By Sarah L. Desmarais, David A. D’Amora, Lahiz P. Tavárez

These guidelines were developed to promote accuracy, fairness, transparency, and effective communication and use of risk and needs assessment instruments to inform decision making following conviction. Whatever the setting, the guidelines presume that the intended use of post-conviction risk and needs assessment instruments is to support accurate, fair, and transparent decisions regarding a person’s risk of recidivism. These guidelines also presume that the purpose of post-conviction risk and needs assessment instruments is, ultimately, to promote public safety and positive outcomes for people in the criminal justice system through the least restrictive means possible.

This project was accomplished through the collaborative efforts of researchers, risk and needs assessment instrument developers, practitioners, and leaders in the field who gave generously of their time and expertise over the course of 2.5 years. It draws on an extensive review of literature and related research, observations from the field, feedback from national experts, several multidisciplinary forums and advisory group discussions, and a rigorous review process.

Advancing Fairness and Transparency: National Guidelines for Post-Conviction Risk and Needs Assessment is a resource for making decisions that help people succeed after a conviction. The guidelines were developed by the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) and The Council of State Governments Justice Center. They promote fairness, transparency, and accuracy in the use of risk and needs assessment instruments.

The guidelines are intended to be used by policymakers, researchers, practitioners, and agency administrators. They can help inform decisions and case planning after a conviction and sentencing, or in alternative forms of criminal justice processing.

The guidelines include recommendations for promoting accuracy, such as: Conducting a local evaluation of the assessment instrument, Meeting minimum performance thresholds, and Using a continuous quality improvement process.

New York: Council of State Governments, Justice Center, 2022. 54p.

By The Correctional Association of New York

This report describes the findings from a survey of incarcerated individuals that CANY conducted regarding the New York prison system’s Incarcerated Grievance Program (IGP). Survey responses indicated that people who are incarcerated perceive the IGP to be unclear, unfair, takes too long, and subjects incarcerated people to retaliation after they raise concerns. CANY will soon release a follow-up report that offers recommendations for addressing the problems they identified in this report.

The historical origins of the grievance process in New York State. The grievance program in New York and across the United States has a direct link to the legacy of the Attica uprising in 1971. During the uprising, incarcerated people engaged in negotiations on key complaints. In the aftermath of Attica, the McKay Commission recommended a series of reforms.6, 7, 8 This included “Reform No. 18: Establish an inmate grievance commission comprised of one elected inmate from each company, which is authorized to speak to the administration.”9 The grievance process came into existence in New York State in 1976.10

New York: Correctional Association of New York 2023. 111p.

By: Heather Schoenfeld , Kimberly Rhoten and Michael C. Campbell

In recent years US prisons have failed to meet legally required minimum standards of care and protection of incarcerated people. Explanations for the failure to protect prisoners in the United States focus on the effects of the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) and lack of adequate external oversight. However, very little scholarship empirically examines how different systems of accountability for prisoners’ rights work (or do not work) together. In this article, we introduce an accountability framework that helps us examine the prisoners’ rights “accountability environment” in the United States. We then compare two post-PLRA case studies of failure to protect incarcerated women from sexual assault in two different states. We find that the prisoners’ rights accountability environment is a patchwork of legal, bureaucratic, professional, and political systems. The patchwork accountability environment consists of a web of hierarchical and interdependent relationships that constrain or enable accountability. We argue that ultimately the effectiveness of prisoners’ rights accountability environments depends on whether protecting prisoners’ rights aligns with the priorities of dominant political officials. Our argument has implications for efforts to improve prison conditions and incarcerated people’s well-being.

Law & Social Inquiry Volume 00, Issue 00, 1–30, 2024

By Michele Deitch

This in-depth article provides comprehensive background information about the nature, value, and history of correctional oversight; documents the shifting landscape and increasing momentum around the oversight issue over the last decade; highlights key distinctions between prison and jail oversight; and provides a comprehensive assessment of the state of prison and jail oversight in the U.S. today. The article includes tables listing and categorizing every correctional oversight body in the United States as of 2020.

American Journal of Criminal Law 47, no. 2 (2020): 207–74.

