Edited by Leslie Fairweather; Sean McConville

Current and future prison designs are examined in this book, within the government's prison building programme, and the confines of current penal philosophies and legislation. America has led the way in prison design, with two main types of architecture predominating: radial layouts (outside cells with windows) and linear blocks (inside cells with grilles). Now, 'new' generation prisons (central association surrounded by small groups of cells) look set to become the fashion. But are they a better answer, and should they be copied worldwide before we know?Architects and administrators show in this book the designs of these 'new generation' prisons and assess their impact. Most countries in central Europe also have a rising crime rate and a demand for new prisons. Contributions from significant architects from the UK, Europe and America comment on these issues.Other topics within the book are: setting current prison architecture and design against an historical setting; looking at penal ideas and prison architecture and design in the post-war period; the psychological effects of the prison environment; the influence of technology and design on security management; and how prison architecture and design can be more flexible and innovative.

Abingdon, Oxon, UK: New York: Architectural Press, 2000. 199p.

By Human Rights Watch

The 36-page report, “Prison or Exile: Cuba’s Systematic Repression of July 2021 Demonstrators,” documents a wide range of human rights violations committed in the context of the protests, including arbitrary detention, abuse-ridden prosecutions, and torture. The government’s repression and its apparent unwillingness to address the underlying problems that drove Cubans to the streets, including limited access to food and medicine, have generated a human rights crisis that dramatically increased the number of people leaving the country.

New York: HRW, 2022. 36p.

By E.A.C. Raaijmakers

In thinking about punishment, and imprisonment in particular, the concept of severity plays a central role. After all, the severity of imprisonment is assumed to deter offenders from committing crime and is used as the vehicle to express a proportionate amount of blame and censure to the offender. Unfortunately, the concept of severity as it has been understood for the past three centuries, mostly pertains to the objective severity of imprisonment. Severity in this view is considered to be merely dependent upon objective properties of punishment, most notably its duration. A prison sentence for instance, is considered to be more aversive simply insofar as it is longer rather than shorter. The severity as experienced by inmates themselves, however, has barely been explored. This thesis assesses the determinants of the subjectively experienced severity of imprisonment, and its consequences for the remembered severity of imprisonment, and post-release offending behavior. The findings reveal that inmates differ markedly in their experienced severity of imprisonment. In addition, inmates’ experienced severity of imprisonment changes substantially over the course of incarceration. While the severity as experienced while being incarcerated is strongly related to the severity as remembered following release, it is not related to post-release offending behavior.

Leiden, Netherlands: Leiden University, 2017. 153p.

By A.Q. Bosma

This dissertation aimed to study the functioning and effectiveness of the Prevention of Recidivism Program, a prison-based rehabilitation program aimed to reduce the re-offending rates of program participants, by conducting a plan-, process and product evaluation. The results indicated that the Prevention of Recidivism program could be considered promising, since it applied methods that were considered effective based on theoretical and empirical knowledge. In practice however, it was shown that program-execution was severely hampered by a number of issues; the program had rather strict inclusion criteria; faced considerable non-participation and non-completion rates; and often allocated offenders to inappropriate treatment. In the end, the program reached a limited group of offenders, most of whom completed a standard program, with no specific treatment aimed to target the factors that initially caused their criminal behavior. Consequently, the program was only shown effective for a small group of offenders that completed a standard treatment program. The most vital program-component, criminogenic need-specific treatment modules, was not shown effective. It was therefore concluded that the Prevention of Recidivism Program had for the most part not been effective in reaching its goals.

Leiden, Netherlands: Leiden University, 2017. 229p.

By M.L. Berghuis

Practically all prisoners eventually return to free society. Considering their high rates of subsequent recidivism, more insight into post-prison circumstances is vital. Such knowledge is scarce, and it also remained unclear thus far to what extent imprisonment caused these individuals to lose their integration with the community. Scholars, professionals and prisoners themselves note that the path to a successful reentry critically depends on the transition to employment. Yet, imprisonment bars offenders from employment during imprisonment and might also limit their post-prison employment prospects. Using data of the Prison Project – a longitudinal study of almost 2,000 prisoners – this thesis examines men’s labor market experiences before and after imprisonment and studies whether recidivism risks are lower among employed versus unemployed ex-prisoners. The results show that most prisoners face a severe human capital deficit even long before they enter prison. After release many remain unable to (re)integrate into the labor market. Only longer spells (exceeding six months) seem to further deteriorate the already poor employment prospects. Among working ex-prisoners, those who are able to return to a previous employer or hold down their job during the first half year following release recidivate significantly less.

