By Coral Sirdifield, Charlie Brooker, Rebecca Marples

A narrative systematic review was undertaken of the literature concerning the health of people on probation. In this paper, we provide an up-to-date summary of what is known about suicide and suicidal ideation and probation. This includes estimates of prevalence and possible predictors of suicide and suicidal ideation. Searches were conducted on nine databases from January 2000 to May 2017, key journals from 2000 to September 2017, and the grey literature. A total of 5125 papers were identified in the initial electronic searches but after careful double-blind review only one research paper related to this topic met our criteria, although a further 12 background papers were identified which are reported. We conclude that people on probation are a very high risk group for completed suicide, and factors associated with this include drug overdose, mental health problems, and poor physical health. There is a clear need for high quality partnership working between probation and mental health services, and investment in services, to support appropriate responses to suicide risk.

Forensic Science International: Mind and Law, Volume 1, November 2020,

By Charlie Brooker and Karen Tocque

There is a high prevalence of mental illness in probation including suicide. It is important for probation staff to recognise mental illness and to refer on to an appropriate agency once it is detected. Probation’s staff knowledge about mental illness was therefore examined across Europe in this study using a well validated measure – the Mental Health Literacy Scale (MHLS). Response rates within services and countries varied widely from 0-74%. Scores on the MHLS also varied considerably from 113-138 with an average score of 128. This overall average score is similar to other groups of the population such as university students and the clergy. There was a strong association between knowledge and confidence in working with people with a mental illness. The policy implications of these findings are discussed. It is clear there is a continuing role for CEP in this arena especially in the light of the Council of Europe’s recent White Paper on mental health in probation and in prisons.

Utrecht: Confederation of European Probation, 2023. 33p.

By Marcelo F. Aebi and Yuji Z. Hashimoto

The main findings of the SPACE II 2021 report are presented in a separate booklet (Probation and Prisons in Europe, 2021: Key Findings of the SPACE reports), which includes analyses of the data collected and comparisons with the main results of the SPACE I 2021 report on prison populations. This section only provides a snapshot of the situation regarding the use probation in Europe. ➢ The participation rate in the SPACE II 2021 Survey was satisfactory: 48 out of the 52 countries or administrative entities of the 47 Council of Europe Member States answered the questionnaire. ➢ Probation agencies are usually placed under the authority of the National Ministry of Justice. In ten countries/administrative entities, the Ministry of Justice is neither responsible nor co-responsible for their functioning. ➢ Probation agencies are independent from the Prison Administrations in 26 countries/administrative entities, while in 15 there is a shared prison and probation administration. ➢ 25 of the 48 probation agencies which provided data use the person as the counting unit. Seven probation agencies do not use the person as the counting unit for neither stock nor flow, two do not use the person for flow and 12 use it partially, most often only for the total stock and the total flow. ➢ Stock of probationers: On 31 January 2021, there were 1 773 556 persons under the supervision of the 32 probation agencies that provided data on this item and use the person as the counting unit for their stock. The absolute number of persons on probation is much higher than in 2019 because the Russian Federation provided data for SPACE II 2021 but not for SPACE II 2020. ➢ Flow of entries to probation: During the year 2020, 1 860 352 were placed under the supervision of the 29 probation agencies which provided data on this item and use the person as the counting unit for their flow of entries. ➢ Flow of exits from probation: During the year 2020, 1 700 528 persons ceased to be under the supervision of the 29 probation agencies which provided data on this item and use the person as the counting unit for their flow of exits. ➢ Non-custodial sanctions and measures are seldom used as an alternative to pre-trial detention; only 14% of the probation population on 31 January 2021 corresponds to persons placed under supervision before trial in the 18 probation agencies which provided data on this item and use the person as the counting unit for their stock of probationers. ➢ On 31 January 2021, among the 28 probation agencies which provided figures on female probation clients and use the person as the counting unit, women represented 11% of the total probation population. ➢ Among the 20 probation agencies that provided figures on foreigners and use the person as the counting unit, foreigners represented 13% of the total probation population. ➢ Among the 20 probation agencies that provided figures on minors and use the person as the counting unit, minors represented 4.8% of the total probation population. ➢ Among the 27 probation agencies that provided figures on total stock and total staff and use the person as the counting unit, there are around 38 probationers for each probation staff member, but that ratio varies considerably across countries. ➢ Among the 32 probation agencies that provided figures on total staff and pre-sentence reports, there are around six (6) pre-sentence reports produced for each probation staff member across Europe. ➢ In 40 jurisdictions, probation is used for all of the major categories of criminal offences specified (against persons, against property, drug offences, road traffic offences).

