By Hilde Tubex and Natalie Gately

This paper contributes to the growing body of scholarship related to the impact of imprisonment on families, from the particular perspective of parents, siblings and other close relatives of people serving a life sentence. We argue that those family members are often overlooked in research and service provision, while bearing the burden of the association with the offender. This is particularly problematic for relatives of life sentenced prisoners, having to cope with the seriousness of the offence, and the uncertainty of the perspectives of release. Based on 17 interviews conducted in Western Australia, we discuss family members’ confrontation with and experiences throughout the criminal justice system. We report on how they manage to “live with life” and which coping mechanisms they developed. Our findings call for more investment into the matter, to generate a scholarship for a better understanding of and supporting initiatives for those close relatives.

Journal of Criminology, 2023. Online first

MAY CONTAIN MARKUP

HERBERT L. PACKER

FROM THE INTRODUCTION: THIS Is A BOOk about law and some related subjects; but it is not a specialized book, and I hope that it will be read by people who are not specialists. It is a book about a social problem that has an important legal dimension: the problem of trying to control antisocial behavior by imposing punishment on people found guilty of violating rules of conduct called criminal statutes. This device I shall call the criminal sanction. The rhetorical question that this book poses is: how can we tell what the criminal sanction is good for? Let us hypothesize the existence of a rational lawmaker-a man who stops, looks, and listens before he legislates. What kinds of questions should he ask before deciding that a certain kind of conduct (bank robbery, income tax evasion, marijuana use) ought to be subjected to the criminal sanction?

STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, STANFORD, CALIFORNIA. 1968. 389p.

By Nicole Renehan and David Gadd

  As the Ministry of Justice looks to develop a ‘new generation’ of programmes to reduce reoffending, we reflect on what can be learnt from the only accredited domestic abuse programme in England and Wales, Building Better Relationships (BBR). Findings from an ethnographic study of BBR are situated within the Probation Inspectorate’s recent inspection of domestic abuse work within the newly unified Probation Service which revealed a fractured and overstretched workforce. Our central argument is that if we are to avoid making matters worse, practitioners must be equipped with the time, supervision and skill needed to maintain something akin to a ‘therapeutic alliance’, that will endure in moments of crisis in their own lives as well as those of their clients.

The British Journal of Criminology, 2024, XX, 1–18 

By U.S. Government Accountability Office; Gretta L. Goodwin

Why GAO Did This Study - DOJ’s BOP is responsible for confining individuals in safe, humane, and appropriately secure conditions. In certain circumstances, such as alleged or substantiated violence, BOP can move individuals to restrictive housing, and generally isolate them in cells for up to 23 hours per day. As of October 2023, BOP continued to house about 8 percent of its population (about 12,000 individuals) in these settings. Strengthening management of federal prisons was added to GAO’s high-risk list earlier this year. Among its objectives, GAO was asked to examine the extent to which BOP (1) addressed recommendations from two prior restrictive housing studies; and (2) leveraged facility information to ensure restrictive housing policy compliance and enhance operations. GAO analyzed BOP policies and data; interviewed BOP officials; and conducted non-generalizable interviews with staff and incarcerated individuals at five BOP facilities— selected to cover a range of restrictive housing unit types. What GAO Recommends - GAO is making eight recommendations to BOP, including that it assign responsibility and establish time frames for recommendation implementation and identify the cause of racial disparity in SMU placements. BOP concurred with the eight recommendations but raised related concerns; GAO discusses these in the report.

Washington, DC: U.S. Government Accountability Office, 2024. 79p.

By Ryan Cotter

This study, the seventh in the recidivism series, examines the relationship between length of incarceration and recidivism. In 2020, the Commission published its initial comprehensive study on length of incarceration and recidivism. In that study, which examined offenders released in 2005, the Commission found that federal offenders receiving sentences of more than 60 months were less likely to recidivate compared to a similar group of offenders receiving shorter sentences. This study replicates the prior analysis, however, it examines a more current cohort of federal offenders released in 2010. This study examines the relationship between length of incarceration and recidivism, specifically exploring three potential relationships that may exist: incarceration as having a deterrent effect, a criminogenic effect, or no effect on recidivism.