One of the few ways individuals can have meaningful contact with the outside world while incarcerated is through prison visits. Prison visitation has steadily gained academic attention in the past decade as theoretical accounts highlight that receiving visits in prison is beneficial and empirical studies largely reinforce this, leading to increased calls for stimulating prison visits. Yet not all results lead to unequivocal conclusions, and little is known about whether, how often, and from whom individuals receive visits and under which circumstances visits affect behavior, especially across different contexts and populations. Work on this topic is complicated as visitation is a heterogeneous experience and the social and incarceration contexts in which visits take place are complex. By taking a comprehensive approach and using multifaceted measures of visitation from several sources, the current dissertation furthers our understanding of prison visitation, its impacts, and its likelihood across people. This dissertation demonstrates that a substantial number of individuals do not receive visits in Dutch prison. While some individuals are less likely to receive visits, this dissertation finds that prison policies can also enable or hinder the receipt of visits. Receiving visits is not always positive for life in prison, but receiving frequent visits, especially before release, seems important for reentry success.

Leiden, Netherlands: Leiden University, 2022. 263p.

By A.A.T. Ramakers

Practically all prisoners eventually return to free society. Considering their high rates of subsequent recidivism, more insight into post-prison circumstances is vital. Such knowledge is scarce, and it also remained unclear thus far to what extent imprisonment caused these individuals to lose their integration with the community. Scholars, professionals and prisoners themselves note that the path to a successful reentry critically depends on the transition to employment. Yet, imprisonment bars offenders from employment during imprisonment and might also limit their post-prison employment prospects. Using data of the Prison Project – a longitudinal study of almost 2,000 prisoners – this thesis examines men’s labor market experiences before and after imprisonment and studies whether recidivism risks are lower among employed versus unemployed ex-prisoners. The results show that most prisoners face a severe human capital deficit even long before they enter prison. After release many remain unable to (re)integrate into the labor market. Only longer spells (exceeding six months) seem to further deteriorate the already poor employment prospects. Among working ex-prisoners, those who are able to return to a previous employer or hold down their job during the first half year following release recidivate significantly less.

Leiden, Netherlands: Leiden University, 2014. 217p.

By Andrew Silke and John Morrison

Recent cases of attacks by released terrorist prisoners highlight issues around the risk of re-offending posed by former terrorist prisoners. What are the appropriate processes and systems for managing and risk assessing such individuals, and to what extent is rehabilitation possible in the context of terrorist offending? This Policy Brief will explore these and related issues to help inform wider discussion and debates on appropriate policy in this area. In this Policy Brief, the authors critically analyse the definition of ‘recidivism’, and demonstrate the need for a concrete operational definition before one is able to truly analyse recidivist activity. Following this, the authors discuss terrorist recidivism in a range of international contexts, ranging from Northern Ireland to Sri Lanka, the United States to Israel. By taking this broader perspective it allows the reader to gain a greater understanding of what factors related to recidivism rates may be context-specific, and which are universal.

The Hague: International Centre for Counter-Terrorism, 2020. 13p.

By Rafael Di Tella and Juan Dubra

We describe the evolution of selective aspects of punishment in the United States over the period 1980–2004. We note that imprisonment increased around 1980, a period that coincides with the ‘‘Reagan revolution’’ in economic matters. We build an economic model where beliefs about economic opportunities and beliefs about punishment are correlated. We present three pieces of evidence (across countries, within the United States, and an experimental exercise) that are consistent with the model.

Washington, DC: Cato Institute, 2011. 53p.

By Walter Besant.

“On a certain afternoon in about four or five of the clock, I was standing at the open window of my room in that Palace to which Fortune leads her choicest favourites the College, or Prison, as some call it, of the King's Bench. I was at the time a prisoner for debt, with very little chance of ever getting out….”

New York: Dodd, Mead, 1899,. 444p.

