By Laura M. Maruschak and Marcus Berzofsky

In 2011–12, half of state and federal prisoners and local jail inmates reported ever having a chronic condition (figure 1). Chronic conditions include cancer, high blood pressure, stroke-related problems, diabetes, heart-related problems, kidney-related problems, arthritis, asthma, and cirrhosis of the liver. Twenty-one percent of prisoners and 14% of jail inmates reported ever having an infectious disease, including tuberculosis, hepatitis B and C, and other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). About 1% of prisoners and jail inmates who had been tested for HIV reported being HIV positive.

Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics 2016. 23p.

Edited by Lars Møller, Heino Stöver, Ralf Jürgens, Alex Gatherer and Haik Nikogosian

Based on the experience of many countries in Europe and the advice of experts, this guide outlines some of the steps prison systems should take to reduce the public health risks from compulsory detention in often unhealthy situations, to care for prisoners in need and to promote the health of prisoners and staff. This especially requires that everyone working in prisons understand well how imprisonment affects health and the health needs of prisoners and that evidence-based prison health services can be provided for everyone needing treatment, care and prevention in prison. Other essential elements are being aware of and accepting internationally recommended standards for prison health; providing professional care with the same adherence to professional ethics as in other health services; and, while seeing individual needs as the central feature of the care provided, promoting a whole-prison approach to the care and promoting the health and well-being of those in custody.

Copenhagen: WHO Regional Office for Europe, 2007. 198p.

By Kristin M. Tennyson, Ross Thomas, Tessa Guiton and Alyssa Purdy

This report is the fifth in a series continuing the Commission’s study of the recidivism of federal offenders released in 2010. In this report, the Commission provides an analysis of data on the recidivism of federal offenders who participated in Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) drug abuse treatment while incarcerated. The study examines whether completion of drug programs offered by the BOP impacted recidivism among a cohort of federal offenders who were released from prison in calendar year 2010. The report combines data regularly collected by the Commission, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) criminal history records, and data on program completion and participation provided by the BOP.

Washington, DC; United States Sentencing Commission, 2022. 76p.

By Kristin M. Tennyson, Ross Thomas, Alyssa Purdy and Tessa Guiton,

This report is the sixth in a series continuing the Commission’s study of the recidivism of federal offenders released in 2010. In this report, the Commission provides an analysis of data on the recidivism of federal offenders who participated in Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) vocational programs while incarcerated. The study examines whether completion of vocational programs offered by the BOP impacted recidivism among a cohort of federal offenders who were released from prison in calendar year 2010. The report combines data regularly collected by the Commission, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) criminal history records, and data on program completion and participation provided by the BOP.

Washington, DC: United States Sentencing Commission, 2022. 80p.

By Kim Steven Hunt and Robert Dumville

This report provides a broad overview of key findings from the United States Sentencing Commission’s study of recidivism of federal offenders. The Commission studied offenders who were either released from federal prison after serving a sentence of imprisonment or placed on a term of probation in 2005. Nearly half (49.3%) of such offenders were rearrested within eight years for either a new crime or for some other violation of the condition of their probation or release conditions. This report discusses the Commission’s recidivism research project and provides many additional findings from that project. In the future, the Commission will release additional publications discussing specific topics concerning recidivism of federal offenders.

Washington, DC; The United States Sentencing Commission, 2016. 61p.

Edited by J. Mark Eddy and Julie Poehlmann-Tynan

The second edition of this handbook examines family life, health, and educational issues that often arise for the millions of children in the United States whose parents are in prison or jail. It details how these youth are more likely to exhibit behavior problems such as aggression, substance abuse, learning difficulties, mental health concerns, and physical health issues. It also examines resilience and how children and families thrive even in the face of multiple challenges related to parental incarceration. Chapters integrate diverse; interdisciplinary; and rapidly expanding literature and synthesizes rigorous scholarship to address the needs of children from multiple perspectives, including child welfare; education; health care; mental health; law enforcement; corrections; and law. The handbook concludes with a chapter that explores new directions in research, policy, and practice to improve the life chances of children with incarcerated parents.

Cham: Springer, 2019. 386p.

By Joyce A. Arditti

Parental Incarceration and the Family brings a family perspective to our understanding of what it means to have so many of our nation’s parents in prison. Drawing from the field’s most recent research and the author’s own fieldwork, Joyce Arditti offers an in-depth look at how incarceration affects entire families: offender parents, children, and care-givers. Through the use of exemplars, anecdotes, and reflections, Joyce Arditti puts a human face on the mass of humanity behind bars, as well as those family members who are affected by a parent’s imprisonment. In focusing on offenders as parents, a radically different social policy agenda emerges—one that calls for real reform and that responds to the collective vulnerabilities of the incarcerated and their kin.

New York: New York University Press, 2012. 258p.