Strasbourg: Council of Europe & University of Lausanne, 2022 . 149p.

By Róisín Mulgrew

The State duty to prevent preventable prisoner deaths is easy to state and substantiate. Yet prisoner death rates are increasing around the world and are often much higher than those in the community. To understand why this is happening, the findings and recommendations of the country reports of international oversight bodies and thematic reports from international rapporteurs are synthesised with contemporary rights-informed penal standards, multi-disciplinary scholarship, non-governmental organization reports and media extracts. On the basis of this knowledge, this reform-oriented article explores the impact of structural, societal and environmental factors on natural and violent prisoner deaths and how these factors operate cumulatively to create dangerous and life-threatening custodial environments. The paper makes recommendations to reaffirm and enumerate the positive obligation to protect prisoners’ lives, develop specialist standards, adopt a broader approach to prison oversight and create a specific United Nations mandate on prisoner rights.

Human Rights Law Review, 2023, 23, 1–25

Prepared by W. Grinton Berry

The Actes and Monuments (full title: Actes and Monuments of these Latter and Perillous Days, Touching Matters of the Church), popularly known as Foxe's Book of Martyrs, is a work of Protestant history and martyrology by Protestant English historian John Foxe, first published in 1563 by John Day. It includes a polemical account of the sufferings of Protestants under the Catholic Church, with particular emphasis on England and Scotland. The book was highly influential in those countries and helped shape lasting popular notions of Catholicism there. The book went through four editions in Foxe's lifetime and a number of later editions and abridgements, including some that specifically reduced the text to a Book of Martyrs. (Wikipedia)

London John Day 1563. NY. Abingdon Press. 1913. 413p.

By Chase Montagnet, Jennifer Peirce, David Pitts

The use of restrictive housing (solitary confinement) in U.S. prisons and the rationales for or against it have been the subject of widespread research and debate. Much less is known, however, about restrictive housing in U.S. jails, due to lack of standardized policies, limited data, and the rapid turnover of people detained. Furthermore, many jails keep the general population in de facto restrictive housing conditions—such as 22 hours or more per day in a cell–because of space limitations without classifying this as solitary confinement. This study provides new, unique insights on the prevalence of restrictive housing in U.S. jails, the disparities in its use, and the conditions of confinement in specific types of housing units, with a 10 focus on restrictive housing units. This data was gathered through a mail-based survey sent to administrators at all jails in the United States.

New York: Vera Institute of Justice, 2021. 80p.

By Emily Ryo, Ian Peacock

Hundreds of county jails detain immigrants facing removal proceedings, a civil process. In exchange, local jails receive per diem payments from Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Immigration detention thus presents a striking case of commodification of penal institutions for civil confinement purposes. Yet we know very little about the counties participating in this arrangement and the predictors of their participation over time. Our study offers the first systematic analysis of immigration detention in county jails using new and comprehensive panel data on jails across the United States. First, we find that the number of counties confining immigrant detainees steadily increased between 1983 and 2013, with the largest growth concentrated in small- to medium-sized, rural, and Republican counties located in the South. Second, our regression analyses point to a number of significant predictors of county participation in immigration detention: (a) worsening labor market conditions, combined with growing excess bed space for the criminal inmate population; (b) an increasing Latino population up to a certain 9 threshold level; and (c) increasing Republican Party strength. These findings have important implications for current debates raging across the United States about the proper role of local communities in detaining immigrants.

Law & Society Review, Volume54, Issue1 March 2020 Pages 66-101

By Jay Holder https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6146-0516, Ivan Calaff https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8243-5790, Brett Maricque https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9424-8135, and Van C. Tran 8

Using public housing developments as a strategic site, our research documents a distinct pathway linking disadvantaged context to incarceration—the public-housing-to-prison pipeline. Focusing on New York City Housing Authority (NYCHA) housing developments as a case study, we find that incarceration rates in NYCHA tracts are 4.6 times higher than those in non-NYCHA tracts. More strikingly, 94% of NYCHA tracts report rates above the median value for non-NYCHA tracts. Moreover, 17% of New York State’s incarcerated population originated from just 372 NYCHA tracts. Compared with non-NYCHA tracts, NYCHA tracts had higher shares of Black residents and were significantly more disadvantaged. This NYCHA disadvantage in concentrated incarceration is also robust at different spatial scales. Our findings have implications for policies and programs to disrupt community-based pipelines to prison.

