By Cara L. C. Hunter, Fergus McNeill, Milena Tripkovic

This article explores both the reasons for, and the potential impact of, the current level of disenfranchisement in Scotland. First, we scrutinise Scottish legal provisions for their compatibility with the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR)’s jurisprudence, which require disenfranchisement's aims to be clarified and delimited. Second, we examine where disenfranchisement sits within the wider context of Scottish penal values, and what principles underlie its imposition. Finally, we turn to a discussion of whether and how dis/enfranchisement aligns with the Scottish Government's commitments to the rehabilitation and reintegration of people who have been in prison, and to related empirical evidence about desistance from crime. The limited enfranchisement of prisoners established by the Scottish Government in 2020 avoided these core questions and this article aims to help address this neglect and to open up dialogue on these issues.

The Howard Journal of Crime and Justice, 2023.\

By Jason S. Sexton

n the aftermath of World War II, eugenics and the pseudoscientific base used to justify its practices are generally understood to have phased off the scene. If, however, eugenics never actually disappeared but has been persistent, and in turn becomes one of the best explanations for mass incarceration today, what role did Christianity—especially Evangelicalism—play in this unprecedented moment of imprisonment? Building on legal scholarship identifying the significant role of eugenic philosophy that manifests in penal policy and an ongoing into the early twenty-first century, this article examines key figures in the backdrop of eugenics’ particular early developments, as well as leading figures—namely, Billy Graham and Prison Fellowship’s Chuck Colson—whose ministries operated in close proximity to the prison during the latter twentieth century and especially over the past fifty years as incarceration rates skyrocketed. After examining several important theological tenets reflected within Evangelicalism that are compatible with eugenic logic, a critical approach is developed drawing from more robust theological considerations that if appropriated earlier might have found evangelicals resisting the mass incarceration building efforts rather than supporting them.

Journal of Law & Religion 39/1 (2024), Forthcoming, 71p.

By Hernandez D. Stroud, Lauren-Brooke Eisen, and Ram Subramanian

Few issues have received more sustained attention from U.S. policymakers over the last decade than the country’s unique overuse of incarceration. After decades of growth in imprisonment rates, states have attempted to reduce the number of people behind bars. Their reforms have been driven by a recognition that incarceration is expensive and often counterproductive and by research demonstrating that many people can be safely supervised in the community

New York: Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law , 2023. 24p.

By The American Bar Association, Working Group on Building Public Trust in the American Justice System

Adopted at the 2022 ABA Annual Meeting, the Ten Principles on Reducing Mass Incarceration articulate the critical steps necessary to help to combat the drivers of mass incarceration and ultimately reduce the number of people in jails and prisons nationwide.

Chicago: ABA, 2022. 61p.

By Nicole D. Porter and Morgan McLeod

Voting eligibility and a person’s involvement in the criminal legal system have a historical but unnatural association in the United States. Some state laws dating back over 100 years, and motivated by racist ideology, permanently ban people convicted of a felony from voting, and almost all states have long prevented voting by people in prison. Over the last 50 years the country’s investment in mass incarceration not only staggeringly increased the prison population and the community of people with a criminal record but increased the number of people banned from voting due to a felony conviction. As a result, over 4.6 million Americans with a felony conviction were disenfranchised as of 2022, disproportionately impacting Black and Latinx residents. Despite the stark consequences of mass incarceration and voter disenfranchisement, the advocacy of incarcerated and formerly incarcerated activists, organizers, legislative champions, and others have successfully fought to pass reforms to expand voting rights to justice-impacted individuals. These changes, both administrative and statutory in recent decades, coupled by recent modest declines in the population of incarcerated people and those under community supervision reduced the total number of people disenfranchised by 24% since reaching its peak in 2016. OVERVIEW Understanding the origins of this progress to restore voting rights is beneficial for democracy and justice. This report provides a state-by-state accounting of the changes to voting rights for people with felony convictions and measures its impact.5 Since 1997, 26 states and the District of Columbia have expanded voting rights to people living with felony convictions or amended policies to guarantee ballot access. These reforms were achieved through various mechanisms, including legislative reform, executive action, and ballot measures. The reforms include: • restoration of voting rights to persons in prison in Washington, DC; • expansion of voting rights to some or all persons on felony probation or parole in 12 states; and • increased accessibility for persons seeking rights restoration in 14 states. Over 2 million Americans have regained the right to vote since 1997. These changes to expand and guarantee voting rights demonstrate national momentum to reform the nation’s restrictive and racially discriminatory voting laws.