By John McElroy.

A Story of Rebel Military Prisons By John McElroy, late of Co.L. 16th III Can. 15 months a guest of the so-called Southern Confederacy. A Private soldiers experience in Richmond, Andersonville, Savannah, Millen Blackshear and Florence.

Harrow and Heston Classic Reprint. (1879) 675 pages.

By Horst Entorf.

Economists think that unemployment is an important cause for crime. From the theoretical point of view, this belief seems to be reasonable, since, according to the standard economic theory of crime by Nobel laureate Gary Becker , unemployed individuals are per definition excluded from legal income opportunities, and, thus, more likely to commit crimes than people who have a job. Empirical evidence is less clear. Econometric studies often show ambiguous signs for the effect of unemployment on crime. The main problem is the lack of adequate micro data. In this study based on a survey of 1,771 inmates conducted in 31 German prisons, the focus is on (expected) recidivism, not on criminal activity in general. Instead of re-contacting former inmates after their release (which would cause the problem of losing sight of most re-offending inmates), we interviewed prisoners about the perceived probability of their own future recidivism. Results show that inmates with poor labour market prospects expect a significantly higher rate of future recidivism. Having a closer look at subgroups of prisoners reveals that drug and alcohol addiction cause adverse effects. Thus, improving prisoner health care by installing effective anti-drug programmes would be one of the most effective measures against crime.

Mannheim: ZEW – Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research, 2008. 26p.

By J.V.O.R. Doekhie.

A qualitative longitudinal analysis of different dimensions of the desistance process among long-term prisoners in the netherlands. In the past decades a growing body of literature has been dedicated to explain desistance from offending behaviour, or to answer the question why some offenders quit crime and others do not. From a classic biological approach, desistance can be explained by processes of maturation (Hirschi & Gottfredson, 1983; Moffit, 1993; Matza, 1964) and sociological theories contributed a great deal to the desistance framework by focusing on changes in social control or bonds and on the effects of important life events in the journey away from crime (Hirschi, 1969, Sampson & Laub, 1993).

Leiden: University of Leiden Repository. 2019. 278p.

By Henry M. Boies.

A study of the abnormal increase of criminals and the public burden of pauperism in the U.S. - the causes and remedies. THERE are four hundred and forty-six charitable, reformatory, and penal institutions in the State of Pennsylvania, inspected at least once each year by its Board of Public Charities. They have a wide variety of objects, methods, management, and inmates. The view which a member of this Board obtains, therefore, and the impressions he receives of pauperism and criminality are of a very general nature, inducing a consideration of the subject as a whole. Most of the literature of these subjects, on the contrary, is confined to particular and distinct phases of them. I have endeavored in this book to present this general view of the case as it appears in our country ; to emphasize the waste of human sympathy and public funds which results from what appears to be inconsiderate and misdirected methods of treatment ; to suggest not only possible improvements in these methods, but radical changes in direction ; and, finally, I have proposed a positive remedy, which, however people may disagree concerning its practicability.

New York: Putnam, 1893. 318p.

Edited by M.J.M.Brand-Koolen.

This reader on the prison system was edited by Maria Brand-Koolen. Two chapters have been written especially for this volume - the introductory chapter, written by the editor, and the chapter on temporary release, written by a researcher with the RDC and a member of the Prison Department. Three contributions by Tony Vinson of Australia, who explored the Dutch correctional system in some detail during his visit to the Centre in 1985, are slightly revised versions of chapters from a recent RDC publication. The remaining contributions are the work of (former) RDC researchers and have been published earlier in the Dutch language. Some of these previously published papers have been slightly revised to provide more recent data.The general studies in the first part of the two-part volume provide an overview of the main characteristics of Dutch correctional policy and research. The first chapter aims to give the non-Dutch reader a general idea of the criminal justice system in The Netherlands (in particular the correctional system) and to facilitate understanding of the other contributions. In the second part of the book the authors deal with a variety of special topics, among others the mentally abnormal offender, drug users, ethnic minorities and prison leave.

Deventer: Kugler Publications, 1987. 194p.

By Roy Walmsley.