PNAS2022 Vol. 119 No. 36

By Bruce Western https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8615-676bruce.west ern @colu mbia.e, Jaclyn Davis https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1910-7222, Flavien Ganter https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6945-6450, and Natalie Smith https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5659-378X

Research on incarceration has focused on prisons, but jail detention is far more common than imprisonment. Jails are local institutions that detain people before trial or incarcerate them for short sentences for low-level offenses. Research from the 1970s and 1980s viewed jails as “managing the rabble,” a small and deeply disadvantaged segment of urban populations that struggled with problems of addiction, mental illness, and homelessness. The 1990s and 2000s marked a period of mass criminalization in which new styles of policing and court processing produced large numbers of criminal cases for minor crimes, concentrated in low-income communities of color. In a period of widespread criminal justice contact for minor offenses, how common is jail incarceration for minority men, particularly in poor neighborhoods? We estimate cumulative risks of jail incarceration with an administrative data file that records all jail admissions and discharges in New York City from 2008 to 2017. Although New York has a low jail incarceration rate, we find that 26.8% of Black men and 16.2% of Latino men, in contrast to only 3% of White men, in New York have been jailed by age 38 y. We also find evidence of high rates of repeated incarceration among Black men and high incarceration risks in high-poverty neighborhoods. Despite the jail’s great reach in New York, we also find that the incarcerated population declined in the study period, producing a large reduction in the prevalence of jail incarceration for Black and Latino men.

PNAS2021 Vol. 118 No. 16

By Kristin Turney and Emma Conner

Although jails are both common and consequential, affecting millions of individuals annually, they are a relatively understudied aspect of the criminal justice system. In this review, we first document the prevalence of jail incarceration, highlighting how jail incarceration has risen in tandem with the more commonly examined prison incarceration. Next, we describe the population of individuals in jail, paying particular attention to the heterogeneous and disadvantaged nature of this population. We document how jail incarceration is measured, demographically and in household surveys, and argue that jail incarceration has lasting and profound consequences for individuals, families, and communities. We conclude the review by suggesting directions for future research. Given the common nature of jail incarceration—in conjunction with the fact that jail incarceration creates, sustains, and perpetuates inequality—a better understanding of the prevalence, correlates, and consequences of jail incarceration is critical for fully understanding the link between the criminal justice system and inequality

Annu. Rev. Criminol. 2019. 2:265–90

By Robert Apel

The interplay of sanctions, perceptions, and crime has special significance in criminology and is central to a long tradition of perceptual deterrence research as well as to more recent scholarship on crime decision-making. This article seeks to review this body of research as it pertains to three basic questions. First, are people’s perceptions of punishment accurate? The evidence indicates that people are generally but imperfectly aware of punishments allowed under the law but are nevertheless sensitive to changes in enforcement, especially of behaviors that are personally relevant. Second, does potential apprehension affect people’s perceived risk and behavior when faced with a criminal opportunity? A highly varied body of literature supports the conclusion that perceptions are sensitive to situational cues and that behavior is sensitive to perceived risk, but these links can be weakened when individuals are in emotionally or socially charged situations. Third, do people revise their risk perceptions in response to crime and punishment experiences? Studies of perceptual change support the contention that people systematically update their perceptions based on their own and others’ experiences with crime and punishment.

