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Posts in justice
A Review of Interventions, Innovation, and the Impact of Covid-19 in the Scottish Prison System within a Comparative Analytical Framework

By Katrina Morrison*, Kirstin Anderson, Emma Jardine, Matthew Maycock, Richard Sparks

This is the final report from the project ‘A Review of Interventions, Innovation, and the Impact of Covid-19 in the Scottish Prison System within a Comparative Analytical Framework’ for the Scottish Government Coronavirus (Covid-19) Learning and Evaluation Oversight Group. This project was funded by the Scottish Government in 2022 with the aim of uncovering what occurred in prisons in Scotland and throughout the rest of the world during the Covid-19 pandemic. This project falls under the following three call themes: Theme 2: international pandemic recovery strategies Theme 3: learning from public service innovation and creativity Theme 4: inequalities and human rights The aims of the project are: i) To review evidence from Scotland and beyond on experiences of Covid-19 in prisons and identify transferable learning to inform Scotland’s Covid Recovery Strategy ii) To focus on innovations in prison policy and practice that may prove valuable for the future of imprisonment in Scotland, as well as those that may have wider resonance across the public sector (e.g., those in other long-term confined spaces such as retirement complexes and care homes) iii) To identify gaps in current evidence and develop plans for future comparative research on impacts of Covid-19 in prisons This study was undertaken in accordance with the methodological framework outlined in the Joanna Briggs Institute’s Manual for Evidence Synthesisi,ii. Academic and grey literature databases were searched between May and August 2022 with no new sources added after August 31st, 2022. It should be noted this report reflects the literature uncovered during searches using these criteria; it does not claim to uncover everything that happened in prisons across the world at this time. The world-wide Covid-19 pandemic presented numerous challenges to penal policy and especially to people living and working in prisons. High prison populations, often limited healthcare, the proximity of many people living closely together in small spaces and the movement of people (staff and visitors) in and out of prisons which can also lead to the virus having the potential to spread to local communitiesiii,iv - all led to urgent challenges. Another key consideration when considering the impact of Covid-19 on people in custody is their ‘increased prevalence of underlying health conditions’v,vi making them more vulnerable to Covid-19 than the general populationvii. The health of people in prisons is a public health concern and six months before the first cases of Covid-19 were confirmed in China, it was argued that overcrowding in prisons and its subsequent health risks was a ‘global time bomb.

Edinburgh: The Scottish Centre for Crime & Justice Research 2023. 39p.

What night-time lighting tells us about Tibet's prisons and detention centres authorities in Tibet are engaging in preventive repression towards their population.

By RAND Europe

As part of their nationwide 'stability maintenance' strategy, they are detaining, persecuting and convicting Tibetans for non-violent forms of protest and other expressions of dissent such as assisting or supporting self-immolations and carrying pictures of the Dalai Lama.

The precise workings, nature and scale of the Chinese Communist Party's efforts to imprison and detain Tibetans, however, remain poorly understood.

In contrast with the body of knowledge on the detention and imprisonment of Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang, the Tibetan detention system is still very much a black hole to the international community. The lack of evidence on many issues, especially on the so-called 'vocational training centres' and detention through the criminal justice system, is not evidence of the absence of repression. Rather, it highlights a need for further research to address many of the research gaps and to better understand the situation.

This study therefore aimed to build on the scant available evidence and leveraged an innovative method — night-time lighting data — to shed light on the prisons and detention facilities in Tibet.

Measured on a daily basis using satellite-based sensors, night-time lighting data represent an equilibrium measure of electricity consumption at night at specific locations over time. Aggregated into monthly trends, these data can help illuminate potential changes in the construction, growth or decline in the use of specific detention facilities across Tibet that may not be visible using overhead satellite imagery alone.

Cambridge, UK: RAND Europe, 2023. 8p.

Mentoring After Prison: Recognition As A Tool For Reflection

By Sarah Hean, Siv Elin Nord Sæbjørnsen, Trude Fløystad Eines & Cecilie Katrine Utheim Grønvik

Abstract Many organisations offer mentoring schemes to support people leaving prison and resettle back into the community. Mentorship relationships are complex but despite this, there remains limited theoretical and/or research informed tools to guide mentorship practices and hereby the success of ex-prisoner mentorship. The aim of the paper is to contribute to this shortfall by presenting a theoretically informed framework to assist reflection on mentorship practices and the mentorship relationship: the Recognition Reflection Framework (RRF). The framework has potential to provide mentors with a tool to reflect on ex-prisoners´ need for recognition of worth if they are to desist from crime. The paper describes the theoretical development and preliminary validation of this reflection framework, underpinned by a strengths-based mentoring approach, and developed through the merger of concepts from recognition theory, person centred care and therapeutic alliances. We present this framework as a means through which mentors can reflect on how they may specifically contribute to secondary and tertiary desistance, as well as reflect on ways they can personally develop a constructive mentor-client relationship.

