By The Virginia Department of Corrections

At the directive of bills from the Virginia Senate and House, the Virginia Department of Corrections (VADOC) organized a work group to make recommendations regarding the reduction or elimination of communication, commissary, and financial fees charged to inmates in state correctional facilities. There are limited jobs available to incarcerated people and the high costs of goods and services in prison are prohibitive with the amount of money incarcerated people can earn. As a result, they must often rely on their loved ones for additional financial support. Before the pandemic, a third of families with incarcerated loved ones went into debt trying to stay in touch. This report recommends policymakers reduce the financial burdens on incarcerated people and their loved ones, details the financial impact of their recommendations, and provides potential solutions to ensure no decrease or interruptions in the program and services provided by VADOC facilities.

Richmond: Virginia Department of Corrections, 2022. 54p;.

By Briana Hammons

Considerable research has uncovered the financial burden and unintended consequences wreaked on the people charged with paying fines and fees. But there has been little, if any, investigation into how much court debt is outstanding or delinquent nationwide. Understanding the full scope of our nation’s criminal justice debt problem is vital to the task of creating an equitable justice system. In an effort to obtain this critical information, the Fines and Fees Justice Center contacted judicial offices and government agencies in all 50 states and the District of Columbia that might have data related to outstanding court debt. We chose to focus our investigation on court debt because courts keep a record of every case, and those records should specify the amount of fines and fees imposed at conviction. We assumed that courts routinely aggregated this data, allowing them to determine the amount of fines and fees assessed. We also assumed that courts would track how much of those fines and fees were actually collected. But for half the country, that is not the case. What this means is that the full extent of our nation’s problem with court debt is shockingly untraceable and unknown. Reliable and current data is necessary to develop informed and effective public policy, and it is a vital tool to accurately judge the efficacy of a particular program and existing practices. In order to intelligently assess policy solutions, we need a complete view of every state’s court debt including, the total amount of fines and fees imposed, assessed, collected, and outstanding and data about the people who owe

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  fines and fees, including eligibility for a public defender or public benefits and charges for which the debt was imposed.

New York: Fines & Fees Justice Center, 2021. 34p.

By M. G. Neithercutt, William H. Mosely and Ernst A. Wenk

From the summary: “At the request of the leading parole organizations which sponsor the National Probation and Parole Institutes program, the Uniform Parole Reports project was initiated in October 1964. An initial Feasibility Study was completed through the collaboration of 24 state parole agencies. This work resulted in a rant award by the National Institute of Mental Health for a three year pilot study to further develop the reporting system. A three year continuation grant followed that and since March 1972 the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration has provided the necessary support. The program is aimed at the development of a nationwide system of uniform parole reporting to provide reliable, comparable data by which paroling authorities may evaluate their policies and programs on an interstate  

National Council on Crime and Delinquency. Unpublished Report. March 1975. 73p.

By Ashley Nellis

Almost half of the people serving life without parole are 50 years old or more and one in four is at least 60 years old. Prisons are a particularly hazardous place to grow old. The carceral system is largely unprepared to handle the medical, social, physical, and mental health needs for older people in prison. Nearly half of prisons lack an established plan for the care of the elderly incarcerated. Because of the disadvantages affecting people in prison prior to their incarceration and the health-suppressing effects of imprisonment, incarcerated people are considered elderly from the age of 50. Under current trends, as much as one third of people in U.S. prisons will be at least 50 years old by 2030, the predictable and predicted consequence of mass incarceration. Warnings by corrections budget analysts of the crushing costs of incarcerating people who are older have gone almost entirely unheeded. Indeed, sociologist and legal scholar Christopher Seeds accurately described a transformation of life without parole “from a rare sanction and marginal practice of last resort into a routine punishment in the United States” over the last four decades. And in the contemporary moment of rising concerns around crime, there are reasons to be concerned that ineffective, racially disproportionate, and costly tough-on-crime measures such as increasing sentence lengths will proliferate, leading to even higher numbers of incarcerated people who will grow old in prison. In this, as in many other aspects of its carceral system, the United States is an outlier; in many Western democracies those in their final

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  decades of life are viewed as a protected class from the harsh prison climate.  

Washington, DC: The Sentencing Project, 2022. 31p.