Annu. Rev. Criminol. 2022. 5:205–27

By Charles E. Loeffler and Daniel S. Nagin

The US prison population stands at 1.43 million persons, with an additional 740,000 persons in local jails.Nearly all will eventually return to society. This review examines the available evidence on how the experience of incarceration is likely to impact the probability that formerly incarcerated individuals will reoffend. Our focus is on two types of studies, those based on the random assignments of cases to judges, called judge instrumental-variable studies, and those based on discontinuities in sentence severity in sentencing grids, called regression discontinuity studies. Both types of studies are designed to account for selection bias in nonexperimental estimates of the impact of incarceration on reoffending. Most such studies find that the experience of postconviction imprisonment has little impact on the probability of recidivism. A smaller number of studies do, however, find significant effects, both positive and negative. The negative, recidivism-reducing effects are mostly in settings in which rehabilitative programming is emphasized and the positive, criminogenic effects are found in settings in which such programming is not emphasized. The findings of studies of pretrial incarceration are more consistent—most find a deleterious effect on postrelease reoffending. We also conclude that additional work is needed to better understand the heterogeneous effects of incarceration as well as the mechanisms through which incarceration effects, when observed, are 6 generated. For policy, our conclusion of the generally deleterious effect of pretrial detention adds to a larger body of evidence pointing to the social value of limiting its use.

Annu. Rev. Criminol. 2022. 5:133–52

By Joshua Page and Christine S. Scott-Hayward

In this review of scholarship on bail and pretrial justice in the United States, we analyze how the field of bail operates (and why it operates as it does), focusing on its official and unofficial objectives, core assumptions and values, power dynamics, and technologies. The field, we argue, provides extensive opportunities for generating revenue and containing, controlling, and changing defendants and their families. In pursuit of these objectives, actors consistently generate harms that disproportionately affect low-income people of color and amplify social inequalities. We close with an analysis of political struggles over bail, including current and emerging possibilities for both reformist and radical change. In this, we urge scholars toward sustained engagement with people and organizations in criminalized communities, which pushes scholars to reconsider our preconceptions regarding safety, justice, and the potential for systemic change and opens up new avenues for research and public engagement.

Annu. Rev. Criminol. 2022. 5:91–113

By Evangeline Lopoo, Vincent Schiraldi, and Timothy Ittner

Use of probation and parole has declined since its peak in 2007 but still intrudes into the lives of 3.9 million Americans at a scale deemed mass supervision. Originally intended as an alternative to incarceration and a means of rehabilitation for those who have committed crimes, supervision often functions as a tripwire for further criminal legal system contact. This review questions the utility of supervision, as research shows that, in toto, it currently provides neither diversion from incarceration nor rehabilitation. Analysis of national supervision, crime, and carceral data since 1980 reveals that supervision has little effect on future crime and is not a replacement for incarceration. Case studies from California and New York City indicate that concerted efforts to reduce the scope of mass supervision can effectively be achieved through sentencing reform, case diversion, and supervisory/legal system department policy change, among other factors, without increasing crime. Therefore, we suggest extensive downsizing of supervision or experimentation with its abolition and offer actionable steps to enact each possibility.

5 Annual Review of Criminology Vol. 6:23-42 (Volume publication date January 2023)

By Sarah Monaghan, Michael Rempel & Tao Lin Key Findings: 

A Widening Black-White Gap in the Incarceration Rate from 2016 to 2021, when Black people citywide were jailed at a rate 11.6 that of white people. Disparities in Jail Admissions in Every Borough.  Manhattan incarceration rates showed the most startling contrast; in 2016, Black people were jailed at a rate 23 times that of white people, which increased to 29.5 in 2021. 4 High Parole Violation Disparities & Rising Racial Disparities Among Pretrial Admissions.  While disparities were greatest for people admitted on parole violations across all years, there was not a recent shift towards this reality; instead, rising pretrial disparities largely explain the overall increase in racially disproportionate jail incarceration since 2016. Jail Incarceration Concentrated in Mostly Black and Brown Neighborhoods (also, Black People are Disproportionately Incarcerated No Matter Where they Live).  Of the 178 NYC zip codes, 40 (23%) accounted for a vastly disproportionate share (60%) of 2021 jail admissions. In turn, 60% of these 40 zip codes are in Central or South Brooklyn (10) or the Bronx (14). In 163 (92%) of all 178 NYC zip codes, a higher percentage of Black people were admitted to jail than live in the given zip code.

New York City: Data Collaborative for Justice at John Jay College, 2023. 41p.

By Giulio Zanella

I study the causal pathways that link prison work programs to convict rehabilitation, leveraging administrative data from Italy and combining quasi-experimental and structural econometric methods to achieve both a credible identification and the isolation of mechanisms. Due to competing channels, I find that work in unskilled prison jobs impacts convicts on longer or shorter terms differently. Increasing work time by 16 hours per month reduces by between 3 and 10 percentage points the reincarceration rate, within three years of release, of convicts on terms longer than six months – because prison work counteracts the rapid depreciation of earning ability experienced by these convicts. For those on shorter terms, the analogous increase leads instead to a re-incarceration rate that is up to 9 percentage points higher, because of a liquidity effect that weakens deterrence.