Washington, DC: The Sentencing Project, 2023. 28p.

By Anita Knudsen, Lenny Roth

Key points • Overrepresentation of Aboriginal people in the NSW criminal justice system continues to worsen. Almost one third of people in prison in NSW are Aboriginal. The increase in imprisonment has been most acute in remand, with almost 40% of Aboriginal people in prison on remand. • Record high numbers of people in prison, and growing awareness of the social and economic costs of prison, have intensified public discussions about alternatives to prison. • The main framework for reducing Aboriginal incarceration nationally and in NSW is the National Agreement on Closing the Gap, which includes a target to reduce the incarceration rate of Aboriginal people by at least 15% by 2031. • The NSW Closing the Gap Implementation Plan 2022–2024 emphasises the need for Aboriginal leadership, expertise and participation in strategies to reduce incarceration. These measures will take different times to mature and scale. • An important consideration identified by stakeholders is the need to consider how criminal justice legislation and policy contributes to increased numbers of Aboriginal people in prison and overrepresentation at every stage of the criminal justice process. • Inquiries and research have proposed a range of actions across prevention, early intervention, diversion from the criminal justice system, non-custodial sentencing options and post-release support specific to Aboriginal people.

Sydney: State of New South Wales through the Parliament of New South Wales, 2023. 44p,

Karin D. Martin, Kimberly Spencer-Suarez, Gabriela Kirk

This article proposes the centrality of procedural integrity—or fidelity to local norms of case processing—to the post-sentencing adjudication of monetary sanctions. We draw on insights gained from observations of more than 4,200 criminal cases in sixteen courts in New York and Illinois and find that procedural integrity becomes a focal point in the absence of monetary sanctions paid in full and on time. This examination of the interplay between the sociolegal context and workgroups within courtrooms brings to light how case processing pressure, mandatory monetary sanctions, defendants with pronounced financial insecurity, and judicial discretion inform the role monetary sanctions play in court operations.

RSF: The Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences January 2022, 8 (1) 128-147; DOI: https://doi.org/10.7758/RSF.2022.8.1.06

By The American Bar Association, Standing Committee on Legal Aid and Indigent Defense and Arnold Ventures

For some people in New Mexico, a $100 fee could be paid the same day with little thought. For most New Mexicans, however, $100 is a significant percentage of monthly income, and payment might require the person to forego groceries or diapers or miss a car or rent payment.1 Despite these differences, in administering court fines and fees, New Mexico courts fail to adequately distinguish between those with the ability to pay and those for whom payment causes grave hardship. Far too often the result is the incarceration of those unable to pay in violation of Bearden v. Georgia. 2 The American Bar Association (ABA) has developed extensive policies to provide guidance to jurisdictions on how to fairly administer court fines and fees to ensure that individuals are not punished simply for being poor. In 2018, the ABA adopted the Ten Guidelines on Court Fines and Fees, which urge jurisdictions to eliminate or strictly limit user fees (Guideline 1), ensure timely and fair assessment of ability to pay (Guideline 4 & 7), waive or reduce fines and fees based on ability to pay (Guidelines 1 & 2), refrain from using driver’s license suspensions or other disproportionate punishments for nonpayment (Guideline 3), allow individualized alternatives to monetary penalties (Guideline 6), and provide counsel for individuals facing incarceration as a consequence of failure to pay (Guideline 8). To understand the administration of fines and fees in New Mexico’s misdemeanor courts, a team from the ABA Standing Committee on Legal Aid and Indigent Defense (ABA SCLAID) conducted court observation of the state’s Metropolitan, Magistrate, and Municipal Courts over a four-year period from 2018 to 2022. These observations revealed that New Mexico courts routinely fall short of ABA standards. Some of the study’s key observations include: • New Mexico courts assess a wide variety of fees, not just upon conviction, but also pretrial, for supervision, and in connection with bench warrants. Many of these are user fees. • New Mexico rules do not provide for timely assessment of ability to pay, nor do they provide adequate opportunities for reductions or waivers based on substantial hardship. • Current “ability to pay” assessments only allow an individual to adjust payment plans usually to make smaller monthly payments for longer periods, which increases opportunities for failure to pay and extends the individual’s involvement with the criminal justice system. • Bench warrants are routinely issued for failure to appear and, in addition to being subject to arrest, the individual is charged a $100 fee, and his/her driver’s license is suspended. • Unpaid fees often result in further bench warrants, with accompanying fees, exacerbating the cycle of bench warrants, arrests, and debt. • When arrested on a bench warrant for failure to pay, individuals are jailed without a finding that the failure to pay was willful.