British Journal of Community Justice. 26/07/2023.

Transitional Housing Support for People on Probation in Pima County, Arizona

By Rochisha Shukla, Ammar Khalid and Arielle Jackson

Through its participation in the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s Safety and Justice Challenge, Pima County, Arizona, strengthened its transitional housing program as part of a multifaceted approach to address housing instability among people with histories of criminal legal system involvement, including people serving probation. As part of this program, Pima County’s Adult Probation Department provided referrals and financial assistance to people on probation in need of immediate housing. In this study, the Urban Institute assessed the effects of receiving transitional housing support on people serving probation, especially in terms of jail incarceration.

WHY THIS MATTERS

Housing instability, especially chronic homelessness, has been found to have strong links to jail incarceration. Not only are people with histories of criminal legal system involvement at higher risk of facing homelessness, but homelessness can be a major cause of further system involvement. This is particularly true for people serving probation, whose probation conditions require them to report and maintain a valid address, a violation of which can result in jail incarceration.

WHAT WE FOUND

Our main takeaways include the following:

The Adult Probation Department prioritized people with higher risk and needs when making decisions about funding for transitional housing. Accordingly, people who received financial support from the department to access transitional housing were more likely to have been charged with a felony at the time of original sentencing, more likely to be classified as higher risk based on criminogenic risk scores, generally had more formal violation petitions filed against them, were more likely to be on the Intensive Probation Supervision caseload than the Standard Probation Supervision caseload, and were more likely to have sentences entailing incarceration and probation terms.

The odds of a probation termination to jail were not significantly different for people who received APD funding for transitional housing and those who did not. These null effects, however, could owe to the program being in its early stages, which translated to small number of people served and limited data available on people who received transitional housing support.

Although we did not observe that transitional housing support had any effects on the odds of being incarcerated in jail, interviewed stakeholders perceived this support for people on probation to be a crucial stabilizing force and extremely meaningful to their well-being.

Washington, DC: Urban Institute, Justice Policy Center, 2022. 18p.

Risk Averse and Disinclined: What COVID Prison Releases Demonstrate About the ability of the U.S. to Reduce Mass Incarceration

By Julia Laskorunsky

Kelly Lyn Mitchell and Sandy Felkey Mullins

This report examines the challenges and opportunities that states faced in deciding whether to release people from prison during the COVID-19 pandemic. It focuses on the legal mechanisms available to jurisdictions and the factors that influenced whether they were willing or able to use those mechanisms to release people from prison. Our goal is to illuminate whether back-end release mechanisms can be used to reduce prison populations that have been bloated by the policies of the mass-incarceration era or whether relief from mass incarceration must take some other form. The report presents case studies of six states—Alabama, Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota, Pennsylvania, and Washington—to gain a more in-depth view of how events unfolded during the pandemic. Overall, our study found that the number of individuals released early from prisons during the pandemic was limited due to a variety of factors, including politics, risk-averse decision-making, shifting external pressures, the limited scope of compassionate and medical release statutes and the use of discretion to deny release. In addition, few changes to policy or practice that occurred during the pandemic had a lasting impact on back-end release practices. We conclude that the back-end release mechanisms offer only a modest opportunity to reduce mass incarceration, and the current system is unlikely to make a substantial difference in addressing mass incarceration due primarily to risk aversion. Instead, state-level carceral policies that focus on diffusing responsibility for back-end release and that reduce incarceration in the first place have the greatest chance of achieving long-term reductions in prison populations.

.St. Paul, MN: University of Minnesota Robina Institute of Criminal Law and Criminal Justice, 2023. 73p.

Mass Probation from Micro to Macro: Tracing the Expansion and Consequences of Community Supervision

By Michelle S. Phelps

Between 1980 and 2007, probation rates in the United States skyrocketed alongside imprisonment rates; since 2007, both forms of criminal justice control have declined in use. Although a large literature in criminology and related fields has explored the causes and consequences of mass incarceration, very little research has explored the parallel rise of mass probation. This review takes stock of our knowledge of probation in the United States. In the first section, I trace the expansion of probation historically, across states, and for specific demographic groups. I then summarize the characteristics of adults on probation today and what we know about probation revocation. Lastly, I review the nascent literature on the causal effects of probation for individuals, families, neighborhoods, and society. I end by discussing a plan for research and the growing movement to blunt the harms of mass supervision.