By Jeremy Travis; Elizabeth M. Cincotta and Amy L. Solomon

With incarceration rates in America at record high levels, the criminal justice system now touches the lives of millions of children each year. The imprisonment of nearly three-quarters of a million parents disrupts parent-child relationships, alters the networks of familial support, and places new burdens on governmental services such as schools, foster care, adoption agencies, and youth-serving organizations. Few studies have explored the impact of parental incarceration on young children or identified the needs that arise from such circumstances. Little attention has focused on how communities, social service agencies, health care providers, and the criminal justice system can work collaboratively to better meet the needs of the families left behind. This policy brief is intended to help focus attention on these hidden costs of our criminal justice policies.

Washington, DC: Urban Institute, 2005. 12p.

By Jennifer Rosenberg

Maternal imprisonment has particular aspects and creates special challenges for families, policy makers and prison authorities alike, including the question of babies and young children being in prison with their mothers. However, any parental imprisonment impacts on the children. Some of these impacts may be the same, or similar, irrespective of whether the imprisoned parent is the mother or the father. Others may be completely different. Since QUNO’s previous research and publications have focussed primarily on the effect of maternal imprisonment, this paper, drawing on secondary sources, seeks to build on and complement these by identifying the similarities and differences in relation to the effect of paternal imprisonment on children.

Geneva, SWIT: Quaker United Nations Office, 2009. 50p.

By Laurel Townhead

Women are a small minority of the prison population, but a minority that is growing at a disproportionate rate, their needs, and indeed their rights, are frequently not fulfilled by prison regimes that are designed predominantly for male prisoners. Imprisonment impacts on women differently than on men. The following are some of the key areas of concern: a) Problems with accommodation b) Inappropriate staffing c) Lack of family contact d) Lack of education and work programmes e) Lack of proper healthcare f) High proportion of women prisoners with a history of mental, physical or sexual abuse g) The adverse impact of imprisonment of mothers on their children h) Disproportionate representation of indigenous women and foreign women1 It is clear from the brief list above that the needs of women prisoners are often overlooked by penal institutions, by governmental policy makers, and by the international community and that consideration needs to be given to every aspect of women’s prison regimes as well as to the reasons for the increasing female prison population to ensure that their rights, as defined in international law, are met.

Geneva, SWIT: Quaker United Nations Office, 2006. 21p.

By Rachel Taylor

The long-standing Quaker involvement in criminal justice and human rights issues at the national, regional and international levels has led to increasing concern about the under-considered and growing problem of women in prison and the situation of babies and children of imprisoned mothers. In particular, there is a need to give attention to the situation of women and girls (female juveniles under 18 years of age) in pre-trial detention and imprisonment following trial, including in probation hostels or similar facilities in which they are required to reside whether instead of prison or in the transition back to the community, and the babies and children of imprisoned women, both those in prison with their mothers and those outside the institution. The purpose of doing this is to identify the key issues which arise for such women and girls, and their children, and to gather information and ideas on ways in which these issues have, or could be, addressed better.

Geneva, SWIT: Quaker United Nations Office, 2004. 99p.

By Jean Tomkin

The legal rights of children under international law have been developing since 1919, with both regional and global treaties safeguarding their interests. Yet many of these rights, enshrined in the Convention on the Rights of the Child and other texts, are put at risk when a parent is imprisoned…. At the core of decisions relating to children, including children affected by the actual or potential imprisonment of a parent, is a determination of their best interests. This principle, which requires that the best interests of the child is a primary consideration, has been interpreted widely by States. This paper sets out to analyse the approach of courts in a variety of jurisdictions.

Geneva, SWIT: Quaker United Nations Office, 2009. 58p.

By Oliver Robertson

This paper draws together many of the examples of good policy and practice that were made at the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child’s Day of General Discussion (DGD) 2011, on the topic ‘Children of Incarcerated Parents’

The paper will begin with an introduction and some general principles to consider at all times, then look at some issues that occur at various points (data collection, future research and what to tell the children about their parent’s situation) before focusing in detail on each stage of the criminal justice process, from arrest to release and reintegration. Each section will begin with a general principle to help frame the issue, with more specific recommendations and examples of potential good practice made throughout the paper. The recommendations, good practice and issues are not meant to be exhaustive, but to highlight what emerged from the Day of General Discussion.

Geneva, SWIT: Quaker United Nations Office, 2012. 84p.

Edited by Adele D. Jones and Agnieszka E. Wainaina-Woźna

Estimates are that 125,000 children have a parent in prison in England and Wales. Indeed, on the international stage, over half of all prisoners worldwide are thought to have children under the age of 18 yet the impact of a parent’s incarceration on a child is rarely taken into account. COPING increases understanding of how the imprisonment of a parent really affects children. Working in different countries, with different social and cultural traditions, different incarceration levels and different policies and interventions, our research has produced evidence that can inform policy and programmes to better support and protect children from the effects of parental imprisonment right across Europe.”

Huddersfield, UK: University of Huddersfield, 2013. 670p.

By Karina Biondi and John F. Collins

The Primeiro Comando do Capital (PCC) is a Sao Paulo prison gang that since the 1990s has expanded into the most powerful criminal network in Brazil. Karina Biondi's rich ethnography of the PCC is uniquely informed by her insider-outsider status. Prior to his acquittal, Biondi's husband was incarcerated in a PCC-dominated prison for several years. During the period of Biondi's intense and intimate visits with her husband and her extensive fieldwork in prisons and on the streets of Sao Paulo, the PCC effectively controlled more than 90 percent of Sao Paulo's 147 prison facilities.