This second study of developments in the prison systems of central and eastern Europe owes a very great deal to the contributions of experts in the participating countries. I am extremely grateful for the warm hospitality of those prison administrations that I visited and the generous co-operation of those that completed survey questionnaires giving detailed information on the situation in their prison systems, including statistics of prisoners, penal institutions and prison staff. The report focuses mainly on the situation in 2001, although some reference is made to developments in the following year, notably the passing of new legislation bearing on the prison system, and the publication of documents referring to events in 2001. But it must be acknowledged that some of the information presented will already have been superseded by subsequent events. In covering so wide a range of countries and so broad a topic it is not feasible to present detailed information on each prison administration that is completely up-to-date. An appendix containing reference material also mentions some more recent events, in particular the appointment of new directors of prison administration. The core of the study is contained in the first twenty sections which provide an overview of developments across the whole region. The second part presents an account of the situation in each of the twenty-four prison systems (sections 21-44), and also brief information about prisons of the region that are located in areas that are outside the control of the governments of the countries of which they are officially a part and are consequently not under the prison administrations of those countries.

Helsinki: European Institute for Crime Prevention and Control, 2003. 593p.

Edited by JOSINE JUNGER-TAS.

This study has been conducted at the request of the Director-General of (Juvenile and Adult) Corrections of the Dutch Ministry of Justice, who wanted an overview of experiences with alternative sanctions in other countries with a view to future development of the Dutch sanctioning system. The principal objective of the study was to examine the use of alternatives to prison with respect to their effectiveness and efficiency. Therefore, the focus of the study is on the evaluation of alternative sanctions on the basis of empirical research. The study covers 135 documents from 12 western countries: the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, England, Scotland, Sweden, Finland, Norway, Germany, Austria and France. Much of the research material has been provided by the Documentation Department of the WODC (Research and Documentation Center). In addition, the Ministries of Justice of the above-mentioned countries and a great number of foreign academic colleagues have been approached in order to collect more recent research material as well as policy documents. In this way an attempt has been made to obtain as complete a picture as possible of the state of the art with respect to the substitution of prison by new sanctions and their effects in terms of reduction of the prison population, of recidivism and of costs.

The Hague : RDC, Ministry of Justice : Amsterdam; New York: Kugler Publications, 1994. 104p.

By Carl Berry.

Electronic monitoring, (EM), or ‘tagging’, is a relatively recent but increasingly used sentencing measure employed by criminal justice agencies across the globe. Dispensed for a range of criminal offences, it typically functions by enabling the construction of a curfew intended to keep users in a designated place for a period of time. Despite its widespread usage, tagging is an under researched and controversial penal sanction beset with numerous difficulties that has garnered as much criticism as praise. The emergence of EM accompanies concerns about increasing uses of surveillance and control within society, yet has been often faulted for failing to practically function. As new technologies transform the criminal justice landscape, recent theoretical perspectives have attempted to theorise measures like EM within criminology. Foremost amongst these positions, actor network theory (or ANT), is a constructivist approach that advocates using observational methods, which, besides challenging many long standing social scientific ideas, controversially contends that material objects have agency and lead ‘fluid lives’. Asserting further that objects are entangled with humans in ‘assemblages of actors’, the position attempts to demonstrate how dynamic interactions within these ‘heterogeneous networks’ lead to successful social ordering. Importantly, it urges researchers to ‘describe’ these ‘hybridised socio-technical systems’ while making as few presumptions as possible; to outline how (or if) they accomplish this. This PhD thesis undertakes an ethnographic investigation of tagging from the position of offenders subject to a range of EM sentences in a location in England dubbed ‘EM City’, and uses a modified version of ANT alongside allied approaches such as postphenomenology. It borrows the administrative criminological concepts of ‘compliance’ and ‘desistance’, to serve as metrics for assessing how tagging leads outcomes of programme completion and criminal de-escalation to sometimes emerge. Additionally, it attempts to understand how variable ‘affects’ (or ‘pains’) associated with its restrictions arise from a somewhat more critical criminological position; however, these are expanded to account for positive, or neutral/ambivalent reactions. The experiences of ‘supporting actors’ who assist EM users are also investigated, before finally re-joining a selection of users post-sentence. It is demonstrated that tagging often becomes an onerous penalty that is sometimes implicated in attaining desired outcomes, but that it also routinely features prohibited activity: led by a range of factors within the ‘chaos’ of many offenders’ lives. The device-system of EM is further asserted to form a ‘carceral actant-ensemble’, which, when ‘bound’ to it, leads ‘hybrid-users’ (or ‘hosts’) to acquire their range of experiences. Ultimately, however, whether tagging derives punitive affects or achieves success in maintaining curfews and reducing offending, is dependent on its enrolment of pre-existing, yet shifting, wider associations within the lives of users. This temporary ‘penal assemblage’ is, additionally, shown to be intersected further by several socio-technical issues: offender support, poverty, ethnicity, and gender, which become enrolled through it.