Annual Review of Criminology, Annu. Rev. Criminol. 2020. 3:261–79

Parole Release and Supervision: Critical Drivers of American Prison Policy

By Kevin R. Reitz and Edward F. Rhine

Decisions tied to parole release, supervision, and revocation are major determinants of the ebb and flow of prison populations across two-thirds of US states. We argue that parole release, as an institution, has been an underacknowledged force in American incarceration and reincarceration policy and an important contributor to the nation's buildup to mass incarceration. In paroling states, no court or state agency holds greater power than parole boards over time actually served by the majority of offenders sent to prison. We examine the leverage exercised by parole boards through their discretionary release decisions and their powers to sanction violators of parole conditions. We note the state-by-state diversity and complexity associated with parole-release decisions and the absence of successful state systems that might serve as a model for other jurisdictions. We highlight the procedural shortfalls universally associated with parole decision-making. We discuss the long reach of parole supervision and the pains it imposes on those subject to its jurisdiction, including the substantial financial burdens levied on parolees. We then turn to the prospects for parole reform and outline a comprehensive blueprint for improving parole release in America.

Annual Review of CriminologyVol. 3:281-29, 2020.

Levers of Change in Parole Release and Revocation

By Edward E. Rhine, Kelly Lyn Mitchell, and Kevin R. Reitz

Paroling authorities play an important, if often unrecognized role, in American prison policies. Discretionary parole processes decide the actual release dates for most individuals subject to confinement in 34 states. Additional leverage over time served is exercised through parole boards’ revocation and re-release authority. The degree of discretion these back-end officials exert over the dosage of incarceration is vast, sometimes more than that held by sentencing courts.

Any comprehensive program to change American prison policy must focus to a significant degree on prison-release discretion, where it exists, and its relationship to time served. During the buildup to mass incarceration, many parole boards became increasingly reluctant to grant release to eligible prisoners. Today, if it were possible to reverse this upward driver of prison populations, parole boards could be important contributors to a new evidence-based status quo of lower prison rates in many states. Reasonable objectives of reform include policy-driven increases in the likelihood of parole release, and more rational decision making overall about time served.

This report describes twelve “levers of change,” each associated with potential reforms in the realm of discretionary parole release. The reforms are called “change levers” because, once a lever is pulled, it is designed to impact prison populations by altering parole grant rates and durations of time served. The report identifies 12 areas of innovation that, to some degree, have already been tried by a number of states. In most cases, from a distance, it is impossible to evaluate the quality of each state’s implementation of one or more change levers, or the results that have been achieved. But the fact that states have begun to experiment in specific areas shows that there is an appetite for reform. In addition, actual experimentation indicates that some of the groundwork has been laid for evaluation, improvement, and dissemination of promising ideas to many additional states.

Some levers have become embedded in the decision protocols of parole boards over the past 20 years and more, while others have emerged only recently. One of the goals of this report is to demonstrate how combining the levers is key to reform. This report maps the terrain of the 12 identified change levers, to the degree permitted by available information. The map shows a huge amount of state-by-state variation, even without hands-on study of each system. The report further classifies individual levers based on the number of jurisdictions in which they have been identified, and their potential impact on states’ prison populations.

St. Paul, MN: Robina Institute of Criminal Law and Criminal Justice, 2022. 36p.

A Randomized Controlled Trial of the Impact of Body-Worn Cameras in the Loudoun County, VA, Adult Detention Center

By Brittany C. Cunningham; Daniel S. Lawrence; Michael D. White; Bryce E. Peterson; James R. Coldren, Jr.; Jennifer Lafferty; Keri Richardson