• Judges rarely reduce or waive fines or fees unless the individual first serves time in jail. • The “payment” of fines and fees through credit for jail time is common. These fines and fees result in little, if any, financial benefit to New Mexico. A case study of individuals who were arraigned in Bernalillo County (Albuquerque) Metropolitan Court (incustody) during a one-week period in 2017 showed that 93% “paid” their fines and fees exclusively through incarceration, while only 3% actually paid their fines and fees in full. A similar one-week study of 2021 cases showed that incarceration remains the dominant form of “payment” (73% of individuals satisfied at least a portion of their fines and fees with jail time), while a similarly small percentage of individuals (4%) paid their fines and fees in full.3 To comply with ABA policies, New Mexico should consider: • Eliminating or reducing court fees, particularly user fees; • Revising procedures to ensure prompt consideration of ability to pay at the time fees or fines are imposed; • Ensuring that those for whom payment would cause substantial hardship have access to waiver or reduction of fees; • Improving the hearing notice process and increasing second-chance opportunities before bench warrants issue for failure to appear; • Discontinuing driver’s license suspension as a consequence of nonpayment; • Ensuring that individuals cannot be jailed for nonpayment until after an ability to pay hearing and a finding that the failure to pay was willful; • Guaranteeing counsel for any indigent individual facing incarceration for failure to pay; and • Improving alternative payment options and ensuring that those options are personalized and account for each individual’s circumstances. By adopting the recommendations of this report, New Mexico courts can bring their practices into compliance with not only with ABA policy, but also with the requirements of the U.S. Constitution. For this reason, New Mexico should consider reforms to improve its fine and fees procedures and ensure that its criminal justice system does not punish individuals simply for being poor.4

Chicago: ABA, 2023. 67p.

By Judith Resnick, et al.

n the last decades, growing numbers of people have sought to use courts, government budgets have declined, new technologies have emerged, arrest and detention rates have risen, and arguments have been leveled that private resolutions are preferable to public adjudication. Lawsuits challenge the legality of fee structures, money bail, and the imposition of fines. States have chartered task forces to propose changes, and new research has identified the effects of the current system on low-income communities and on people of color. The costs imposed through fees, surcharges, fines, and bail affect the ability of plaintiffs and defendants to seek justice and to be treated justly.

This volume, prepared for the 21st Annual Arthur Liman Center Colloquium, explores the mechanisms for financing court systems and the economic challenges faced by judiciaries and by litigants. We address how constitutional democracies can meet their obligations to make justice accessible to disputants and to make fair treatment visible to the public. Our goals are to understand the dimensions of the problems, the inter-relationships among civil, criminal, and administrative processes, and the opportunities for generating the political will to bring about reform.