Bristol, UK: University of Bristol, 2021. 378p.

Institute of Medicine and National Research Council.

Over the past four decades, the rate of incarceration in the United States has skyrocketed to unprecedented heights, both historically and in comparison to that of other developed nations. At far higher rates than the general population, those in or entering U.S. jails and prisons are prone to many health problems. This is a problem not just for them, but also for the communities from which they come and to which, in nearly all cases, they will return.

Health and Incarceration is the summary of a workshop jointly sponsored by the National Academy of Sciences(NAS) Committee on Law and Justice and the Institute of Medicine(IOM) Board on Health and Select Populations in December 2012. Academics, practitioners, state officials, and nongovernmental organization representatives from the fields of healthcare, prisoner advocacy, and corrections reviewed what is known about these health issues and what appear to be the best opportunities to improve healthcare for those who are now or will be incarcerated. The workshop was designed as a roundtable with brief presentations from 16 experts and time for group discussion. Health and Incarceration reviews what is known about the health of incarcerated individuals, the healthcare they receive, and effects of incarceration on public health. This report identifies opportunities to improve healthcare for these populations and provides a platform for visions of how the world of incarceration health can be a better place.

Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. 2013. 67p.

National Research Council.

After decades of stability from the 1920s to the early 1970s, the rate of imprisonment in the United States more than quadrupled during the last four decades. The U.S. penal population of 2.2 million adults is by far the largest in the world. Just under one-quarter of the world's prisoners are held in American prisons. The U.S. rate of incarceration, with nearly 1 out of every 100 adults in prison or jail, is 5 to 10 times higher than the rates in Western Europe and other democracies. The U.S. prison population is largely drawn from the most disadvantaged part of the nation's population: mostly men under age 40, disproportionately minority, and poorly educated. Prisoners often carry additional deficits of drug and alcohol addictions, mental and physical illnesses, and lack of work preparation or experience. The growth of incarceration in the United States during four decades has prompted numerous critiques and a growing body of scientific knowledge about what prompted the rise and what its consequences have been for the people imprisoned, their families and communities, and for U.S. society.

The Growth of Incarceration in the United States examines research and analysis of the dramatic rise of incarceration rates and its affects. This study makes the case that the United States has gone far past the point where the numbers of people in prison can be justified by social benefits and has reached a level where these high rates of incarceration themselves constitute a source of injustice and social harm.

The Growth of Incarceration in the United States recommends changes in sentencing policy, prison policy, and social policy to reduce the nation's reliance on incarceration. The report also identifies important research questions that must be answered to provide a firmer basis for policy. The study assesses the evidence and its implications for public policy to inform an extensive and thoughtful public debate about and reconsideration of policies.

Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. 2014. 464p.

By Andrew Silke and John Morrison

Recent cases of attacks by released terrorist prisoners highlight issues around the risk of re-offending posed by former terrorist prisoners. What are the appropriate processes and systems for managing and risk assessing such individuals, and to what extent is rehabilitation possible in the context of terrorist offending? This Policy Brief will explore these and related issues to help inform wider discussion and debates on appropriate policy in this area.

In this Policy Brief, the authors critically analyse the definition of ‘recidivism’, and demonstrate the need for a concrete operational definition before one is able to truly analyse recidivist activity. Following this, the authors discuss terrorist recidivism in a range of international contexts, ranging from Northern Ireland to Sri Lanka, the United States to Israel. By taking this broader perspective it allows the reader to gain a greater understanding of what factors related to recidivism rates may be context-specific, and which are universal.

The Hague: International Centre for Counter-Terrorism (ICCT), 2020. 13p.