By Nazgol Ghandnoosh, and Ashley Nellis

Over 260,000 people in U.S. prisons had already been incarcerated for at least 10 years in 2019, comprising 19% of the prison population. Nearly three times as many people—over 770,000— were serving sentences of 10 years or longer. These figures represent a dramatic growth from the year 2000, when mass incarceration was already well underway. Based on criminological evidence that criminal careers typically end within approximately 10 years and recidivism rates fall measurably after about a decade of imprisonment, The Sentencing Project recommends taking a second look at sentences within 10 years of imprisonment. This research brief presents state-level analysis revealing a common growing trend of lengthy sentences, as well as significant geographic variation. The analysis also addresses racial disparities in long sentences. Because racial disparities are even starker here than among those serving shorter prison terms, focusing reform efforts on sentences of 10 years or more can accelerate racial justice. Finally, the brief presents the criminological and legal foundations for sentencing reform and offers recommendations for policymakers.

Washington, DC: The Sentencing Project, 2022. 16p.

By Bree Carlton and Emma K. Russell

This book explores the dramatic evolution of a feminist movement that mobilised to challenge a women’s prison system in crisis. Through in-depth historical research conducted in the Australian state of Victoria that spans the 1980s and 1990s, the authors uncover how incarcerated women have worked productively with feminist activists and community coalitions to expose, critique and resist the conditions and harms of their confinement. Resisting Carceral Violencetells the story of how activists—through a combination of creative direct actions, reformist lobbying and legal challenges—forged an anti-carceral feminist movement that traversed the prison walls. This powerful history provides vital lessons for service providers, social justice advocates and campaigners, academics and students concerned with the violence of incarceration. It calls for a willingness to look beyond the prison and instead embrace creative solutions to broader structural inequalities and social harm.

Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018. 268p.

By Mary Rogan

This book is the first examination of the history of prison policy in Ireland. Despite sharing a legal and penal heritage with the United Kingdom, Ireland’s prison policy has taken a different path. This book examines how penal-welfarism was experienced in Ireland, shedding further light on the nature of this concept as developed by David Garland. While the book has an Irish focus, it has a theoretical resonance far beyond Ireland. This book investigates and describes prison policy in Ireland since the foundation of the state in 1922, analyzes and assesses the factors influencing policy during this period and explores and examines the links between prison policy and the wider social, economic, political and cultural development of the Irish state. It also explores how Irish prison policy has come to take on its particular character, with comparatively low prison numbers, significant reliance on short sentences and a policy-making climate in which long periods of neglect are interspersed with bursts of political activity all prominent features. Drawing on the emerging scholarship of policy analysis, the book argues that it is only through close attention to the way in which policy is formed that we will fully understand the nature of prison policy. In addition, the book examines the effect of political imprisonment in the Republic of Ireland, which, until now, has remained relatively unexplored.

London; New York: Routledge, 2011. 254p.

By Jeff Manza and Christopher Uggen

5.4 million Americans--1 in every 40 voting age adults-- are denied the right to participate in democratic elections because of a past or current felony conviction. In several American states, 1 in 4 black men cannot vote due to a felony conviction. In a country that prides itself on universal suffrage, how did the United States come to deny a voice to such a large percentage of its citizenry? What are the consequences of large-scale disenfranchisement--both for election outcomes, and for public policy more generally? Locked Out exposes one of the most important, yet little known, threats to the health of American democracy today. It reveals the centrality of racial factors in the origins of these laws, and their impact on politics today. Marshalling the first real empirical evidence on the issue to make a case for reform, the authors' path-breaking analysis will inform all future policy and political debates on the laws governing the political rights of criminals.

New York: Oxford University Press, 2008. 384p.

By Todd R. Clear

At no time in history, and certainly in no other democratic society, have prisons been filled so quickly and to such capacity than in the United States. And nowhere has this growth been more concentrated than in the disadvantaged--and primarily minority--neighborhoods of America's largest urban cities. In the most impoverished places, as much as 20% of the adult men are locked up on any given day, and there is hardly a family without a father, son, brother, or uncle who has not been behind bars. While the effects of going to and returning home from prison are well-documented, little attention has been paid to the impact of removal on neighborhoods where large numbers of individuals have been imprisoned. In the first detailed, empirical exploration of the effects of mass incarceration on poor places, Imprisoning Communities demonstrates that in high doses incarceration contributes to the very social problems it is intended to solve: it breaks up family and social networks; deprives siblings, spouses, and parents of emotional and financial support; and threatens the economic and political infrastructure of already struggling neighborhoods. Especially at risk are children who, research shows, are more likely to commit a crime if a father or brother has been to prison. Clear makes the counterintuitive point that when incarceration concentrates at high levels, crime rates will go up. Removal, in other words, has exactly the opposite of its intended effect: it destabilizes the community, thus further reducing public safety. Demonstrating that the current incarceration policy in urban America does more harm than good, from increasing crime to widening racial disparities and diminished life chances for youths, Todd Clear argues that we cannot overcome the problem of mass incarceration concentrated in poor places without incorporating an idea of community justice into our failing correctional and criminal justice systems.