his final research report presents an evaluation of body-worn cameras (BWCs) in the Loudoun County, Virginia, Adult Detention Center. The goal of this study was to conduct a rigorous process and impact evaluation of BWCs in a correctional setting to inform researchers and practitioners about the implementation and potential impacts of BWCs on critical correctional outcomes. To achieve this goal, the study team implemented a 12-month, clustered, randomized controlled trial, and collected data using a mixed-method design. Primary data sources included the following: surveys of deputies; interviews of jail leaders, deputies, and external jail stakeholders; a focus group with deputies who serve on the Special Weapons and Tactics team; observations of jail operations and BWC trainings; review and analysis of jail administrative data, including response to resistance (RTR) events and resident injuries; and review and analysis of data collected from stationary cameras and BWC footage. Research findings suggested that BWCs have potential for improving the safety and security of correctional facilities by reducing RTR events and preventing injuries to incarcerated residents. However, findings from deputy surveys raised questions about the potential impact of BWCs on deputy-resident relations. The study also addressed one of the primary points of contention about implementing BWCs in correctional environments: that they are superfluous to the existing network of stationary cameras. This study found limitations with both types of cameras, as well as areas where they can complement one another to help overcome those limitations. The study team made several recommendations for policy and disseminated the research through both academic and practitioner conferences and publications.

Alexandria, VA: CNA Analysis & Solutions, 2023. 26p

The First Step Act: Ending Mass Incarceration in Federal Prisons

By Ashley Nellis, Ph.D. and Liz Komar

In 2018, Congress passed and then-President Donald Trump signed into law the bipartisan First Step Act, a sweeping criminal justice reform bill designed to promote rehabilitation, lower recidivism, and reduce excessive sentences in the federal prison system. Lawmakers and advocates across both political parties supported the bill as a necessary step to address some of the punitive excesses of the 1980s and 1990s.

The First Step Act includes a range of sentencing reforms which made the Fair Sentencing Act of 2010 retroactive,I enhanced judicial discretion, created earned time credits, increased good time credits, reduced certain mandatory minimum sentences, and expanded the safety valve that allows persons with minor prior convictions to serve less time than previously mandated.

The First Step Act also seeks to expand opportunities for people in federal prisons to participate in rehabilitative programming to support their success after release. The law aims to produce lower odds of recidivism by incentivizing incarcerated individuals to engage in rigorous, evidence-based rehabilitation and education programming. In exchange and based on a favorable assessment of risk to the community, they may earn an earlier opportunity for release to community corrections.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) reports promising results thus far. The recidivism rate among people who have benefitted from the law is considerably lower than those who were released from prison without benefit of the law. Among the nearly 30,000 individuals whose release has been expedited by the First Step Act, nearly nine in every 10 have not been rearrested or reincarcerated. This 12% recidivism rate lies in stark contrast to the more typical 45% recidivism rate among people released from federal prison.

Washington, DC: The Sentencing Project, 2023. 9p.

Torture, Inhumanity and Degradation under Article 3 of the ECHR: Absolute Rights and Absolute Wrongs

By Natasa Mavronicola

This open access book theorises and concretises the idea of ‘absolute rights’ in human rights law with a focus on Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). It unpacks how we might understand what an ‘absolute right’ in human rights law is and draws out how such a right’s delimitation may remain faithful to its absolute character. From these starting points, it considers how, as a matter of principle, the right not to be subjected to torture or inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment enshrined in Article 3 ECHR is, and ought, to be substantively delimited by the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR). Focusing on the wrongs at issue, this analysis touches both on the core of the right and on what some might consider to lie at the right’s ‘fringes’: from the aggravated wrong of torture to the severity assessment delineating inhumanity and degradation; the justified use of force and its implications for absoluteness; the delimitation of positive obligations to protect from ill-treatment; and the duty not to expel persons to places where they face a real risk of torture, inhumanity or degradation. Few legal standards carry the simultaneous significance and contestation surrounding this right. This book seeks to contribute fruitfully to efforts to counter a proliferation of attempts to dispute, circumvent or dilute the absolute character of the right not to be subjected to torture or inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, and to offer the groundwork for transparently and coherently (re)interpreting the right’s contours in line with its absolute character. Winner of the 2022 SLS Peter Birks Prize for Outstanding Legal Scholarship.

London: Bloomsbury/Hart, 2022. 221p.

Process Evaluation of the Drug Recovery Prison at HMP Holme House

By Tammy Ayres, Ruth Hatcher and Emma Palmer

The Drug Recovery Prison (DRP) at HMP Holme House began in 2017 as a three-year pilot, jointly funded by NHS England (NHSE) and MOJ/HMPPS. The DRP aimed to address the supply of and demand for alcohol and illegal substances, improve treatment outcomes, and support ongoing recovery. The DRP process evaluation, jointly commissioned by MOJ and NHSE, aimed to understand how the pilot had been implemented, providing evidence on the roll out and capturing the perceptions and experiences of staff and prisoners.

Ministry of Justice Analytical Series, 2023. London: Ministry of Justice, 2023. 107p.