Yale Law School, Public Law Research Paper No. 644. New Haven, CT: Yale Law School, 2020. 223p

Wilson Center for Science and Justice and the Fines and Fees Justice Center

Ability to Pay, Collateral Consequences, Courts as Revenue Centers, Racial Disparities, Traffic Fines and Fees . Court-imposed debt impacts working families across all racial groups, political affiliations, and income levels. In the past ten years, a third of Americans have been directly affected by fines or fees related to traffic, criminal, juvenile, or municipal court. This report is the first national survey to examine how court-imposed fines and fees affect individuals and families. Researchers found that fines and fees debt creates hardships in people’s daily lives. Many respondents reported experiencing serious hardship, being impacted in three or more aspects of daily life.

Wilson Center for Science and Justice and the Fines and Fees Justice Center . 2023. 40p.

By Cristina Mendez, Jeffrey Selbin and Gus Tupper

In 2019, the Idaho Legislature’s Office of Performance Evaluations (OPE) published a report acknowledging Idaho’s reliance on fines and fees as a source of court funding. According to the report Idaho residents owed a total of more than $268 million in delinquent court debt. In this article, the authors further examine the state’s reliance on monetary sanctions, focusing on fees in the juvenile delinquency system, and recommending a pathway to ending the harmful impact of monetary sanctions.

57 Idaho L. Rev. (2021).

By Anna VanCleave, Brian Highsmith, Judith Resnik, Jeff Selbin, Lisa Foster

Money has a long history of being used as punishment, and punishment has a long history of being used discriminatorily and violently against communities of color. This volume surveys the many misuses of money as punishment and the range of efforts underway to undo the webs of fines, fees, assessments, charges, and surcharges that undergird so much of state and local funding. Whether in domains that are denominated “civil,” “criminal,” or “administrative,” and whether the needs are about law, health care, employment, housing, education, or safety services, racism intersects with the criminalization of poverty in all of life’s sectors to impose harms felt disproportionately by people of color. In the spring of 2020, the stark inequalities of the pandemic’s impact and of police killings sparked uprisings against the prevalence of state-based violence and of government failures. Those protests have underscored the urgent need for profound, sustainable transformations in government systems that have become all too familiar. This volume maps the structures that generate oppressive practices, the work underway to challenge the inequalities, and the range of proposals to seek lasting alterations of expectations and practices so as to shape a social and political order that is respectful of all individuals’ dignity, generative for communities, and provides a range of services to protect safety and well-being.

The Arthur Liman Center for Public Interest Law at Yale Law School Fines & Fees Justice Center Policy Advocacy Clinic at UC Berkeley School of Law, 2020. 337p.

By Public Safety Canada

Indigenous offenders continue to be disproportionately represented at all levels of the Canadian criminal justice system and the federal government is committed to addressing this over-representation of Indigenous people. The Indigenous Community Corrections Initiative (ICCI) was created to help close the gaps in service for Indigenous Peoples in the criminal justice system and address the government commitment to respond to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) Calls to Action, in particular actions 30 and 32 regarding the over-representation of Indigenous offenders in custody. The objectives of the Initiative are to support the development of alternatives to custody and to provide reintegration support for Indigenous offenders. Public Safety Canada (PS) was allocated $10M over five years in Budget 2017 for the ICCI. While the target population for the Initiative was Indigenous federal offenders, the Department accepted proposals that included Indigenous adult offenders who had been convicted of an offence with a sentence of less than two years (generally classified as provincial offenders). The call for proposals closed in November 2017 and PS received 126 submissions. An initial assessment screened out 62 proposals that did not meet the objectives of the ICCI and a secondary assessment of the remaining proposals ended with 15 projects selected for funding. Due to the program being approved late in the 2017-18 fiscal year, the program was not able to fund projects until 2018-19. After a successful re-profiling of funds, the ICCI was able to add an additional project in 2018 which brought the total to 16 funded projects.

Ottawa: Public Safety Canada, 2021. 30p.

