meant women were held in two categories of prison: closed and open. As none of the establishments holding children and women are built to high security specification, additional measures – under the heading ‘restricted status’ – are imposed to minimise the possibility of escape and protect the public from harm. HM Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) first formalised the restricted status system for women and children in 2010, and although used sparingly, the system is very much informed by the category A model used for men. We believe it fails to reflect the different capabilities, motivation and resources for women and children’s escape potential, not to mention the very different environments and facilities in which they are held. Our thematic review found weaknesses in the assessment of women and children’s specific risks before deciding to apply extensive additional security measures. Oversight of restricted status prisoners, including decisions to remove additional restrictions, was undertaken by the long-term and high security prisons group director through a category A review board, which also managed category A adult male prisoners. Membership of the board did not, however, include leaders from the youth custody service (YCS) or the women’s estate, which would have added expertise and specialist knowledge and helped to deliver a more effective system, tailored to the specific risks posed by women and children. Some children had previously lived in lower security settings – including secure training centres (STCs) and secure children’s homes (SCHs) – where they had no additional security measures applied, despite meeting the restricted status criteria. When they moved to more secure settings, they were subject to far more restrictions, despite the high levels of supervision in children’s YOIs. There was no justification for such anomalies. ...

London: HM Inspectorate of Prisons, 2023. 30p,