Bonn, Germany: IZA – Institute of Labor Economics, 2020. 66p.

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 3 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 effects or achieves success in maintaining curfews and reducing offending, is dependent on its enrollment 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.

By U.K. Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons

Our inspections usually take place from Monday to Friday, but prisoners are, of course, detained for seven days a week. Alarming findings from our surveys over the past year indicated that their treatment and conditions in prisons at weekends required closer scrutiny. For some time we have been reporting on the excessive amount of time prisoners still spend locked in prison cells despite the lifting of pandemic restrictions. But this post-COVID torpor is most acute at weekends. Of more than 6,000 prisoners surveyed in 2022–23, 60% of men told us that they spent less than two hours out of their cell on a typical Saturday or Sunday, compared with 42% during the week. This was more than double the proportion in the year before the pandemic (28%). The effect on women in prison was even starker; they were now four times more likely to say that they received less than two hours out of their cells at weekends. Two-thirds of women were unlocked for less than two hours on Saturdays and Sundays, compared with 36% on a typical weekday. To find out more about the experience of prisoners at weekends, we carried out 11 unannounced day-long visits on either a Saturday or a Sunday to 11 adult prisons in England and Wales. The sites were chosen so that a range of different geographical locations and functional types of prison were represented. At each establishment, we asked for regime and staffing information, inspected the different areas of the prison, carried out wing roll checks, conducted focus groups where possible and spoke to prisoners about their experience of the weekend regime. We 2 found that most prisoners were spending at least 21 hours a day locked in their cells at the weekend – in 10 of the 11 prisons we visited, most prisoners could expect to be out of their cells for a maximum of just 2.5 hours a day. In the worst cases, prisoners received only 45 minutes to an hour and, in one prison, were not unlocked at all for one of the two days except to collect their meals. Libraries were closed at weekends, and many prisoners had little to no time at all in the fresh air and could not even have a shower. Even when prisoners were unlocked for a period of association, recreational equipment was broken and out of use, and there were too few activities to engage prisoners constructively. Combined with the severely limited time out of cell on weekdays, prisoners told us that their mental health and well-being was affected. For prisoners who were struggling, there were few opportunities to get the attention of a member of staff without pressing their emergency cell call bell.

London: Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons (UK), 2023. 20p.

By Nils Christie

Inflicting pain is a serious matter, often at variance with cherished values such as kindness and forgiveness. Attempts might therefore be made to hide the basic character of the activity, or to give various "scientific" reasons for inflicting pain. Such attempts are systematically described in this book, and related to social conditions. None of these attempts to cope with pain seem to be quite satisfactory. It is as if societies in their struggle with penal theories oscillate between attempts to solve an insoluble dilemma. Punishment is used less in some systems than in others. On the basis of examples from systems where pain is rarely inflicted, some general conditions for a low level of pain infliction are formulated. The standpoint is that if pain is to be applied, this should be done without a manipulative purpose and in a social form resembling that which is normal when people are in deep sorrow. Most of the material is from Scandinavia, but the book draws extensively on the crime control debate in the United Kingdom and USA.

Oxford. Martin Robertson. 1982. 117p.

By Theodor Reik

"What is the origin of the sense of collective guilt that plagues Western man? What is the crime for which man suffers an need for punishment? Dr. Theodor Reik, one of the world's leading psychoanalysts, became absorbed in this problem from many discussions with Freud. Over the years he has examined what he considers the basic myth of our civilization: the story of Adam's Fall culminating in the Passion of Christ. With the suspense of a detective story, he untangles the myth in its many expressions, tracing clues in the Bible, using the findings of psychologists and anthropologists as explanatory evidence for a startling conclusion: Man's crime, committed in prehistory, lingering in his motives and haunting him with inevitable remorse, is the sin of pride, of hybris: the killing of God, the ambition to be God.

MYTH AND GUILT opens new and suggestive avenues for understanding the religious and social motives of man and their expression in the human community."

NY. Grosset & Dunlap. 1970. 434p.