By Ashley Nellis

The social, moral, and fiscal costs associated with the large-scale, decades-long investment in mass imprisonment cannot be justified by any evidence of its effectiveness. Misguided changes in sentencing law and policy –not crime– account for the majority of the increase in correctional supervision.  Mass incarceration instigates numerous poor physical, psychological, and economic outcomes for the people who experience imprisonment, for their families, as well as for the broader community. Imprisonment leads to declining prospects for employment and results in lower earnings in the longer term. Food insecurity, housing instability, and reliance on public assistance are also associated with prior imprisonment. Children of incarcerated parents suffer tremendously; imprisonment of a parent leads to significant declines in academic and MASS INCARCERATION TRENDS health outcomes for children. High levels of incarceration also destabilizes entire communities, leading to dissolution of informal networks that are known to serve as barriers to neighborhood crime. Trust in law enforcement deteriorates as community members experience elevated levels of victimization and the loss of community members, friends, and family members to incarceration.   

Washington, DC: The Sentencing Project, 2023. 17p.

By Liz Komar, Ashley Nellis; and Kristen M. Budd 

As the United States marks 50 years of mass incarceration, dramatic change is necessary to ensure another 50 do not follow. In no small part due to long sentences, the United States has one of the world’s highest incarceration rates, with nearly two million people in prisons and jails. The destabilizing force of mass incarceration deepens social and economic inequity – families lose not only a loved one, but income and childcare. By age 14, one in 14 children in the United States experience a parent leaving for jail or prison.3 Individuals returning to the community face profound barriers to employment and housing. Meantime the communities most impacted by crime – poor communities and communities of color – disproportionately bear the burden of incarceration’s impacts. Long sentences affect young Black men disproportionately compared to every other race and age group. Twice as many Black children as white children have experienced parental incarceration.6 Mass incarceration entrenches cycles of harm, trauma, and disinvestment and consumes funds that might support investment in interventions that empower communities and create lasting safety. In the United States, over half of people in prison are serving a decade or longer and one in seven incarcerated people are serving a life sentence.8 To end mass incarceration, the United States must dramatically shorten sentences. Capping sentences for the most serious offenses at 20 years and shifting sentences for all other offenses proportionately downward, including by decriminalizing some acts, is a vital decarceration strategy to arrive at a system that values human dignity and prioritizes racial equity. This report begins by examining the evidence in support of capping sentences at 20 years. Countries such as Germany and Norway illustrate that sentences can be far shorter without sacrificing public safety. A wealth of criminological evidence makes clear that unduly long sentences are unnecessary: people age out of crime, and even the general threat of long term imprisonment is an ineffective deterrent. m Prison Sentence

Washington, DC: The Sentencing Project, 2023. 21p

By Justice Policy Institute

The Maryland Parole Commission (MPC) suffers from a series of systemic problems that result in the parole system’s inability to conduct its duties effectively. Safe at Home assesses how well parole practices in Maryland are aligned with other states, identifies inefficiencies in release decision-making, and provides options for changes to policy and practice informed by best practices in the field.

JPI conducted a comprehensive analysis of national parole practices and identified several policy options grounded in best practices in parole decision-making and supervision. JPI identified these policies by conducting interviews with system and field experts, attorneys, community members, and those with lived experience. These policy options are a mere blueprint that can help guide legislative and administrative actions better align the MPC with best practices across the country. Maryland decision-makers must now solicit input from a broad range of stakeholders, including community members, to operationalize these options into policy.

1. The MPC should adopt a structured decision-making tool that incorporates a validated needs assessment tool.

2. The MPC should operate under the presumption that the goals of punishment have been met at the time of initial parole eligibility. Parole release decision-making should be based solely on objective factors related to an individual’s future risk to public safety.

3. Supervision should be imposed selectively, with the length and conditions of supervision linked to risk. Conditions should be the least restrictive necessary to meet the goals of reentry and public safety. Resources should be frontloaded, and people should have the opportunity to shorten their parole term through good behavior.

4. The MPC should work closely with other criminal justice agencies and support agencies to develop a parole release plan that supports a successful reentry.

5. The MPC should employ transparency in parole release decision-making protocol and practices. The applicant and victim should be fully informed of the process and be allowed to participate actively.

6. Reasons for denial of parole must be made public, documented in writing, and appealable.

7. An applicant should have access to counsel and be provided all materials that the MPC will use to make its decision in advance of a hearing.

8. Establish standards for parole board member eligibility, including education and work/life experience.

9. The parole board must have transparent rules and procedures that reflect the input of all interested parties.

10. The parole board should adopt a robust set of performance measures that are publicly reported regularly.

JPI works with state leaders and community stakeholders to advance comprehensive policy options for consideration by the Maryland General Assembly, the Maryland Parole Commission, and other state decision-makers. Our work in Maryland is part of our broader efforts, in places like the District of Columbia, to draw attention to the harms of mass incarceration and long prison terms and support evidence-based reforms that provide options to earn release and safely return home.