By Eve Tailor and Dan Jones

Numerous prisons, charities, and prison education providers deliver peer mentoring schemes relating to education, skills, and work (ESW). Where successful, these schemes are viewed as significant in the delivery of ESW and have been highly praised by His Majesty's Inspectorate of Prisons (HMIP) and Ofsted. However, practice is inconsistent and there is limited evidence about which delivery models are most successful. The rationale for undertaking this research was to understand effective practice in ESW peer mentoring in more detail, including the functioning of these schemes. The findings from this study will be used by the HMPPS Prisoner Education Service team to inform ESW peer mentoring policy development.

Findings are based on 48 qualitative interviews with mentees, mentors and ESW staff members across 5 male prisons in England in April and May 2023.

1.2 Key Findings

A variety of mentoring schemes operate in ESW within men’s prisons. The setting, structure, purpose, and formality of schemes explored in this study vary significantly. For example, formalised schemes had structured mentor/mentee relationships and clear staff oversight. These schemes tended to focus on skill development, such as reading. Less formalised schemes often had flexible and less structured operation, with mentors supporting multiple mentees. These less formalised schemes often involved supporting staff to deliver ESW services. There is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to peer mentoring in ESW, allowing individual sites to tailor their provision to the learners at their site.

Some of the enablers of effective practice identified by participants in this study included:

• mentors having previous experience as a mentee or mentor in other custodial and non-custodial settings,

• approachable mentors helping to facilitate mentee recruitment and effective running of schemes,

• privileges and low-risk status enabling greater access to the prison site and recognition of the hard work of mentors.

Some of the barriers to effective practice identified by participants in this study included:

• regime and restricted movement preventing access to mentoring,

• limited awareness from operational staff about the purpose of peer mentoring,

• lack of appropriate space on wings to provide support,

• recruitment issues arising from stigma and lack of awareness, and

• a lack of a ‘pipeline’ for new mentors which made some schemes unsustainable.

Participants identified a range of benefits and drawbacks associated with ESW peer mentoring. Benefits included improved staff-prisoner relationships and the development of soft skills such as communication and learning new skills.

Drawbacks identified by participants included mentors having to deliver mentoring during association and losing their ‘down time’, becoming demoralised by the lack of engagement, and previous poor experiences of mentoring being “off-putting” for future participation in schemes.

Ministry of Justice Analytical Series, London: UK Ministry of Justice, 2024. 41p.

By Mirko Bagaric

The Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) has taken a lead role in providing empirically-grounded reform proposals for the criminal justice system, with a strong focus on reducing incarceration numbers. The report released in 2017, titled Australia’s Criminal Justice Costs: An International Comparison noted that ‘despite spending more than most countries [on prisons] and more and more each year, our results are poor and people don’t feel safe’.

In recent years, this problem has become more acute. Prison rates have continued to increase, with an enormous amount of public money being spent on prisons and no improvement in community safety.

Over the past two decades the United States – known in criminology circles as the ‘mass incarcerator’ – has made significant progress in reducing the incarceration of low-risk, non-violent offenders. This has reduced the overall incarceration rate which delivers a dividend to taxpayers through less spending on prisons, some of which can be re-invested to strengthen the policing of violent and sexual offences to improve community safety. Additionally, reducing unnecessary rates of incarceration allows more Americans to be productive members of society, through working, paying taxes, and supporting their families and local communities.

The adage applied by reformers predominately from deep-red conservative states such as Georgia and Texas was ‘jail is for people we are afraid of, not those we are mad at.’ This recognises the unique nature of prison and that it should be reserved for people who are a threat to community safety. For those who are not a threat to safety, but who have nonetheless broken the law and ought to be punished, alternatives to prison should be pursued.

Australia, however, is lagging behind the world-leading reforms undertaken in the United States, and across many parts of Europe and Scandinavia over the past two decades.