By Miranda Davies, Rachel Hutchings and Eilís Keeble

There were 11,494 people under 25 years of age in young offender institutions and prisons in England and Wales as of 31 December 2022, representing 14% of the total population in custody. While the number of children (under 18) in secure settings has fallen sharply over the past 15 years, very serious challenges remain over the use of force in the children’s secure estate, with ongoing concern over children being held in solitary confinement, some for extended periods. From a legal perspective, young people are treated as adults from the age of 18 within the criminal justice system, but there is recognition of the needs of 18- to 25-year-olds as ‘young adults’ (see the work of t2a.org.uk), distinct from the needs of children or other adults. This analysis uses routinely collected hospital data to look at the service-use patterns of children and young adults aged 25 and under in young offender institutions and prisons in England. We engaged with experts and looked at the literature to consider this in the context of the key health care needs of young people. Looking across the children’s secure estate as well as the adult estate provides a novel perspective on the key health care issues for young people, allowing us to compare experiences in the so-called ‘children and young people secure estate’, which caters for those aged 18 and under and is run as a distinct part of the custodial estate, with those in the adult estate, which manages young adults alongside prisoners in older age groups. Understanding how health care access and needs differ is important, because the distinction between the two parts of the system is becoming increasingly blurred. Recently, population pressures in the adult estate have led to an increase in the number of young people aged 18 or over in the children’s secure estate, which will drastically alter the age profile of the children’s secure estate population.

A summary of the key findings and some considerations for policy-makers are provided below. We found that some of the biggest problems affecting the adult prison estate – violence and self-harm – have a disproportionate impact on young adults. We consider how the prison service can meet the needs of young people in custodial settings, and the benefits of providing tailored support for young adults in particular.

London: Nuffield Trust, 2023. 55p.

By Hilde T. Werminka, A. A. J. Bloklanda,b, J. Beenc, P. M. Schuyt, . N. Tollenaare and R. Apel;

Noncustodial sanctions may present an attractive way to reduce the prison population rate, but only when noncustodial sanc-tions meet custodial ones in terms of deterring recidivism. Using administrative criminal records data of all individuals convicted in the Netherlands in 2012, this study examines the effects of short-term imprisonment versus noncustodial sanctions on crime. We employ an instrumental variables approach to account for selection processes and to produce consistent estimates of the effects of imprisonment. Findings indicate that being sentenced to prison rather than a noncustodial sanction increases the prevalence of recidivism by 10 percentage points and increases recidivism rates by 1.07 registered crimes during a follow-up period of three years. Treatment effect heterogeneity analyses show that the detri-mental impact of imprisonment is most pronounced for first-time prisoners, and adult offenders, compared to repeat prisoners and young adult offenders.IntroductionReducing the prison population is one of the biggest challenges faced in the criminal justice system across countries worldwide. There are many good reasons to exercise restraint when it comes to imprisonment. For one, imprisoning people is an expensive enterprise, and the costs of imprisonment typically weigh heavy on the criminal justice budget (e.g. Phelps & Pager, 2016). To the extent that imprisonment maintains or even increases marginalization of the imprisoned population following their release, these direct costs may be dwarfed by imprisonment’s indirect societal costs

Justice Quarterly, April 2023.

By Jacob Harris, et al.

While there is a growing literature investigating the causes and consequences of the US prison boom—the tripling of prison facilities between 1970 and 2000—much less is known about current patterns of prison closures. We use novel data capturing the universe of prison closures (N=188) from 2000 to 2022 to identify and characterize what we term “the prison bust”—the period since 2000 when prison closures began to climb and eventually eclipse new prison building. We show that the prison bust is, in part, a consequence of development-oriented prison-building policies that aggressively used prisons to stimulate struggling local economies. The bust is primarily concentrated in the counties that pursued prison building most aggressively, reflecting a highly cyclical and reactionary pattern of prison placement and closure. We also show that, relative to counties with at least one prison but no closures, closures are concentrated in metro counties with stronger local economies and multiple prisons. Overall, we highlight the prison bust as an important new era in the history of US punishment and provide a new dataset for investigating its causes and consequences. We conclude by discussing the theoretical and policy implications of these findings.