Washington, DC: United States Sentencing Commission, 2022. 56p.

By Matthew J. Iaconetti, Tracey Kyckelhahn, and Amanda Kerbel,

This report provides in-depth information on federal firearms offenders sentenced under the primary firearms guideline, §2K2.1. The Commission has published reports on various aspects of firearms offenses, including reports on armed career criminals, mandatory minimum penalties, and firearms offenders’ recidivism rates. The Commission’s prior research shows that firearms offenders are generally younger, have more extensive criminal history, and are more likely to commit a new crime than other offenders. The Commission’s previous research also shows that firearms offenders are more likely than other offenders to engage in violent criminal behavior. This publication continues the Commission’s work and provides detailed information about offenders sentenced under §2K2.1.

Washington, DC: United States Sentencing Commission, 2022. 46p.

By the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General

The Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) is responsible for developing sound correctional practices and adhering to its policies that ensure the safety and security of federal inmates in its care. High-profile inmate deaths at BOP institutions, such as the homicide of James “Whitey” Bulger in 2018 and the suicide of Jeffrey Epstein in 2019, brought national focus to the BOP’s operational and management challenges, and U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General (OIG) investigations of these deaths identified serious BOP job performance and management failures. Additionally, Congress and prisoner advocacy groups have expressed concerns about the BOP’s efforts to prevent inmate deaths, particularly following several inmate homicides at U.S. Penitentiary (USP) Hazelton and USP Thomson. The OIG initiated this evaluation to assess the circumstances surrounding deaths among inmates at BOP institutions that occurred from fiscal year (FY) 2014 through FY 2021 and to evaluate how the BOP seeks to prevent future deaths. We analyzed the frequency and pattern of deaths among BOP inmates in four categories: (1) suicide, (2) homicide, (3) accident, and (4) those resulting from unknown factors. We also identified potential management deficiencies and systemic issues related to those deaths, including the prevalence of long-standing operational challenges highlighted in prior OIG work. Recommendations We make 12 recommendations to assist the BOP in addressing risk factors that contribute to inmate deaths

Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General, 2024. 111p.