Torture: Moral Absolutes and Ambiguities

Edited by Bev Clucas, Gerry Johnstone, and Tony Ward

Not so long ago, the only respectable question for philosophical, legal, and political scholars to ask about torture was how to ensure its effective legal prohibition. Recently, however, some leading lawyers and legal theorists have challenged those who are absolutely opposed to torture, arguing that, in some circumstances, torture may be morally permissible or even required. This has provoked a range of responses, from outraged dismissal to cautious concessions that the law has to adjust to new realities. This volume contains writings by some of the leading contributors to these debates. Distinctively, it supplements the discussion about the morality of torture - and the morality of discussing torture - with essays which provide important legal, sociological, and historical analyses of this appalling human practice and of the attempts to control it. With an international and interdisciplinary authorship, Torture: Moral Absolutes and Ambiguities will be essential reading for legal and political theorists, philosophers, sociologists, historians, and indeed anybody interested in serious and informed thinking about this most disturbing phenomenon.

Baden-Baden, Germany: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG, 2009. 215p/

Deaths in prison: Examining causes, responses, and prevention

By Penal Reform International and the University of Nottingham

Mortality rates are up to 50% higher in prison than in the community, linked to a wide range of causes and contributing factors which raise serious concerns for human rights, public health, and prison management. Yet, information on who is dying in prison and why, including disaggregated data, remains a key problem in understanding and reducing deaths in prisons.

This briefing is a call to action for the international community and national actors to strengthen their approach to deaths in prisons, to take pro-active measures to prevent loss of life and, when deaths do occur, to respond appropriately and conduct robust investigations in line with international human rights standards to identify any systemic concerns and prevent future harm.

Published in partnership with the University of Nottingham, it is based on research conducted as part of the prisonDEATH initiative and survey responses to a call for input from PRI from a variety of stakeholders in 25 countries covering all regions, as well as 19 prison administrations facilitated by EuroPris. Aimed to inspire action, it includes some recommendations to guide human rights-based responses to prevent premature or avoidable deaths in prison.

London: PRI, 2022. 16p.

Investing Deaths in Prison: A guide to a human rights-based approach

By Prison Reform International and the University of Nottingham

nvestigating deaths in prisons is an essential part of a state’s human rights responsibilities, including the obligation to guarantee the right to life and the prohibition of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Investigations of deaths in prisons provide crucial evidence to find out what went wrong, provide redress to families, improve prison management and ultimately prevent future deaths.

This guide by PRI and the University of Nottingham provides prison authorities, policy makers, law enforcement officials, and families of persons deprived of liberty guidance and analysis on the basic features of human rights-based investigations into deaths in prison. It sets out key international and regional jurisprudence and includes recommendations to assist in designing and implementing an effective investigation system, as well as promising practices to inspire authorities to develop and implement reforms.

London: PRI, 2023. 26p.

Considering the Process of Debt Collection in Community Corrections: The Case of the Monetary Compliance Unit

By Nathan W. Link, Kathleen Powell, Jordan M. Hyatt, and Ebony L. Ruhland

Monetary sanctions levied on individuals on probation and parole may dramatically influence their ability to reintegrate into the community and to complete their community supervision. Yet very little work has empirically assessed how agencies respond to these obligations. This is critical, given that individuals under community supervision occupy a liminal space: free in the community yet often at risk of violation, rearrest, additional fines, or re-incarceration. In this article, we introduce an approach to the collection and management of monetary sanctions by an adult probation and parole agency in one Pennsylvania county. This specialized department focuses solely on repayment of fines, fees, and costs for a subset of probationers and parolees who have completed all other supervision requirements. We complement the conceptual overview by presenting administrative data on this caseload (N = 5,811) to describe the population under supervision and assess the factors associated with debt amount, having difficulty with repayment, and being the subject of an enforcement action for non-payment. We conclude with a discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of this model compared with historical and other existing models of debt enforcement during community supervision.

Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice, Volume 37, Issue 1, February 2021, Pages 128-147

Debt, Incarceration, and Re-entry: a Scoping Review

By Annie Harper, Callie Ginapp, Tommaso Bardelli, Alyssa Grimshaw & Marissa Justen & Alaa Mohamedali & Isaiah Thomas & Lisa Puglisi

People involved with the criminal justice system in the United States are disproportionately low-income and indebted. The experience of incarceration intensifies financial hardship, including through worsening debt. Little is known about how people who are incarcerated and their families are impacted by debt and how it affects their reentry experience. We conducted a scoping review to identify what is known about the debt burden on those who have been incarcerated and their families and how this impacts their lives. We searched 14 databases from 1990 to 2019 for all original research addressing financial debt held by those incarcerated in the United States, and screened articles for relevance and extracted data from pertinent studies. These 31 studies selected for inclusion showed that this population is heavily burdened by debt that was accumulated in three general categories: debt directly from criminal justice involvement such as LFOs, pre-existing debt that compounded during incarceration, and debts accrued during reentry for everyday survival. Debt was generally shown to have a negative effect on financial well-being, reentry, family structure, and mental health. Debts from LFOs and child support are very common among the justice-involved population and are largely unpayable. Other forms of debt likely to burden this population remain largely understudied. Extensive reform is necessary to lessen the burden of debt on the criminal justice population in order to improve reentry outcomes and quality of life.

American Journal of Criminal Justice (2021) 46:250–278

Substantiated Incidents of Sexual Victimization Reported by Adult Correctional Authorities, 2016-2018

By Emily D. Buehler

This report describes substantiated incidents of inmate sexual victimization by another inmate or by staff. It presents data on the incidents of sexual victimization, such as location and time of day. It also provides characteristics of the victims and perpetrators of the victimization. The report details services provided to the victim and consequences for the perpetrator. In part, it fulfills BJS’s mandates under the Prison Rape Elimination Act of 2003 (PREA; P.L. 108–79).

Highlights

  • During 2016–18:

  • Half of both inmate-on-inmate and staff-on-inmate sexual victimization incidents occurred in an area not under video surveillance.

  • There were 2,886 victims of inmate-on-inmate sexual victimization and 2,496 victims of staff-on-inmate sexual victimization in adult correctional facilities.

  • About 25% of victims of inmate-on-inmate nonconsensual sexual acts and 43% of victims of abusive sexual contact were female.

  • The victim was given a medical examination in 61% of inmate-on-inmate nonconsensual sexual act incidents and in 36% of abusive sexual contact incidents

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

Federal Sentencing of Child Pornography: Non-Production Offenses

By The United States Sentencing Commission

This report updates and expands upon the Commission's 2012 Report to the Congress: Federal Child Pornography Offenses. In this report, the Commission provides data from fiscal year 2019 regarding:

  • the content of the offender’s child pornography collection and nature of the offender’s collecting behavior;

  • the offender’s degree of involvement with other offenders, particularly in an internet community devoted to child pornography and child sexual exploitation; and

  • the offender’s engagement in sexually abusive or exploitative conduct in addition to the child pornography offense.

The report also examines the evolution of technology since the 2012 Child Pornography Report its continued impact on offender conduct and the widespread applicability of sentencing enhancements. Lastly, it provides a recidivism analysis of non-production offenders.

Washington, DC: USSC, 2021. 94p.

The impact of IPP sentences on prisoners’ wellbeing

By The Independent Monitoring Boards

Independent Monitoring Boards (IMBs) monitor and report on the conditions and treatment of those detained in every prison in England and Wales. The government recently rejected the Justice Select Committee’s recommendation for a resentencing exercise to take place for anyone serving an IPP sentence. IMBs submitted current findings on the impact of this decision, and the sentence itself, on IPP prisoners’ wellbeing. This briefing summarises findings from 24 IMBs submitted between 17 February and 9 March 2023 and references two 2021-22 annual reports from IMBs at HMPs Hewell and Moorland, which conducted surveys with IPP prisoners. Key findings The findings indicated: • Serious safety implications were heightened by the recent announcement, with assessment, care in custody and teamwork (ACCT) documents being opened for several IPP prisoners. Three apparently self-inflicted deaths of IPP prisoners occurred in three prisons in the four weeks following the announcement. • IPP prisoners had increased feelings of hopelessness and frustration following the announcement, which IMBs noted could act as a catalyst for poor mental health, violence and disruptive behaviour. • Variable and often inadequate staff engagement both pre- and post-announcement, with some prisoners only learning of the decision through a letter. • Progression pathways were poor and unclear to prisoners, which meant many prisoners questioned whether they would ever be released following the announcement. Some prisoners were being held in inappropriate establishments, often without access to required courses. The increasing difficulty of transferring to open conditions has left some prisoners ‘institutionalised’. • Insufficient preparation for parole hearings and for release, with reports of inadequate care plans and ‘through the gate’ provision. This lack of provision contributed to recall: for example, some prisoners were recalled only because of issues arising from the loss of accommodation.

London: Independent Monitoring Boards, 2023. 6p.