Available for the first time in English, Biondi's riveting portrait of the PCC illuminates how the organization operates inside and outside of prison, creatively elaborating on a decentered, non-hierarchical, and far-reaching command system. This system challenges both the police forces against which the PCC has declared war and the methods and analytic concepts traditionally employed by social scientists concerned with crime, incarceration, and policing. Biondi posits that the PCC embodies a "politics of transcendence," a group identity that is braided together with, but also autonomous from, its decentralized parts. Biondi also situates the PCC in relation to redemocratization and rampant socioeconomic inequality in Brazil, as well as to counter-state movements, crime, and punishment in the Americas.

Chapel, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2016. 194p.

By Amir Whitaker and Daniel J. Losen

Students of color in this country far too often face barriers to receiving quality public education – from unequal resources in schools, to overly punitive discipline administered more often to children of color. As the nation’s oldest and largest nonpartisan civil rights organization, for more than a century, the NAACP has worked to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of all persons and to eliminate racebased discrimination. Equal access to public education and eliminating the severe racial inequities that continue to plague our education system is at the core of our mission. This new report from the Southern Poverty Law Center and the UCLA Center for Civil Rights Remedies brings new light to the practice of corporal punishment in schools. When an educator strikes a student in school, it can have a devastating impact on the child’s opportunity to learn in a safe, healthy, and welcoming environment. This is dangerous for all students, but corporal punishment is administered disproportionately to students of color in our nation’s public schools

Montgomery, AL: Southern Poverty Rights Center and Los Angeles: The Civil Rights Project/Proyecto Derechos Civiles at UCLA, 2019. 41p.

By Katherine Culliton-González, et al.

For this report, the Commission investigated school discipline practices and policies impacting students of color with disabilities and the possible connections to the school-to-prison pipeline, examined rates of exclusionary discipline, researched whether and under what circumstances school discipline policies unfairly and/or unlawfully target students of color with disabilities, and analyzed the federal government’s responses and actions on the topic.

Washington, DC: U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, 2017. 224p.

By Ying Shi and Maria Zhu

Well-documented racial disparities in rates of exclusionary discipline may arise from differences in hard-to-observe student behavior or bias, in which treatment for the same behavior varies by student race or ethnicity. We provide evidence for the presence of bias using statewide administrative data that contain rich details on individual disciplinary infractions. Two complementary empirical strategies identify bias in suspension outcomes. The first uses within-incident variation in disciplinary outcomes across White and under-represented minority students. The second employs individual fixed effects to examine how consequences vary for students across incidents based on the race of the other student involved in the incident. Both approaches find that Black students are suspended for longer than Hispanic or White students, while there is no evidence of Hispanic-White disparities. The similarity of findings across approaches and the ability of individual fixed effect models to account for unobserved characteristics common across disciplinary incidents provide support that remaining racial disparities are likely not driven by behavior.

Bonn, Germany: IZA – Institute of Labor Economics, 2021. 38p.

By DLA Piper

In March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic was declared. Overnight, prisons became a key public health concern for governments. Prisons – particularly overcrowded facilities and those with poor sanitation, hygiene and ventilation – are known to act as a source of infection, amplification and spread of infectious diseases. Urgent action was required to limit the transmission of COVID-19 to prisoners, staff and the broader community. Recognizing the challenge and potential serious health risks, governments globally took swift action to decongest their prison systems through releasing prisoners and limiting new admissions. This report analyses the approach to decongesting prison systems adopted by governments in 53 jurisdictions across Asia Pacific, Europe, the Middle East, Africa, North and Central America. The results of those 53 jurisdictional analyses have been summarized into key findings set out in Part 2 of this report and in an infographic at Annexure A.

London: DLA Piper, 2020. 52p.

By Penal Reform International

As the COVID-19 pandemic affects more people in an ever increasing list of countries, PRI has published a briefing note, Coronavirus: Healthcare and human rights of people in prison. With the fast-evolving situation, there is legitimate concern at a further spread of the virus to places of detention. The difficulties in containing a large outbreak in detention facilities are clear. People in prison and the personnel who work with them are in close proximity and in many cases in overcrowded, cramped conditions with little fresh air. People in detention also have common demographic characteristics with generally poorer health than the rest of the population, often with underlying health conditions. Hygiene standards are often below that found in the community and sometimes security or infrastructural factors reduce opportunities to wash hands or access to hand sanitizer – the key prevention measures recommended by the World Health Organization.

Our briefing outlines the key measures that criminal justice systems, including prisons and courts, have taken to prevent the spread of COVID-19 – and the impact of these in light of the UN Nelson Mandela Rules and other key standards. Action needs to be taken now and immediately, given the risk people in prison are exposed to, including prison staff. Such action should be guided by international standards and the values of: Do no harm, equality, transparency, humanity.

London: Penal Reform International, 2020. 13p