New York: Oxford University Press, 2070. 207p.

By Ashley Nellis

When former Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin killed George Floyd by kneeling on his neck in 2020, the world witnessed the most racist elements of the U.S. criminal legal system on broad display. The uprisings that followed Floyd’s death articulated a vision for transforming public safety practices and investments. Almost one year later, Chauvin was convicted for Floyd’s death, a rare outcome among law enforcement officers who kill unarmed citizens. The fight for racial justice within the criminal legal system continues, however. The data findings featured in this report epitomize the enormity of the task. This report details our observations of staggering disparities among Black and Latinx people imprisoned in the United States given their overall representation in the general population. The latest available data regarding people sentenced to state prison reveal that Black Americans are imprisoned at a rate that is roughly five times the rate of white Americans. During the present era of criminal justice reform, not enough emphasis has been focused on ending racial and ethnic disparities systemwide.

Washington, DC: The Sentencing Project, 2021. 25p.

By Mia Bird, Omair Gill, Johanna Lacoe, Molly Pickard, Steven Raphael and Alissa Skog

Criminal sentences resulting in admission to a California state prison are determined by both the nature of the criminal incident as well as the criminal history of the person convicted of the offense. Cases with convictions for multiple offenses may lead to multiple sentences that are either served concurrently or consecutively. Characteristics of the offense (such as the use of a firearm) or aspects of the person’s criminal history (such as a prior conviction for a serious or violent offense) may add to the length of the base sentence through what are commonly referred to as offense or case enhancements, respectively. California’s Three-Strikes law presents a unique form of sentence enhancement that lengthens sentences based on an individual’s criminal history. Consider an individual with one prior serious or violent felony conviction (one “strike”) who is subsequently convicted of another felony. Under Three Strikes, the sentence for the subsequent felony will be double the length specified for the crime regardless of whether the new conviction is for a serious or violent offense. For an individual with two prior violent or serious felony convictions, a third conviction for a serious or violent felony would receive an indeterminate prison term of at least 25 years to life, with the exact date of release determined by the Parole Board.   

Los Angeles: California Policy Lab,Committee on Revision of the Penal Code, 2022.  45p.

By James Beaufils, Chris Cunneen, Sophie Russell

This research project was commissioned by NSW Corrective Services. It involved exploratory research into the experiences of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people with post-release parole supervision and reintegration in NSW. The research focussed on identifying the qualities of the relationship between parole supervisors and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander parolees that successfully assisted individuals with reintegration and those aspects of supervision that require improvement. The evaluation reviewed the relevant literature and used qualitative methods by way of 32 in-depth interviews with parolees, Community Corrections Officers (CCOs) and Aboriginal Client Services Officers (ACSOs) in six community corrections offices and three prisons..

Sydney, NSW : Corrective Services NSW and Jumbunna Institute for Indigenous Education and Research, University of Technology Sydney, 2021 132p.

By William J. Sabol and Thaddeus L. Johnson

Although significant gaps remain, disparities between Black and White people continued to narrow at nearly every stage of the criminal justice process between 2016 and 2020. In some cases, the pace of the decline slowed; in others, the disparity gap closed entirely. These trends extend patterns from 2000 to 2016 that were identified in CCJ’s first report on correctional control by race and sex. Subsequent reports will explore trends in disparity among female populations and by ethnicity, assess trends in multiple states, and seek to identify what, if any, policy changes may have contributed to reductions in racial disparities.

New York: Council on Criminal Justice, 2022. 36p.

By Madeline Brown, Jessica Perez, Matthew Eldridge, and Kelly Walsh

As counties across the United States search for ways to reduce the oversized and damaging footprint of our criminal justice system, many are looking upstream—to housing and the evidence that connects it to economic stability and overall well-being. In 2020, the Urban Institute set out to identify local housing programs and policies that had been evaluated for their ability to reduce jail incarceration. We held three private roundtables with practitioners, people with lived experience of jail incarceration, and subject matter experts across housing, behavioral health, and criminal justice sectors to better understand how gaps across service areas and lack of coordination are preventing large-scale systems change. We were specifically interested in learning how existing funding streams limit housing options for people with criminal justice involvement and how the role of impact investing and other financing models could help remove those limits. This report presents the learning from that work and elements of investment-ready housing strategies with the potential to reduce the use of local jails.