By Kelly Lyn Mitchell  

  This report is one in a series of reports for the Aligning Supervision Conditions with Risk and Needs (ASCRN) project, the goal of which is to reduce probation and parole revocations and reorient community supervision toward promoting success by changing the way probation and parole conditions are imposed. Conditions are requirements that a person on probation or parole must adhere to while serving a period of community supervision. For people on parole, this occurs after the person has served time in prison and is released into the community for a post-prison period of supervision. For people on probation, this period of supervision occurs in the community in lieu of incarceration. The hypothesis for this project was that if probation and parole conditions targeted individuals’ criminogenic needs and were based upon risk level, individuals on supervision would be more successful.1 However, to move to this form of condition setting, we first needed to understand how conditions were being determined and what role, if any, risk and needs assessments played in the condition-setting process. This report sets forth our findings on the parole condition-setting process utilized by the Iowa Parole Board and what role, if any, risk and needs assessments play in the condition-setting process. The findings in this report are based primarily on a legal and policy review and interviews conducted in 2020 with relevant stakeholders who we presumed would have a hand in recommending or imposing supervision conditions, including parole board members, staff, administrative law judges, and parole officers. From this study, we make the following conclusions. Conclusions Parole conditions in Iowa are not tailored to the risk and needs of the individual. Parole conditions in Iowa take a one-size-fits all approach. As explained in this section, several factors converge to create a system where every person on parole receives a lengthy set of conditions within which less than a handful are tailored to the individual needs of the person. ƒ There is a heavy reliance on standard conditions. There is a perception within the state that there are very few standard conditions because they fall into just eight paragraphs. But when the text in each of the eight paragraphs is parsed into individual conditions, there are thirty-five distinct requirements. This extensive set of standard conditions sets what parole board members and parole officers refer to as “standards for behavior,” but the sheer number of conditions is more than any one person could reasonably comply with at one time. ƒ The Parole Board only adds a few special conditions to each case, but it has lost sight of the total number of parole conditions imposed  on individuals. The Parole Board is parsimonious when adding special conditions to each case. Parole board members are concerned about overloading individuals on parole and typically only consider or discuss adding one or two special conditions as each person is paroled. However, because the Parole Board only focuses on setting special conditions, it has lost sight of the total number of standard conditions already imposed on those who are on parole. Several parole board members we spoke to did not know how many standard conditions there were, and some mistakenly thought that conditions they used to impose were no longer available to them when in fact they were already part of the standard conditions. By failing to take the standard conditions into account, the Parole Board undermines its own concern about not overloading people on parole. ƒ Risk assessments are not used to inform condition setting. Iowa utilizes risk and needs assessment throughout the criminal justice process. It informs programming for a person serving time in prison, and case planning for a person once they are released on parole. But risk and needs assessments are not really used in setting the conditions of work release or parole. Staff who prepare the docket for the Parole Board focus on the release decision rather than which conditions to impose, but when they do recommend conditions, they tend to use professional judgment based on past interactions with the person while in prison. Parole board members have access to risk and needs information, but do not really understand it. Instead, they use their best judgment about what conditions to impose. In this way, conditions are not tailored to address the criminogenic needs of the individual. ƒ The Parole Board lacks a feedback mechanism to understand what works in condition setting. Finally, parole board members do not handle parole violations—violations are instead handled by an administrative law judge—so parole board members do not have any way of knowing whether the conditions they impose help or hinder people on parole. Because the Parole Board does not receive any feedback about which conditions work, there is nothing to challenge or inform their professional judgment about which conditions to impose in different situations. Though parole officers are empowered to remove conditions, they do not exercise this power. Instead, parole officers add conditions and selectively enforce the conditions they think aren’t as relevant. Throughout this project, we heard that parole officers remove conditions that aren’t necessary or applicable. However, when asked about this directly, most parole officers indicated that they do not remove conditions. Instead, most talked about adding local conditions such as curfew. Though some parole officers indicated that a few standard conditions are outdated or unnecessary, for the most part, they did not support changing the standard conditions, preferring instead to selectively enforce the conditions they deem most important. Thus, parole officers seek maximum flexibility regarding whether and how to enforce supervision conditions. From the perspective of the person on parole, who has no choice but to conform to all the listed conditions, this way of doing business can be confusing. More crucially, it dilutes the importance of conditions because it becomes unclear for them which conditions must be complied with. 

Minneapolis:  Robina Institute, University of Minnesota, 2023. 48p.

By Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Probation (UK)

A thematic inspection led by HM Inspectorate of Probation has found that most recalls to prison of those serving imprisonment for public protection (IPP) sentences were taken in line with the policy. The inspection also found that better support needs to be in place, both before IPP prisoners are released from prison and during their time back in the community. 

The thematic inspection – A thematic inspection of imprisonment for public protection (IPP) recall decisions includes an analysis of recall events between 01 January 2019 and 21 March 2023 and an in-depth review of 26 recalled IPP prisoners. For the vast majority of these cases, we found the recall to be appropriate as the individual had been exhibiting behaviour similar to that surrounding the original offence or there were concerns that their behaviour could give rise to a serious offence.  

This inspection found: 

• There was a lack of support for those with substance misuse and/or mental health issues. This was often the cause for a deterioration in behaviour leading to recall. 

• Staffing issues meant prisoners experienced a lack of continuity during both custody and the period spent on licence, with some being supervised by several different probation officers (POs). This has led to a lack of trust and an unwillingness to communicate concerns with their POs. 

• People were not prepared well for their release into the community. Many felt overwhelmed with life in the community and struggled to cope.  

This report makes 11 recommendations. Two of these are for the MoJ including to work with other government departments to ensure those serving IPP sentences are able to access appropriate help. Nine recommendations are for HM Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS), including to improve the continuity of case management and ensure those serving IPP sentences are actively managed through multi-agency forums.

Manchester, UK: HMIC, 2023. 69p.