The criminal justice system has a number of stages, including investigation, arrest, trial and conviction or acquittal and then the imposition of sanctions against offenders. This last stage, sentencing, is arguably the most important aspect of the system: the sanctions available against offenders target the most cherished and coveted individual interests, including the right to liberty. Moreover, mistakes at the sentencing stage of the process threaten to undermine the integrity of the entire criminal justice system. If, for example, murderers habitually received only small fines or shoplifters were sentenced to life imprisonment, this would seriously undermine the efficacy of the entire criminal justice process. This report focuses on reforms to the sentencing system. This system is fundamentally broken in Australia. There is no tenable rationale that can justify the jarring reality that Australia’s imprisonment rate has increased three-fold over the past three decades, making Australia one of the most punitive developed nations on earth.

The most pressing and important issue relating to sentencing law and practice is its continued disregard of expert knowledge and empirical evidence. Sentencing is the institution where there is the greatest gap between practice and knowledge. Most other social institutions and areas of learning, such as medicine, engineering and education, readily embrace and change their practices in response to new learning that demonstrates more efficient and effective ways of achieving desirable outcomes. By contrast, the key sentencing policies and practices which are responsible for the incarceration crisis have been implemented and maintained despite extensive research which demonstrates that the system is flawed.

Empirical evidence highlights that key sentencing objectives that have been invoked to justify heavier penalties, such as marginal general deterrence and specific deterrence, are unattainable, yet they remain central goals of Australian sentencing system.

This report examines the gulf between sentencing knowledge and practice, and makes recommendations regarding the measures that need to be undertaken to bridge that gap, so that law-makers can bring sentencing practice in line with current knowledge and make it fairer and more efficient. If the proposals in this report are adopted, the incarceration rate could be reduced by up to 30%, far less tax-payer dollars will be spent on prisons and the community will be safer.

The election of the Albanese Federal Government and increased focus on problems with the sentencing system provides a window in which the community and law-makers are receptive to evidence-based reforms to sentencing. To take advantage of this opportunity, it is necessary understand the flaws of the current system and the barriers to implementing progressive reforms and provide coherent evidence-based reform proposals.

The reform proposals in this report will make changes to the sentencing system which will secure the following four objectives:

1. Reducing crime;

2. Punishing criminals appropriately;

3. Minimising the cost of the system; and

4. Ensuring that the system does not violate important moral norms.

In order to improve the sentencing system, it is necessary to reassess the current aims of sentencing; give content to the principle of proportionality; harmonise aggravating and mitigating considerations, establish standard penalties for key offence types and introduce new criminal sanctions. This matters are now discussed below, after examining the failings of the current system.

Melbourne: Institute of Public Affairs, 2022. 24p.

By: Mirko Bagaric and Morgan Begg

1. The objectives of the criminal justice system should be to ensure that incarceration is preserved for violent offenders and those who have perpetrated crimes of a sexual nature. The incarceration of low-risk, and non-violent offenders adds significant economic and social costs without delivering a benefit to the community in terms of improved safety outcomes.

2. The NSW government should recognise that the use of the prison system should be reserved for the most fearful and threatening offenders, those who must be incapacitated to reduce harms to society. By definition, white-collar criminals are non-violent who pose no physical threat to society. Incarceration should be a solution for only the most threatening to society. In the case of white-collar criminals, the aims of punishment can be equally achieved through other means, such as garnishing wages, severe financial penalties, and technological incarceration, which may be more effective at incapacitating white-collar criminals from recidivism.

3. In sentencing fraud offenders, courts should take into account three key considerations: (i) community protection; (ii) the principle of proportionality (the punishment should fit the crime); and (iii) the interests of victims, which is best promoted through reparation.

Melbourne: Institute of Public Affairs, 2022. 32p.

Written by: Mirko Bagaric and Morgan Begg

Australia is experiencing both an incarceration crisis and an unprecedented worker shortage. Sensible criminal justice reform can address the excessive burden on Australia’s prison system while also filling persistent job vacancies in the economy.

According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, there are currently close to 450,000 jobs vacancies across the economy, which is double the number of job vacancies prior to covid-19. And close to one in four businesses have stated they cannot find the workers they need.

In terms of incarceration, Australia’s incarceration rate has increased by 240 per cent since the mid-1980s. This is three times our population growth rate. This is much higher than other commonwealth countries with similar legal systems, such as Britain and Canada, and more than double European countries such as Germany, The Netherlands, and Sweden.