Washington, DC: Urban Institute, 2021. 35p.

By Jesse Jannetta and Marina Duane

Pretrial risk assessments are common tools for guiding pretrial release decisionmaking and have been adopted by many of the local jurisdictions. Risk assessment tools have been advanced as a promising alternative to the use of monetary conditions of release. However, as pretrial risk assessments have become more prevalent, they have also been subject to critiques about their potential for exacerbating inequities in the criminal legal system. This case study, part of a series highlighting work supported by the Safety and Justice Challenge, examines how Charleston County, South Carolina, and Lucas County, Ohio, implemented two different pretrial risk assessments and used them to inform pretrial decisions as part of their efforts to reduce the misuse of their jails.

Washington, DC: Urban Institute Justice Policy Center, 2022. 42p.

By Bryce Peterson, KiDeuk Kim, Rochisha Shukla and Megan Kizzort

Contraband cell phones threaten the safety and security of people who are incarcerated, correctional staff, and the public. They can facilitate violence and perpetuate underground economies. Contraband cell phones enter facilities through internal and external mechanisms; they can be brought in by facility staff, or they can be brought in by visitors, thrown over facility fences, or flown in on drones. This report reviews emerging technological strategies for detecting, disabling, and removing contraband cell phones.

Washington, DC: Urban Institute Justice Policy Center, 2022. 20p.

By Joe Russo, Rochisha Shukla, Bryce Peterson and KiDeuk Kim

Contraband cell phones threaten the security of prisons and jails and the safety of people who are incarcerated, correctional staff, and the public. In response, prison and jail administrators across the country employ a range of strategies to detect, disable, and remove contraband cell phones from their institutions. Though many of these strategies rely on novel technologies, nontechnological factors are equally critical for addressing the contraband cell phone issue. In this report, we describe nontechnological solutions corrections agencies can employ.

Washington, DC: Urban Institute Justice Policy Center, 2022. 21p.

By Kierra B. Jones, Paige S. Thompson and Marina Duane

Pennington County, South Dakota has roughly 113,000 residents and is the place of origin for many Indigenous peoples who reside on reservations in and around Rapid City. Over the last 20 years, Indigenous communities have been overrepresented in jail and the criminal legal system in Pennington County. As such, Pennington County pursued Safety and Justice Challenge funding to safely reduce its jail population by improving case processing practices and creating alternatives to incarceration in the community. This case study, a part of a series highlighting work supported by the Safety and Justice Challenge, examines how Pennington County implemented three core strategies to reduce its overall jail population and racial and ethnic disparities in that population. These strategies were (1) improve tribal outreach activities and strengthen tribal relationships, (2) create alternatives to incarceration, and (3) optimize case processing and operations.

Washington, DC: Urban Institute Justice Policy Center, 2022. 50p.

By Andreea Matei

Solitary confinement (also commonly referred to as restrictive housing) is one of the most consistently researched prison practices. This brief synthesizes the extensive research on solitary confinement, identifies areas for continuing research, and highlights policy and practice reforms. After reviewing extensive research, this scan found that the overwhelming amount of research proves that solitary confinement is psychologically and physiologically damaging and has negative outcomes on the safety of people in prison and the public through increased recidivism rates. Based on these results, carceral agencies should end their use of solitary confinement if they wish to improve the health and safety of those in prisons and the general public.

Washington, DC: Urban Institute, Justice Policy Center, 2022. 19p.

By Partnership for the Public Good

Solitary confinement exacts an incalculable human toll. It also imposes heavy financial costs for New York State and localities across the state. Reducing the use of solitary confinement by enacting the Humane Alternatives to Long Term (HALT) Solitary Confinement Act1 could not only most importantly stop inhumane practices and save lives, but also save New York State and localities over $1.32 billion over 10 years. New York State is grappling with the economic devastation of the COVID-19 pandemic, while also in the midst of the largest protests against racial inequality in a generation. Meanwhile, Black and Latinx people continue to suffer disproportionately, and often fatally, from solitary confinement. As these crises converge, it is both a fiscal and moral imperative for New York State to reduce the billions of dollars spent on its incarceration system and use the savings to better fund education, housing, health care, and employment opportunities for the communities most harmed by COVID-19 and longstanding systemic racism and inequality.

New York: Partnership for the Public Good, 2020. 32p.