Unpublished Paper, 2023. 36p.

By Miranda Davies, Lucina Rolewicz, Laura Schlepper and Femi Fagunwa

There were, on average, 83,000 people in prison in England and Wales at any one time last year, yet relatively little is known about prisoners’ physical health care needs; how and why they access hospital services; and whether their physical health needs are being adequately met. Drawing on over 110,000 patient hospital records for prisoners at 112 prisons in 2017–18, this study provides the most in-depth look to date at how prisoners’ health needs are being met in hospital. Prisoners use hospital services far less and miss more hospital appointments than the general population • Prisoners had 24% fewer inpatient admissions and outpatient attendances than the equivalent age and sex demographic in the wider population, and 45% fewer attendances at accident and emergency departments. • 40% of outpatient appointments for prisoners were not attended (32,987 appointments) – double the proportion of non-attended appointments in the general population. Our research found that the value of non-attended appointments by prisoners in 2017/18 where no advanced warning was given equated to around £2 million for the NHS. Prisoners have particular health needs related to violence, drug use and self-harm • Injury and poisoning were the most common reason for prisoners being admitted to hospital, accounting for 18% of cases (2,169 admissions) compared to 6% of all admissions in the general population (aged 15+). • Psychoactive substance use was recorded in more than 25% of all inpatient admissions by prisoners in 2017/18. Hospital data reveals potential lapses of care within prisons for certain groups of prisoners • Six prisoners gave birth either in prison or on their way to hospital, representing more than one in 10 of all women who gave birth during their prison stay. • There were 51 hospital admissions by 39 prisoners with diabetes as a result of diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA), an avoidable and potentially life-threatening complication of diabetes caused by lack of insulin. This analysis points to two key areas where more focused policy attention could result in improvements to prisoner health: improving prisoners’ access to hospital care and making better use of hospital data. We therefore make the following recommendations for the five public authorities involved in the National Partnership Agreement for Prison Healthcare – the Ministry of Justice, Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service, Public Health England, the Department of Health and Social Care, and NHS England – as well as prisons, health care providers, commissioners, and the research community .

London: Nuffield Trust, 2020. 83p.

By Chad M. Topaz, Shaoyang Ning, Maria-Veronica Ciocanel & Shawn Bushway

Race-based inequity in federal criminal sentencing is widely acknowledged, and yet our understanding of it is far from complete. Inequity may arise from several sources, including direct bias of courtroom actors and structural bias that produces racially disparate impacts. Irrespective of these sources, inequity may also originate from different loci within the federal system. We bring together the questions of the sources and loci of inequity. The purpose of our study is to quantify race-based disparate impact and differential treatment at the national level and at the level of individual federal judicial districts. We analyze over one-half million sentencing records publicly available from the United States Sentencing Commission database, spanning the years 2006 to 2020. At the system-wide level, Black and Hispanic defendants receive average sentences that are approximately 19 months longer and 5 months longer, respectively. Demographic factors and sentencing guideline elements account for nearly 17 of the 19 months for Black defendants and all five of the months for Hispanic defendants, demonstrating the disparate impact of the system at the national level. At the individual district level, even after controlling for each district’s unique demographics and implementation of sentencing factors, 14 districts show significant differences for minoritized defendants as compared to white ones. These unexplained differences are evidence of possible differential treatment by judges, prosecutors, and defense attorneys.

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications volume 10, Article number: 366 (2023)

By Nazgol Ghandnoosh

One in five Black men born in 2001 is likely to experience imprisonment within their lifetime, a decline from one in three for those born in 1981. Pushback from policymakers threatens further progress in reducing racial inequity in incarceration

Following a massive, four-decade-long buildup of incarceration disproportionately impacting people of color, a growing reform movement has made important inroads. The 21st century has witnessed progress both in reducing the U.S. prison population and its racial and ethnic disparities. The total prison population has declined by 25% after reaching its peak level in 2009.1 While all major racial and ethnic groups experienced decarceration, the Black prison population has downsized the most. The number of imprisoned Black Americans decreased 39% since its peak in 2002.2 Despite this progress, imprisonment levels remain too high nationwide, particularly for Black Americans.

