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Date: April 30, 2024 Tue
Time: 1:17 am
Time: 1:17 am
Results for prison over-crowding
2 results foundAuthor: California State Auditor. Bureau of State Audits Title: Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation: The Benefits of Its Correctional Offender Management Profiling for Alternative Sanctions Program Are Uncertain Summary: The Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (Corrections) intends to use the Correctional Offender Management Profiling for Alternative Sanctions (COMPAS) software to help identify factors that cause inmates to commit crimes, so they can participate in such rehabilitative programs as substance abuse treatment or vocational education to reduce their likelihood of reoffending, thereby reducing overcrowding in the State’s prisons. California’s high recidivism rates and difficulties with prison overcrowding are well documented. In its October 2010 outcome evaluation report, Corrections reported that 67.5 percent of all felons released during fiscal year 2005–06 returned to prison within three years. Further, in May 2011 the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling upholding the authority of a lower court to require that California reduce its inmate population to 137.5 percent of the design capacity of its correctional institutions. As of June 30, 2011, Corrections had more than 144,000 inmates in its various institutions, which were designed to accommodate only 80,000. However, the prospects that COMPAS will play a meaningful role in helping Corrections ultimately reduce prison overcrowding and lower its recidivism rates are, at best, uncertain. Corrections uses gender-specific versions of two different COMPAS assessments. The COMPAS core assessment identifies the needs of inmates entering the prison system, while the COMPAS reentry assessment evaluates inmates who are about to reenter society on parole. Our review found Corrections’ use of COMPAS during its parole planning process is not consistently enforced, while its use in reception centers — where inmates are initially evaluated and assigned to a prison — does not appear to affect decisions on prison assignments and, by extension, the rehabilitative programs inmates might access at those facilities. Corrections’ process at its 12 reception centers for assigning inmates to prisons is complex and considers factors such as an inmate’s history of violence, medical needs, gang affiliations, and the available bed space at suitable facilities that can accommodate the inmate’s security requirements. Our observations at one reception center and discussions with Corrections’ staff at seven others revealed that prison assignments are often not based on COMPAS. Instead, the inmate’s security level and the weekly placement restrictions imposed by Corrections’ Population Management Unit — the unit responsible for coordinating inmate movement within the prison system — are the primary determinants of prison assignment. Details: Sacramento: California State Auditor, 2011. 59p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed September 10, 2011 at: http://www.bsa.ca.gov/pdfs/reports/2010-124.pdf Year: 2011 Country: United States URL: http://www.bsa.ca.gov/pdfs/reports/2010-124.pdf Shelf Number: 122680 Keywords: -Prison AdministrationCorrectional InstitutionsCorrectional ProgramsParolePrison Over-crowdingPrisoner RehabilitationPrisons (California)Recidivism |
Author: Day, Mark Title: Strangeways 25 years on: achieving fairness and justice in our prisons Summary: Half of all men (49.7%) at HMP Manchester (Strangeways) are held two to a cell designed for one, a new Prison Reform Trust report reveals. Almost one quarter (23.6%) of people held across the prison estate in England and Wales are in so-called "doubled accommodation". Twenty five years after the Strangeways riot began on 1 April 1990, chronic overcrowding driven by a near doubling of the prison population over the past two decades continues to undermine standards of decency in prisons and restrict opportunities for rehabilitation, the report says. Half of people released from prison reoffend within one year of release; rising to 60% for those serving sentences of 12 months or less. When the Strangeways riot began the prison population was 45,000; today it stands at 84,000. England and Wales now has the highest rate of imprisonment in Western Europe, imprisoning 149 people for every 100,000. At the end of February 2015, 71 of the 118 prisons in England and Wales were overcrowded. Successive governments have poured taxpayers' money into expensive prison building programmes while closing smaller prisons and opening vast prisons in order to meet the demands of a growing prison population. More than four in 10 prisoners are now held in supersized jails of over 1,000 or more. HMP Manchester currently holds 1,114 men. The Strangeways prison riot, which left two men dead and 194 injured, was one of the most serious in British penal history. The riot took place against the background of a prison system which was perceived by prisoners as increasingly arbitrary and unfair and lacking in basic standards of decency. Lord Woolf's inquiry into the causes of the disturbances constituted a wide-ranging examination of conditions in Britain's prisons and represents the most important analysis of the penal system for the past 100 years. Lord Woolf, who now chairs the Prison Reform Trust, will deliver a lecture on the 25th anniversary of the Strangeways riot on 1 April 2015 at the Inner Temple in London. Lord Woolf's main recommendations and 204 proposals on matters of detail set out an agenda for comprehensive reform of the prison system. These included an end to "slopping out", whereby prisoners had to urinate and defecate in buckets in their cell; the appointment of a prisons ombudsman; and the introduction of telephones on landings so prisoners could keep in closer touch with their families. Lord Woolf also called for an enforceable limit on overcrowding and the division of prisons into smaller and more manageable secure units of 50-70 places, with no establishment exceeding 400 places. The report assesses progress made against Lord Woolf's 12 main recommendations for a more fair and just prison system. It says that many of the factors which contributed to the unrest have resurfaced today. Although the Prison Service is better able today to ensure control and security, this has threatened to set back decades of painstaking progress it has made to improve treatment and conditions. Over the past two years, independent prisons inspectorate reports and Ministry of Justice statistics reveal a marked increase in deaths in custody, a rising tide of violence and acts of concerted indiscipline, and falling rates of purposeful activity. The justice committee, in its recent report into the current government's approach to prison policy and planning, said that moves to cut costs in the prison system in England and Wales, as well as tougher prison regimes, had "made a significant contribution to the deterioration in safety." Measuring progress against Lord Woolf's recommendations, the report reveals a prison service which has made heroic strides in some areas but disturbing lapses in others. Although the official end to 'slopping out' was announced nearly 20 years ago, by the former prisons minister Ann Widdecombe, some establishments still suffer from a lack of in cell sanitation. HM inspector of prisons 2013-14 annual report said: "We continued to find - and be critical of - 'night sanitation' systems in some prisons, such as Blundeston and Coldingley, where there were no in-cell toilets and prisoners used an electronic queuing system to access external toilets. These systems sometimes break down, leaving prisoners little option than to use buckets." In 2010 there were 1,973 prison places without in-cell sanitation or open access to toilet facilities. The report says that better arrangements for monitoring prison performance could be improved by more robust and comprehensive standards and a truly independent prisons inspectorate accountable directly to Parliament Details: London: Prison Reform Trust, 2015. 40p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed April 2, 2015 at: http://www.prisonreformtrust.org.uk/Portals/0/Documents/woolf25250315FINALilo.pdf Year: 2015 Country: United Kingdom URL: http://www.prisonreformtrust.org.uk/Portals/0/Documents/woolf25250315FINALilo.pdf Shelf Number: 135149 Keywords: Prison AdministrationPrison ConditionsPrison Over-crowdingPrisons (U.K.) |