Washington, DC: Justice Policy Institute, 2023. 59p.

 By The HM Chief Inspector of Prisons 

Most prisoners in England and Wales are adult men held in prisons, designated according to different security categories: A, B and C in closed sites, and category D prisoners in open prisons (for definitions see Appendix II). The allocation and management of men in the highest security prisons (category A) is the responsibility of a small number of prisons built to a higher security specification, making escape far more difficult. In March 2023, women and children made up less than 5% of the prison population. The small numbers meant women were held in two categories of prison: closed and open. As none of the establishments holding children and women are built to high security specification, additional measures – under the heading ‘restricted status’ – are imposed to minimise the possibility of escape and protect the public from harm. HM Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) first formalised the restricted status system for women and children in 2010, and although used sparingly, the system is very much informed by the category A model used for men. We believe it fails to reflect the different capabilities, motivation and resources for women and children’s escape potential, not to mention the very different environments and facilities in which they are held. Our thematic review found weaknesses in the assessment of women and children’s specific risks before deciding to apply extensive additional security measures. Oversight of restricted status prisoners, including decisions to remove additional restrictions, was undertaken by the long-term and high security prisons group director through a category A review board, which also managed category A adult male prisoners. Membership of the board did not, however, include leaders from the youth custody service (YCS) or the women’s estate, which would have added expertise and specialist knowledge and helped to deliver a more effective system, tailored to the specific risks posed by women and children. Some children had previously lived in lower security settings – including secure training centres (STCs) and secure children’s homes (SCHs) – where they had no additional security measures applied, despite meeting the restricted status criteria. When they moved to more secure settings, they were subject to far more restrictions, despite the high levels of supervision in children’s YOIs. There was no justification for such anomalies. ...

London: HM Inspectorate of Prisons, 2023. 30p,  

Edited by Larissa Tracy and Jeff Massey

From the cover: “The decapitation motif recurs in nearly all medieval and early modern genres, from saints' lives and epics to comedies and romances, yet decollation is often little regarded, save as a marker of humanity (that is, as the moment mortality exits) or inhumanity (chat is, as the moment the supernatural enters). However, as a seat of reason, wisdom, and even the soul, the head has long been affordeda special place in the body politic, even when separated from its body proper. Capitalizing upon the enduring fascination with decapitation in European culture, chis collection examines-through a variety of critical lenses-the recurring "roles/rolls" of severed human heads in the medieval and early modern imagination.”

Boston. Brill. 2012. 371p. CONTAINS MARK-UP

By Ulla V. Bondeson

From the cover: “Prisoners in Prison Societies is a study of criminal career patternsover time, demonstrating specifically how and in what ways imprisonment has a positive correlation with later recidivism. The book combines original research and a ten-year follow-up study of Swedish inmates, surveying their attitudes o neverything from political ide- ology to prison reform. The work is m u c h more than a survey of prisoner attitudes, however; it includes official statements and administrative staff assessments at the in- stitutions examined. As a result, it is many sided and avoidsthe usual specialpleading of criminological writings. Among its unique features, Prisoners in Prison Societies analyzes thirteen correctional institutions, ranging from training schools to youth and adult prisons as well as a preventive detention facility.”

New Brunswick. Transaction Publishers . 1989. 364p. CONTAINS MARK-UP

By Desmond Seward

From the Preface: “In the priory of San Marco at Florence there is a painting by an unknown artist of an execution ni the city's Piazza della Signoria. Dating from about 1500, scarcely more than folk art, the painting has a disturbing quality that for me verges on the sinister reminiscent of the irrational fear felt when reading ghost stories. Clearly the work of an eyewitness, it tells a tale ni three parts. First, three figures in long white shirts kneel before a group of dignitaries; next, each figure flanked by men in black hoods, they are led down a timber platform to a gibbet in the middle ot the Piazza; finally, they hang in chains over a great fire - the executioners are bringing faggots to make the flames burn higher. Some of the spectators in the scene look on with fascination, others run away in dismay. Such a death in so beautiful a setting seems peculiarly cruel and unnatural; but it was this painting, supplizio del Savonarola, that made me want to know more.”

London. Sutton Publishing. 2006. 332p.

By David Downes

From chapter 1. Comparative criminology is nothing new. In their broadest sense, of contrasting institutional arrangements and/or forms of conduct between whole societies, comparative studies have long been an invaluable, though under-used, resourcein historical and socio-economic studies. Travels abroad can be as influential as journeyings at home in the realm of criminal and penal policies. It is difficult otherwise to account for such phenomena as the rapid rise of the penitentiary across the continents of Europe and North America in the first few decades oft h e nineteenth century. More recently, the appeal ofvictim-related measures has, from relatively small beginnings in the United States in the late 1960s, fanned out to most liberal democratic societies around the globe. From time to time, Britain has attracted streams of enquirers into the workings of the latest penal or reformative innovation. The Borstal system in the interwar period was much admired abroad.