By Kristen Bell

The majority of carceral sentences in the United States include the possibility of discretionary release on parole. Most such sentences, however, are unconstitutionally vague. Their unconstitutionality has gone unnoticed because contemporary scholarship and litigation about vague laws have focused on the U.S. Constitution in lieu of state constitutions. This Article unearths historic state court decisions holding that sentences that end through the discretionary judgment of a parole board are “void for uncertainty.” Although state void for uncertainty doctrines share some similarity with the federal vagueness doctrine, they are far more demanding as applied to criminal punishment. By urging revival of the void for uncertainty doctrine, this Article outlines a novel path for state constitutional litigation and proposes how state legislatures can reform parole statutes to put them on sound constitutional footing.
Cardozo Law Review, 

Volume 44 Issue 5, 2023.

By JUSTICE - Chair of the Committee Professor Nicola Padfield QC (Hon)

  Through the parole system, the State exercises one of its most important functions – the protection of the public from serious criminal offending – and also its most coercive power – the deprivation of an individual’s liberty. It is therefore vital that the process operates effectively and that the decision-making body responsible for determining continued detention can carry out its role fairly and independently. The report recognises the range of positive developments and hard work that have gone into improving the parole system over recent years. However, backlogs and delays remain problematic, in part due to changes in sentencing policy which have resulted in lengthier periods in custody and more complex sentencing regimes. As a result, the parole process continues to be difficult for prisoners and victims to understand and to navigate. This raises a multitude of human rights concerns around effective participation and procedural fairness. The report looks both at the Parole Board itself and the roles and responsibilities of the organisations upon which it depends to receive information and make decisions including prisons, the Public Protection Casework Section, which is responsible for ensuring parole timeframes are complied with as well as building the parole dossier, and the Probation Service, which supervises an individual in the community and has the power to initiate the recall of people for breach of licence conditions. Crucially, the report also questions the purpose of the parole system. For too long and for too many people, public protection has been regarded as synonymous with keeping individuals in prison. Yet rehabilitation and the reduction of crime are vital (and statutory) purposes of the penal system. Viewed in this light, outcomes that result in someone’s continued detention or recall should be seen as a possible failure of the system– for the individual prisoner, their victim, and the general public. This report is intended to offer a comprehensive review by a group of experts in the field, who propose a number of practical, achievable, and well-evidenced recommendations to build a parole system that is truly fit for purpose. 

London: JUSTICE, 2022. 154p.

By Ashley Nellis

Louisiana’s share of people serving life without parole (LWOP) ranks highest per capita nationally and in the world. More than 4,000 Louisianans are serving sentences of life without the possibility of parole, amounting to 15% of this state’s prison population. Between 1995 and 2020, the state added an average of 110 people each year to its total count of life-sentenced individuals.  

A major driver behind the large share of people serving LWOP is the state’s automatic imposition of this sentence after conviction for second degree murder, making it one of only two states to impose LWOP in such instances. Louisiana’s second degree murder statute includes felony murder and drug induced homicide offenses; these cases often include instances where the charged individual was not the direct perpetrator of the killing, nor intended to commit it, though they participated in an underlying felony related to the victim’s death. It is important to note that felony murder laws such as that in Louisiana are not associated with a significant reduction in felonies nor have they lowered the number of felonies that become deadly. These crime types are infrequently subject to LWOP sentences elsewhere, much less mandatorily imposed. But in Louisiana, LWOP in response to second degree murder is both authorized and mandatory.  

Washington, DC: The Sentencing Project, 2024. 3p.  

Rachel E. Bennett

Should pregnant women be sent to prison? Is prison a place for the birth and care of babies? Can it ever be? This book is the first extensive historical examination of how the modern prison system sought to answer these perennial questions. The book takes the reader through the prison gates to demonstrate that, although a common feature of everyday life in women’s prisons, pregnancy, birth and motherhood were rarely fully considered at policy level. Instead, the experiences of mothers and children were shaped by a myriad of factors including debates about reconciling the management of institutional discipline with the maintenance of health and issues of gender and class. Lamented as an inalienable heritage of woe but also as an opportunity for the closer supervision of mothers, prison births evoked intense debate and required the negotiation of obdurate regimes. The book reveals how oscillating debates about the purpose of prisons shaped the punitive, reformatory and medical treatment of confined mothers. It also challenges scholarly debates about institutional discipline by delving further into the role of prisoners and prison staff in shaping the terms of their incarceration.

Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2024. 217p.

By Olivia K. Ha , Evan C. McCuish, Martin A. Andresen, & Raymond R. Corrado

To examine individual perceptions of the consequences of crime, the role of criminogenic models, and whether rational choice and criminal social capital are informative of desistance during emerging adulthood. Data from the Incarcerated Serious and Violent Young Offender Study were used to examine the relationship between different aspects of rational choice theories of desistance, criminogenic environment, and offending trajectories measured between ages 12 and 30, calculated using semi-parametric group-based modeling. Offending trajectories were then modeled using multinomial logistic regression. Trajectory analyses identified three desistance trajectories and three non-desistance trajectories. The strongest predictors of desistance trajectories included variables that relate to rational choices that considered the consequences of crime. Rational choice and life course perspectives on desistance as complementary, with sources of informal social control operating in a manner that, along with other factors, helps structure an individual’s consideration of, and importance placed on, the consequences of crime

Journal of Developmental and Life-Course Criminology  2019,

By Nazgol Ghandnoosh, Emma Stammen and Connie Budaci

In San Joaquin County, California in 2010, 19-year-old Emmanuel Mendoza helped lure a robbery victim to a location where a masked accomplice waited with a firearm. When a struggle with the victim over the firearm ensued, Mendoza’s accomplice fired a fatal shot. Although Mendoza did not have a weapon and the killing had not been planned, he was convicted of felony murder with special circumstances, and automatically sentenced to life without parole (LWOP). In prison, he ended his gang affiliation and mentored others to do the same, earned a GED and associate degree, embraced his faith, and has been an active father to his three children. “I understand that at the end of the day someone lost their life,” Mendoza says. “Our plan that night wasn’t to kill anyone. I can’t take it back. But I also feel that it was a huge injustice to not be given an attempt at freedom.” Murder typically refers to an intentional killing. But “felony murder” laws hold people like Mendoza liable for murder if they participated in a felony, such as a robbery, that resulted in someone’s death. These laws impose sentences associated with murder on people who neither intended to kill nor anticipated a death, and even on those who did not participate in the killing. As such, they violate the principle of proportional sentencing, which is supposed to punish crimes based on their severity. These excessively punitive outcomes violate widely shared perceptions of justice. With one in seven people in U.S. prisons serving a life sentence, ending mass incarceration requires bold action to reduce extreme prison terms such as those prescribed for felony murder. These laws run counter to public safety, fiscal responsibility, and justice. Although other countries have largely rejected the felony murder doctrine, 48 states, the District of Columbia, and the federal government still use these laws. The only two states that do not have felony murder laws are Hawaii and Kentucky. Seven other states require some proof of intentionality regarding the killing to consider it murder, though the use of a gun—or mere knowledge of a co-defendant’s gun use—satisfies this requirement in some jurisdictions. In any case, all felony murder laws use the underlying felony to either a) treat as murder a killing that would not have otherwise been considered murder, or b) increase the gradation of murder, such as from second to first degree.

Washington, DC: The Sentencing Project, 2022. 36p.

By Marie Manikis and Nicholas Doiron

The continuous perpetration of unjustified harms by the carceral state through its use of solitary confinement justifies the creation of a novel process of automatic sentence review. This process is necessary to account for such state-perpetrated harms and communicate censure more accurately. This article proposes the use of a communicative theory of punishment developed in sentencing to characterise and account for the state’s wrongdoing and harms in the context of a sentence that involves solitary confinement. Specifically, it outlines a justification for an automatic review process of the offender’s carceral sentence based on an expanded and relational understanding of censure developed in the literature and proposes a two-step process to implement this review.

(2024) 26:1 Punishment & Society 72-90.