The total cost to the Australian taxpayer of imprisoning roughly 42,000 prisoners is now nearly $4.5 billion annually. Over-incarceration imposes an additional cost on Australians by depriving our labour force of healthy, working age men and women who could otherwise be productive members of society.

Approximately 42 per cent of prisoners have not committed sexual or violent offences. Not imprisoning these low-risk non-violent offenders would support, and most likely enhance, their rehabilitation. It has been firmly established that many employers are prepared to employ people who have prior convictions for non-violent and non-sexual offences, and when they do employ such people they are invariably pleased with their decision.

If Australian governments reformed sentencing so that non-violent low-risk offenders were not detained at taxpayer expense, but rather were put to work in industries which urgently need workers, this could deliver substantial benefits to taxpayers without compromising community safety.

If this reform had been implemented in 2021-22 as many as 14,000 young and healthy adults could have been added to the workforce, which would have improved government budgets by $1.95 billion in reduced incarceration costs and increased income tax revenue. If this reform had been implemented between 2016-17 and 2021-22, total budgetary savings would have been in the order of $10.4 billion in reduced incarceration costs for state governments and additional income tax revenue for the federal government.

Diverting low-risk non-violent offenders from prison and giving them the opportunity to work would enhance their lives and prospects, promote community safety, improve the economy through increased productivity, and reduce net government spending and debt.

Melbourne: Institute of Public Affairs, 2023. 20p.

By Jennifer L. Doleac and Benjamin Hansen

Jurisdictions across the United States have adopted “ban the box” (BTB) policies preventing employers from asking about job applicants’ criminal records until late in the hiring process. Their goal is to improve employment outcomes for those with criminal records, with a secondary goal of reducing racial disparities in employment. However, removing criminal history information could increase statistical discrimination against demographic groups that include more ex-offenders. We use variation in the timing of BTB policies to test BTB’s effects on employment. We find that BTB policies decrease the probability of employment by 3.4 percentage points (5.1%) for young, low-skilled black men.

Journal of Labor Economics, Volume 38, Number 2, April 2020

By The Death Penalty Information Center

It is a common assumption that the federal death penalty is reserved only for the most serious crimes against the country, like terrorism, that have a unique federal interest. But an expansion of the federal death penalty in the 1990s added more than 60 crimes that carried a potential death sentence. The cases the federal government decides to pursue are rarely “exceptional” compared to the cases tried at the state level. Federal defendants also share many of the same characteristics as state court defendants: they are often poor, traumatized and mentally impaired, and disproportionately people of color. This report documents use of the federal death penalty from its earliest beginnings through modern day. Like many state-level capital punishment systems, the federal death penalty has been used in a racially biased manner, a conclusion that the many historical examples and data in this report confirm. The federal death penalty was a tool historically used by the government to intimidate and subjugate people of color, particularly Black and Native American communities. Today, the most active death-sentencing federal jurisdictions were once the nation’s leaders of extra-judicial lynchings, a through line of connection that links the past to the present and raises serious questions about the future use of the federal death penalty.

Death Penalty Information Center, 2024. 36p.

By Nicola Collett

In the UK, there are over 12.5 million people living with a criminal record (henceforth PWCRs). Owing to its widespread use outside of the criminal justice system, the oftenindefinite retention of such information can have long-term consequences for those who have them. This has attracted the attention of charities such as Unlock, and scholars such as those forming the Collateral Consequences of a Criminal Record Working Group1 . Notably, a significant amount of this research has focused on the experiences of prison leavers as they navigate desistance and re-integration. However, the vast majority of those living with a criminal record have not experienced incarceration, and have records relating to minor cautions or convictions having briefly interacted with the criminal justice system (CJS) in youth. This means a significant number of people living with criminal records are currently overlooked, and their experiences are not effectively captured in research. This is a considerable oversight because, as this report will demonstrate, many of these individuals face life-long stigma and discrimination despite the lesser nature of their historical offending. This report presents the key findings from doctoral research funded by Keele University. The purpose of this report is twofold. First, it seeks to illustrate the varied and often unpredictable ways criminal record disclosure can occur in both public and private life domains. Second, it will explore how PWCRs navigate such disclosures, acknowledging the highly subjective nature of criminal record experiences. In doing so, this report provides an evidence base for significantly reducing the use of criminal record information outside of the CJS, and illustrates why there is a need to develop communities of support for PWCRs. It calls for more empirical research with those living with criminal records to further understand the implications of early-life CJS interaction. Indeed, it is hoped that this report will encourage further research with those living in England and Wales with criminal records, adding to the growing evidence base for meaningful reform.