Oxford. Clarendon Press. 1988. 236p. CONTAINS MARK-UP

By Coral Sirdifield, Charlie Brooker, Rebecca Marples

A narrative systematic review was undertaken of the literature concerning the health of people on probation or parole (community supervision). In this paper, we provide an up-to-date summary of what is known about substance misuse in this context. This includes estimates of the prevalence and complexity of substance misuse in those under community supervision, and studies of the effectiveness of approaches to treating substance misuse and engaging and retaining this population in treatment. A total of 5125 papers were identified in the initial electronic searches, and after careful double-blind review only 31 papers related to this topic met our criteria. In addition, a further 15 background papers were identified which are reported. We conclude that internationally there is a high prevalence and complexity of substance misuse amongst people under community supervision. Despite clear benefits to individuals and the wider society through improved health, and reduced re-offending; it is still difficult to identify the most effective ways of improving health outcomes for this group in relation to substance misuse from the research literature. Further research and investment is needed to support evidence-based commissioning by providing a detailed and up-to-date profile of needs and the most effective ways of addressing them, and sufficient funds to ensure that appropriate treatment is available and its impact can be continually measured. Without this, it will be impossible to truly establish effective referral and treatment pathways providing continuity of care for individuals as they progress through, and exit, the criminal justice pathway.  

Utrecht: Confederation of European Probation, 2020.

By Caitlyn Norman

  Prisoners have significantly greater levels of drug use than the general population, which is related to many adverse outcomes both during and post-imprisonment. Reducing the availability of drugs in prison can lead to a reduction in the drug use of prisoners but requires knowledge of the different drug smuggling routes and the implementation of effective security measures. The main smuggling routes identified in the literature are through visitors; mail; prisoners on reception, remand, or work release; staff; and perimeter throwovers, but they differ between prisons depending on various contextual factors and security measures in place. Based on a total of 81 studies from 22 different countries, the average prevalence of drug use during incarceration is 32.0% with a range from 3.4% to 90%. The types of drugs used in prisons vary among geographical regions, countries, and even regions within countries. The most common drug reported to be used by prisoners in most studies was cannabis, except in South Asia and Scotland, where heroin was more prevalent. The drugs used in prison tend to reflect the prevalence of drugs in the local community, except where a drug has advantages unique to use in prison. It is vital to examine the prevalence of drug use and different types of drugs used during incarceration to help inform drug treatment services, assist prison staff in identifying potential drug use or intoxicated prisoners, and advise prisons about the most prevalent drug smuggling routes so new security measures can be considered  

  WIREs Forensic Sci. 2022;e1473  

By Gretta L. Goodwin; et al.

Approximately 45 percent of people released from a federal prison are rearrested or return within 3 years of their release. The First Step Act included certain requirements for DOJ and BOP aimed to reduce recidivism, including requiring the development of a system to assess the recidivism risk and needs of incarcerated people. It also required BOP to provide incarcerated people with programs and activities to address their needs and if eligible, earn time credits. The First Step Act required GAO to assess the DOJ and BOP’s implementation of certain requirements. This report addresses the extent to which DOJ and BOP implemented certain First Step Act requirements related to the (1) risk and needs assessment system, (2) identification and evaluation of programs and activities, and (3) application of time credits. GAO reviewed legislation and DOJ and BOP documents; analyzed 2022 BOP data; and interviewed DOJ and BOP headquarters officials and BOP’s employee union. GAO also conducted non-generalizable interviews with officials from four BOP regional office facilities, selected to ensure a mix of different facility characteristics. What GAO Recommends GAO is making eight recommendations for BOP to improve its implementation of the First Step Act, including collecting data, ensuring its evaluation plan has goals and milestones, having monitoring mechanisms, and tracking unstructured productive activities. BOP concurred with six recommendations,   

Washington, DC: United States Government Accountability Office , 2023. 110p. 

By Elias Neibart

In September 2021, New York Governor Kathy Hochul quietly signed into law the Less Is More: Community Supervision Revocation Reform Act, the state’s fourth major criminal justice reform enacted in the past three years. Less Is More made dramatic changes to the state’s parole system, specifically:

• Creating a system of earned time credits to incentivize good behavior;

• Significantly limiting reincarceration for “technical” violations of the terms of parole (i.e., a violation other than committing a new crime), and shortening the length of reincarceration;

• Limiting the presumption of detention for parole violators, such that technical violators are detained only if they abscond, and criminal violators detained only if a judge rules them at risk of absconding;

• Raising the burden of proof at revocation hearings and expediting their processing time;

• Shifting revocation hearings to court rooms and otherwise giving them the trappings of a court proceeding.