By  Paul H. Robinson and  Jeffrey Seaman

Few claims have won such widespread acceptance in legal academia as the “mass incarceration” narrative: the idea that the rise in America’s prison population over the last half century was fueled largely by the needless and unjust imprisonment of millions of criminal offenders due to punitive changes in sentencing. To many academics and activists, the question is not how accurate the mass incarceration narrative is, but how mass incarceration can be ended. This Article argues the “mass incarceration” narrative is based on a series of myths and, as a result, many proposed reforms are based on a misunderstanding of America’s past and present carceral practices. A more accurate understanding is needed to produce effective reform.The central myth of the mass incarceration narrative is that exceptional and unjustified punitiveness largely explains America’s significant increase in prison population since the 1960s. This explanation overlooks the numerous non-sentencing factors that increased incarceration: a near doubling in U.S. population, higher crime rates, increased justice system effectiveness, deinstitutionalization of the mentally ill, new and tightened criminalizations, worsening criminal offender histories, and more. While this Article makes no attempt at statistical precision, these non-sentencing factors can easily explain most of America’s elevated incarceration compared to the 1960s—a fact in direct conflict with the mass incarceration narrative. Additionally, while some punishments have increased in severity since the 1960s, most of these increases are likely to be seen as moving sentences closer to what the community – and many incarceration reformers – would believe is appropriate and just, as in cases of sexual assault, domestic violence, stalking, human trafficking, firearm offenses, and child pornography, among others.Comparing America’s prison population to foreign countries, as the mass incarceration narrative often does, similarly overlooks the contributions of many of these non-sentencing factors and incorrectly assumes that a higher American per capita incarceration rate always reflects a problem with American, instead of foreign, practice. While America can certainly learn from foreign countries, the reality is that many foreign sentencing practices have sparked chronic and widespread dissatisfaction abroad. It may be that the dispute over incarceration practices is more a dispute between the elites and the community than a dispute between the U.S. and other democracies’ populations.While all decarceration reformers should welcome a clearer picture of America’s incarceration practices, it is hard not to conclude that many mass incarceration myths were created deliberately by those who oppose not only incarceration but punishment generally. For these activists, the mass incarceration narrative is primarily a means toward eliminating punishment, a goal that is difficult to pursue directly because it is so contrary to the views of the general population and even a majority of academia.This Article is not pro-incarceration. It subjects the mass incarceration narrative to much needed scrutiny precisely because reforming incarceration practices is necessary. The criminal justice system should strive to deliver just punishment in the most societally beneficial way, which we believe means increasing the use of non-incarcerative sanctions. The myths of the mass incarceration narrative frequently lead activists to overlook non-incarcerative reforms that deliver just punishment—a tragic failure because such reforms would have much stronger popular support than the anti-punishment or unsophisticated anti-prison reforms now pushed by the mass incarceration narrative.Part I of the Article describes the mass incarceration myths that have become so broadly accepted. Part II reviews the facts of American incarceration practice, which contradict many, if not most, aspects of the narrative. Part III offers our reform proposals, which we believe more accurately address the problems in current incarceration practice. Central to those proposals are the use of creative non-incarcerative sanctions that still deliver punishment proportional to a nuanced assessment of each offender’s moral blameworthiness

U of Penn Law School, Public Law Research Paper No. 24-04

By Aimee Brinn, John Preston, Rosina Costello, Tyler Opoku, Emily Sampson, Ian Elliott and Annie Sorbie

The Thinking Skills Programme (TSP) is an accredited offending behaviour programme designed and delivered by His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS). TSP is suitable for adult men and women assessed to be at medium and above risk of reoffending. TSP is the highest volume accredited programme delivered in custody.

The TSP is designed to reduce general reoffending by supporting improvements in four ways:

• 1. Developing thinking skills (such as problem solving, flexible thinking, consequential thinking, critical reasoning)

• 2. Applying these skills to managing personal risk factors

• 3. Applying thinking skills to developing personally relevant protective factors

• 4. Applying thinking skills to setting pro-social goals that support relapse prevention.

The programme format comprises 19 sessions (15 group sessions and 4 individual sessions, resulting in around 38 hours of contact time (dose).