Reforms to drug law enforcement and to sentencing for drug and property offenses, particularly those impacting urban areas which are disproportionately home to communities of color, have fueled decarceration and narrowed racial disparities.3 These trends have led scholars to declare a “generational shift” in the lifetime likelihood of imprisonment for Black men.4This risk has fallen from a staggering one in three for those born in 1981 to a still troubling one in five for Black men born in 2001.5 Black women have experienced the sharpest decline in their imprisonment rate, falling by 70% between 2000 and 2021.6

But nine years after national protests catapulted the Black Lives Matter movement following the police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri and three years after a national racial reckoning triggered by Minneapolis police officers killing George Floyd, progress in reducing racial disparity in the criminal legal system is incomplete and at risk of stalling or being reversed.

The United States remains fully in the era of mass incarceration. The 25% decline in the total prison population since 2009 follows a nearly 700% buildup in imprisonment since 1972.7 The prison population in 2021 was nearly six times as large as 50 years ago, before the era of mass incarceration, and in 2022 the prison population expanded.8 The prison and jail incarceration rate in the United States remains between five and eight times that of France, Canada, and Germany and imprisonment rates in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Oklahoma are nearly 50% above the national average.9 The reluctance to fully correct sentencing excesses, particularly for violent crimes as supported by criminological evidence, prolongs the harm and futility of mass incarceration.10

Racial equity in incarceration remains elusive. The lifetime likelihood of imprisonment among Black men born in 2001, although decreased, remains four times that of their white counterparts.5 Black women’s rate of imprisonment in 2021 was 1.6 times the rate of white women.12 These disparities are even more pronounced in certain states, and among those serving the longest sentences.13 In 2021, American Indian and Latinx people were imprisoned at 4.2 times and 2.4 times the rate of whites, respectively.14 Fully uprooting these racial and ethnic disparities requires both curbing disparities produced by the criminal legal system and addressing the conditions of socioeconomic inequality that contribute to higher rates of certain violent and property crimes among people of color.

Washington, DC: The Sentencing Project, 2023. 16p.

By Selma Djokovic and Ryan Shanahan

Findings from a randomized controlled trial (RCT) conducted in prisons in South Carolina show that Restoring Promise’s approach to culture change significantly reduces prison violence and the use of restrictive housing (commonly referred to as solitary confinement).1 Restoring Promise Restoring Promise, an initiative of the MILPA Collective and the Vera Institute of Justice (Vera), works with departments of corrections to transform housing units so that they are grounded in dignity for young adults (ages 18 to 25) in prison. Launched in 2017, Restoring Promise is now operating in six prisons and one jail across five states. The housing units are led by trained corrections professionals and mentors— incarcerated people over the age of 25 who are serving long, often life, sentences who live on the unit with and guide the young adults. Participation for young adults includes living in a designated housing unit, having a structured and meaningful daily schedule, being connected to mentors, developing leadership skills, enhancing connections to family and community, and designing and participating in specialized programs and activities. The program strives to transform the prison culture into one of accountability, healing, and learning.2 The findings Restoring Promise housing units had less violence and fewer restrictive housing unit stays. Findings from an RCT conducted in South Carolina show that Restoring Promise’s approach to culture change in prisons significantly reduces violence. Young adults living in a Restoring Promise unit experienced a 73 percent reduction in the odds of a conviction for a violent infraction and an 83 percent reduction in the odds of a restrictive housing stay during their first year of participation, compared to the control group in general population. These numbers account for a range of factors that may have implications for the outcomes (including custody level, education level, pre-treatment outcomes, length of time in the study, race, and age). Researchers looked at other outcomes and did not find significant treatment effects (disciplinary misconduct, grievances, injuries, staff use of force, and medical/mental health interventions).

New York: Vera Institute of Justice, 2023. 8p.