Keele, UK: Keele University, 2024. 36p.

By The Justice Policy Institute

In January 2019, the District of Columbia government enlisted the Justice Policy Institute to explore the feasibility of restoring local control of parole and make recommendations for how release decision-making can be transferred from the federal government to the DC government. Transferring supervision responsibilities and parole decision-making from the federal government back to the District is an ambitious, complicated undertaking. Fortunately, local leadership can draw on a wealth of data, evidence, and experience from other jurisdictions as they evaluate how best to move forward. This new report highlights the best available research and practice in the parole field, provides 22 recommendations for parole decision-making and supervision, and outlines three options for restoring local control of release decision-making. JPI undertook a series of activities to produce this report. These included:

• Interviewing District and federal officials to understand how the current system functions and how best to build upon its strengths.

• Speaking with attorneys who handle parole applications to the United States Parole Commission.

• Attending community speak-out events and local criminal justice coalition meetings to solicit input from a wide range of community and system stakeholders, including currently and formerly incarcerated people with experience in the District’s parole system.

• Consulting with experts from multiple organizations that provide technical assistance to help states improve their parole practice, including attending the 2019 Association of Paroling Authorities International Chairs Meeting and Annual Training Conference in Baltimore, Maryland.

• Examining a broad array of research in academic peer-reviewed journals, technical white papers, and state agency reports.

The recommendations outlined in this report should guide the development and staffing of a new parole board, the criteria for release decision-making, and how individuals are supervised in the community. If the District follows this plan, we believe it has the opportunity to serve as a model jurisdiction for other states. We also hope the report can be useful for jurisdictions currently considering reforms to their parole systems.

 Washington, DC: Justice Policy Institute, 2019. 97p.

By The Justice Policy Institute

Most states have established release mechanisms for the aging population and those in prison who are battling a terminal illness, often referred to as compassionate release. Compassionate release policies typically permit individuals in prison to petition for early release after having served a pre-determined number of years for either health (medical parole) or advanced age (geriatric parole). However, the laws frequently have restrictive eligibility requirements and are applied sparingly, often when an individual is expected to survive only a matter of days or weeks. While Maryland has both medical and geriatric parole options, approval is fleeting. Data are limited but provide a glimpse into their restricted use. Between 2015 and 2020, the Maryland Parole Commission approved 86 medical parole applications and denied 253. Further, the Governor granted nine medical parole requests from individuals serving life sentences and rejected 14 requests. Most notably, the lowest yearly approval rating occurred during the height of the pandemic in 2020 at seven percent. The Justice Reinvestment Act of 2016 expanded geriatric parole eligibility by lowering the age threshold from 65 to 60 years old. However, petitions are rarely approved. Currently, there are about 650 individuals over the age of 60 in Maryland’s prison system who have served at least 15 years. These individuals are eligible to be evaluated for release. But, like in most states, Maryland seldom relies on these compassionate release policies to release the elderly and infirm from prison, despite posing a minimal risk to public safety and a significant cost burden on the state budget. Without substantial reforms to compassionate release in Maryland, the aging population will continue to grow, and the onus will be on the Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services (DPSCS) to provide the adequate care.

Washington, DC: Justice Policy Institute, 2022. 14p.