The Evaluation

The aim of this evaluation is to assess the impact of TSP delivered in prison on proven general reoffending within a two-year follow-up period.

The analysis involved a treatment group of 20,293 adults (18,555 males, 1,738 females) who participated in the TSP programme between 2010 and 2019 and this was compared to a matched comparison group of 375,647 adults (345,084 males, 30,563 females) who did not participate in the programme. Propensity score matching (PSM) was used to ensure comparable treatment and comparison groups. The evaluation used the largest number of PSM matching variables for a HMPPS accredited programme evaluation to date.

The evaluation also has a large sample size which means it is likely to be representative of the population of TSP participants. A larger sample generates more precise results and increases the power of statistical testing. This increases the likelihood of finding a statistically significant finding (i.e., not due to chance) even if the difference between the treatment group and the matched comparison group is small. All adults in this study were released from prison between 2010 and 2020.

The impact of TSP was evaluated against three proven general reoffending metrics over a two-year follow up period:

• 1. Binary measure of reoffending (reoffending rate) – did they re-offend?

• 2. Frequency of re-offences committed – How many re-offences over the two-year period?

• 3. Time to first re-offence

Males and females were analysed separately due to the known differences in reoffending behaviour. Headline results include all participants in the programme, separated by gender. Analyses were conducted to investigate the potentially differential effect of TSP participation on distinct subgroups and to provide information on how differences in TSP delivery may impact on its effectiveness. It was not always possible to conduct sub-analyses due to small sample sizes.

Four key sub-analyses (more details are in ‘Explanation of sub-analyses’) were identified as potentially important moderators of TSP effectiveness:

• Suitability for TSP (ideally suitable and not ideally suitable)

• Completion of TSP (completed and not completed)

• Programme integrity using the HMPPS 2016-2019 Interventions Integrity Framework (broadly maintained and compromised)

• Risk of reoffending prior to TSP (Offender Group Reconviction Score (OGRS): low, medium, or high risk of reoffending).

Additional sub-analyses were conducted to provide further context and explanation of results included:

• Index offence group (acquisitive offences, sexual offences, and OVP (OASys Violence Predictor) offences – based on grouping of Home Office offence codes)

• Exclusivity of TSP (participation in TSP only and in one or more other accredited programmes)

• Ethnic group (‘Asian and Asian British’, ‘Black, Black British, Caribbean, and African’, ‘mixed and multiple ethnic groups’, and ‘White’, as per Office for National Statistics aggregate categories)

• Learning Disabilities and Challenges (LDC) (more likely to present with characteristics associated with LDC and less likely to present with characteristics associated with LDC)

• Age (18-25, 26-30, 31-49 and 50+)

London: Ministry of Justice, 2023. 92p.

By: Seri Irazola; Jennifer Bronson; Laura M. Maruschak

This report describes the results of a BJS study that assessed the feasibility of collecting data on maternal health and pregnancy outcomes from prisons and jails. It examined the availability and quality of data, the respondent burden, and the challenges of collecting data on the health and health care of pregnant women in custody at the federal, state, local, and tribal levels. BJS will use the findings of this study to help determine the best strategies for implementing national data collections in correctional settings. The study was undertaken in response to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations Report 116-455.

Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2024. 14p.

By Charlie Brooker and Coral Sirdifield

There are many benefits to making sure that we understand the mental health needs of people on probation and address them. Criminal justice and health agencies need to work together to make sure that people get the support that they need with their mental health. However, currently, the services that are provided are not always suitable to meet this population’s needs, and people on probation can face numerous barriers to accessing care. In this evidence review, Professor Charlie Brooker, honorary professor at Royal Holloway, University of London and Dr Coral Sirdifield, Senior Research Associate at the University of Lincoln, look at: The benefits of focusing on the mental health of people on probation, what we know about the mental health of people on probation, the organisation of mental health care, current initiatives, and challenges to providing high-quality care. Also what good quality care for people on probation looks like and Improving the evidence base and provision of care.

Suffolk, UK: Clinks, 2024. 13p.