These changes, supporters argued, were necessary to minimize the unnecessary and counterproductive reincarceration of petty technical violators—the parolee who is on the straight and narrow but who nonetheless finds himself back in prison due to a minor slip-up. In making these changes, however, they also made it harder to detain many serious offenders, including serious criminal violators; evidence from NYC jails show that detention of even violent criminal violators fell in the wake of Less Is More. In addition, it created a greater burden on victims, who are often now involved in revocation hearings in addition to new criminal proceedings. This, we argue, is due to the broad-reaching procedural changes enacted by Less Is More. The lost presumption of detention, heightened evidentiary standards, and constraints placed on the use of technical violations—all of which apply not only to petty technical violators but to more dangerous parolees—have defanged the supervision system. While reforms that reward good behavior and do not over-punish minor violations are desirable, we propose a series of changes to blunt the unintended effects on the more serious offender population. Specifically, we suggest several reforms of the reform....

New York: Manhattan Institute, 2022. 28p.

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 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.  

By Andrew M. Beresford

From the preface: “ According To Popular Tradition, the Sicilian virgin, martyr, Aatha, died in Cantania at the height of the Decian persecutions (250-53). Desired by Quintianus, the low-born Roman consul, she spurned his advances and was imprisoned in a brothel, where its keeper, the appropriately named Aphrodisia, was charged with the responsibility of shattering her sexual resolve. When the attempt at coercion failed, Agatha was summoned once again before Quintianus, and after further interrogation, was subjected to a series of gruesome tortures -the most infamous being the severing of her breast. That night, while suffering in prison, Saint Peter appeared before her, and, in amiraculous act of intervention, healed her wounds and restored her breast. The following day, humiliated and enraged, Quintianus inflicted further pains upon her, and having borne her suffering with exemplary courage and steadfast devotion, she eventually yielded up her soul.

Newark, DE. Juan de la Cuesta-Hispanic Monographs. 2010. 259p.

By Francis T. Cullen Karen E. Gilbert

From the Foreword by Donald Cressey: “'This is more than a book about punishment versus rehabilitation of criminals. It is, to be sure, the first book to defend the notion that Americans acted unwisely and too hastily when they recently exorcised rehabilitation programs from prisons. But it also is an essay on how social movements go awry - on the unanticipated consequences of purposive social action. Further, it documents aproposition which humanitarian policy makers established centuries ago, namely that "government by law" always will, in the absence of "government by men,"' have gross injustice as its consequence. More generally, it pinpoints the tragic irony involved as humanitarians, bent on reducing pain and suffering in the world, have recently convinced Amer icans to inflict more pain and suffering on criminals, even if doing so allows criminals to inflict more pain and suffering on the rest of us.”

Cincinnati, Ohio. Anderson Publishing Co. 1982. 339p. Book contains mark-up

By Franklin E. Zimring and Gordon .J Hawkins

From the Foreword: “Deterring future misconduct is probably the principal aim of criminal sanctions. Yet decisions are made by legislators, sentencing judges, and parole boards with virtually no knowledge and little analysis about the future effects which their actions will have. The authors have taken an important step in beginning to fil this gap. Their book is an authoritative and stimulating analysis of deterrence in criminal law.”

Chicago. The University Of Chicago Press. 1973. 385p.

By E.L.S. Horsburgh

From the introduction: The life of Girolamo Savonarola was contained with-in the last fifty years of the fifteenth century (1452-98).. That is to say, he was exactly contemporary with a most brilliant, diversified and momentous epoch in the history of the world. He was himself very much the product of the influences which surrounded him, though in some respects he represented antagonism to them, and reaction against them. From whatever point of view he is to be regarded, it is essential first of all to understand something of the age in which he lived….

London. Methuen & Co. Ltd. 1911.

By Karen A. Winstead

From Amazon: Stories of the torture and execution of beautiful Christian women first appeared in late antiquity and proliferated during the early Middle Ages. A thousand years later, virgin martyrs were still the most popular female saints. Their legends, in countless retellings through the centuries, preserved a standard plot―the heroine resists a pagan suitor, endures cruelties inflicted by her rejected lover or outraged family, works miracles, and dies for Christ. That sequence was embellished by incidents emblematic of the specific saint: Juliana's battle with the devil, Barbara's immurement in the tower, Katherine's encounter with spiked wheels. Karen A. Winstead examines this seemingly static story form and discovers subtle shifts in the representation of the virgin martyrs, as their legends were adapted for changing audiences in late medieval England.

Ithaca. Cornell University Press. 1997. 209p.