By Kayla Freemon  

An estimated 5.4% of individuals in United States jails are in private facilities. While our knowledge about jail experiences and private prisons has grown in recent years, little is known about the private jail experience. Jail stays are often assumed to be a less severe punishment; however, transient and diverse populations and limited investments in treatment and programming suggest jails may be particularly unsafe. The current study uses the 2011–12 National Inmate Survey to compare how individuals perceive and experience safety while incarcerated in public and private jails. A quasi-experimental approach is taken using propensity scores to match individuals in private jails to those in public facilities based on demographics, past experiences, and incarceration measures. The findings suggest that individuals in private jails perceived these facilities as less safe compared to their public counterparts. Respondents in private jails reported higher levels of gang activity in their facility, more had belongings stolen while detained, and fewer individuals believed the facility was adequately staffed or that corrections officers ended fights quickly. This study highlights harms experienced in both public and private jails and underscores a need for more research on the private jail experience.

Journal of Criminal Justice Volume 90, January–February 2024, 102134

By Nicole Gelinas

Six months before the Covid-19 epidemic spread across New York City in early March, Mayor Bill de Blasio and the city council approved a plan to spend nearly $9 billion over the next half-decade to build four jails, one each in the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, and Queens. The completion of the new jails, in turn, would allow the city to close Rikers Island, home to most existing jail facilities. The mayor and the council are right in one respect: the jail facilities on Rikers are deficient. One way or another, New York must invest billions to make good on its promise to treat detainees—most of whom have not yet been convicted of any crime—with compassion and dignity. But there are major flaws in the city’s plan. The construction of four new jails in dense urban neighborhoods, at enormous expense and risk to the city’s fiscal health, does not guarantee inmates the better care that the city has promised. By concentrating on location rather than on deeper-seated problems, the city may simply replicate Rikers’ problems elsewhere. Indeed, should the city fail to successfully execute its borough-based jails plan, it would even fall short of its ultimate, symbolic goal: closing Rikers. The coronavirus crisis puts these flaws into sharper relief. At present, the city faces the loss of hundreds of thousands of jobs, billions—if not tens of billions—in tax revenue, and significant uncertainty over when recovery will begin and how strong it will be. As a result, New York simply has far less room for error than it did last fall, when it approved its plan to build new jails. There is a better alternative: rebuild Rikers. This 400-acre island is an optimal location for multiple, well designed, low- to mid-rise jail facilities. Rikers is also New York’s only remaining open space near enough to the courthouses in all five boroughs to be a practical location for housing inmates in a sprawling setting—but far away enough from the general population to serve as a secure location. Figure 1 is a sketch of what a rebuilt Rikers Island might look like.

New York: Manhattan Institute, 2020. 16p.

By: Michael L. Marumo and Connie Zulu

Maintaining good learner discipline continues to be a battle in many schools amidst debates around the human rights of learners and the effectiveness of current systems of learner discipline. The purpose of this study was to investigate teachers’ and learners’ perceptions of alternatives to corporal punishment in Mahikeng Township secondary schools of the North-West province in South Africa. A qualitative research design based on the social constructivist or interpretive paradigm was adopted in this study. Teachers who had been in the field before the official banning of corporal punishment were purposefully selected from four schools. Grade 11 and 12 learners were also purposefully sampled on the basis of their ‘maturity’ as senior learners who had been in the school long enough to experience the new, alternative disciplinary measures. Data were collected through focus group interviews, four with educators and four with learners, and thereafter subjected to qualitative data analysis procedures. The findings showed conflicting perceptions. Although some teachers and learners felt that alternative forms of discipline were effective to a certain extent, the general perception was one of scepticism. Both teachers and learners expressed the need for a return to corporal punishment in cases of serious misconduct. Some learners applauded the introduction of alternative forms of discipline only because this system replaced what was considered to be an abusive system of corporal punishment. Although teachers attributed their negative perceptions to a lack of adequate training in the implementation of alternative forms of discipline, continuous repetition by learners of the same offences for which they had been ‘positively’ disciplined resulted in learners’ negative perceptions. The main recommendation is that follow-up training and workshops on alternative forms of discipline should be regularly held for teachers to develop confidence in the use of these strategies and to improve perceptions.

A scholarly inquiry into disciplinary practices in educational institutions, January 2019

By: Emanuel Tirosh, Shlomit Offer Shechter, Ayala Cohen, and Michael Jaffe

Objectives: To assess physicians’ attitudes towards corporal punishment in childhood and their subsequent actions regarding the reporting of child abuse.

Participants: 107 physicians (95 pediatricians and 12 family practitioners) who work in hospitals and community clinics in northern Israel were interviewed. Of the participants, 16% were new immigrants.

Procedure: A structured interview was conducted by one of two pediatric residents.

Results: Attitudes towards corporal punishment were not influenced by the physicians’ sex or specialty. Corporal punishment was approved by 58% of the physicians. A significant difference in attitudes towards corporal punishment between immigrants and Israeli-born physicians was found (p = .004). Family practitioners and especially senior ones were found significantly less tolerant towards corporal punishment than pediatricians (p = .04). While reporting behavior was not found to be associated with parental status and the past experience of the physicians with child abuse, a significant effect of attitudes towards corporal punishment on reporting behavior was found (p = .01).

Conclusions: (1) Corporal punishment is still perceived as an acceptable disciplinary act by a significant proportion of physicians responsible for the health care of children in our area. (2) Attitudes towards corporal punishment are different between immigrants and native-born Israeli-trained doctors and, unexpectedly, pediatricians were more tolerant of corporal punishment than family practitioners.

Child Abuse & Neglect 27 (2003) 929–937

By: Rose Ashraf and George W Holden

It is increasingly being recognized that children have the right to not be hit by anyone, including parents and teachers. This chapter focuses on the need to protect children from corporal punishment (CP) and represents an update to our chapter in the first edition (Holden & Ashraf, 2016). The chapter will review what is known about the use of CP in one country in South Asia: Pakistan. The chapter marshals the available evidence about the prevalence of CP in the home and schools, as well as problems associated with its use. We then examine the legal status of corporal punishment from the perspective of federal, provincial, and Shariah laws. Recent efforts at federal law reform will then be reviewed. The final section of the chapter will provide recommendations for advancing the protection of Pakistani children from CP and their right to safety.

Child Safety, Welfare and Well-being, Issues and Challenges, March 2022

By: Eunice K. Najoli, Tawanda Runhare, James B. Ouda

Since the beginning of this century, a global tendency to abolish corporal punishment has been introduced to challenge old dependence on corporal punishment as a tool for reforming children’s misbehavior. This tendency was highly supported by the contemporary call for protecting human rights including the right in security and human treatment and child rights in physical protection. Corporal punishment continues to be practiced at unacceptable rates in Kenyan schools; at the same time violence rates are rising. Management of children’s behavioral problems presents a significant challenge for many teachers in schools. The purpose of this research is to analyze why corporal punishment is being practiced in schools in spite of its legal ban. The paper highlights the attitudes of teachers, parents, pupils and the use of corporal punishment as a tool for discipline. A survey research design was used to collect data on attitudes of 32 parents, 32 teachers, 160 students and 8 Principals in secondary schools in western region of Kenya. A sample size of 232 respondents was included and participated in the study. The main finding of this study is that while most teachers understand and support the policy of banning corporal punishment in schools, there remain certain concerns on the effect of such a ban on children rights and equally alternative warm contributions of punishment as a means of maintaining school discipline. These concerns and conflicting viewpoints are over issues related to the difficulty in disciplining students and respecting the students’ human rights.

Open Journal of Social Sciences, 7, 51-69.

By: Yuhanza Othman, Ida Rahayu, and Ekmil Krisnawati Erlen Joni

The government has introduced various programmes to rehabilitate and give treatment to drug dependent. However, statistic from Agensi Anti Dadah Kebangsaan (AADK) has shown that a number of drug dependents have increased annually. It is high time for the government to review and enhance the punishment for drug dependents. The Drug Dependants (Treatment and Rehabilitation) Act 1983 is silent on imposing punishment on a first offender. Therefore, this paper will examine on imposing whipping as punishment for drug dependent as provided by Syariah law. Adopting the application of qiyas, the rule and punishment of drinking liquor which is stated in the Qur’an (5:90) and the hadith is extended to consuming drugs. This paper seeks to discuss alternative methods to deter the public from drug abuse and at the same time to decrease the government expenditure in providing rehabilitation programmes and services for drug dependents.

Islamic perspectives relating to business, arts, culture and communication, January 2015