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Date: April 30, 2024 Tue
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Results for prison reform
49 results foundAuthor: Boylan, Richard T. Title: Intended and Unintended Consequences of Prison Reform Summary: Since the 1970s, U.S. federal courts have issued court orders condemning state prison crowding. However, the impact of these court orders on prison spending and prison conditions is theoretically ambiguous because it is unclear if these court orders are enforceable. We examine states' responses to court interventions and show that these interventions generate higher per inmate incarceration costs, lower inmate mortality rates, and a reduction in prisoners per capita. If states seek to minimize the cost of crime through deterrence, an increase in prison costs should lead states to shift resources from corrections to other means of deterring crime such as welfare and education spending. However, we find that court interventions, that are associated with higher corrections expenditures, lead to lower welfare expenditures. This suggests that the burden of increased correctional spending is borne by the poor. Furthermore, states do not increase welfare spending after their release from court order; making the reduction in welfare spending permanent. Thus, our results suggest that states do not respond to prison reform in the manner prescribed by the deterrence model. States' responses to prison reform are most consistent with the predictions in the empirical public finance literature that indicate stickiness in expenditure categories and that increases in spending in programs that affect the poor generate declines in expenditures in other program that are also targeted to the poor. Details: Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research, 2009. 34p. Source: Internet Resource; NBER Working Paper Series; Working Paper 15535 Year: 2009 Country: United States URL: Shelf Number: 117359 Keywords: Costs of Criminal JusticePrison OvercrowdingPrison ReformPrisons |
Author: Title: Reforming Pakistan's Prison System Summary: A corrupt and dysfunctional prison system has contributed to – and is a manifestation of – the breakdown of the rule of law in Pakistan. Heavily overpopulated, understaffed and poorly managed, the prisons have become a fertile breeding ground for criminality and militancy, with prisoners more likely to return to crime than to abandon it. The system must be examined in the context of a deteriorating criminal justice sector that fails to prevent or prosecute crime, and protects the powerful while victimising the underprivileged. Yet, while domestic and international actors alike are devoting more resources to improve policing and prosecution, prisons continue to be largely neglected. The Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP)-led government at the centre and the four provincial governments, as well as the country’s international partners, should make penal reform a central component of a criminal justice reform agenda. Pakistan lacks a systematic program for the capacity building of prison staff, while existing regulations on postings, transfers and promotions are frequently breached because of nepotism and political interference. Given weak accountability mechanisms for warders and prison superintendents, torture and other brutal treatment are rampant and rarely checked. Moreover, with out-dated laws and procedures, bad practices and poor oversight, the criminal justice system is characterised by long detentions without trial. As a result, prisons remain massively overcrowded, with nearly 33,000 more prisoners than the authorised capacity. The large majority of the total prison population – around 50,000 out of 78,000 – are remand prisoners awaiting or on trial. With more than two dozen capital offences, including many discriminatory provisions that carry a mandatory death penalty, the death-row population is the largest in the world, though the current government has placed an informal moratorium on executions. Circumventing the justice system, the military has detained thousands of people, ostensibly suspected of terrorism but including thousands of political dissidents and others opposed to the military’s policies, especially in Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). Its methods include torture, collective justice and extrajudicial killings. By swelling public resentment, such practices are more likely to create terrorists than counter them. Instead of establishing parallel, unaccountable and illegal structures, countering militancy requires the reform of a dysfunctional criminal justice system. The separation of low-level offenders and suspects, particularly impressionable youth, from the criminal hardcore is particularly urgent. In violation of the Juvenile Justice System Ordinance (JJSO), children continue to be arrested for petty offences and illegally detained for days and even months; in the absence of adequate facilities, their exposure to hardened criminals, including jihadis, makes them more likely to embrace crime, including militancy, after they are released than before they were imprisoned. Yet, with jails overflowing, it is nearly impossible to isolate hardened criminals, including militants, from remand prisoners, juveniles and low-level or first-time offenders. Provincial governments are trying to reduce overcrowding by constructing more prisons and barracks. This strategy is not sustainable. The problem is not simply one of inadequate infrastructure. The prison population will continue to increase so long as bail rights are rarely granted, and accused persons are seldom brought to court on their trial dates. Recent legislation under the current government that makes it easier to obtain bail is a step in the right direction, but only if consistently applied by the courts. There is, however, an acute shortage of probation and parole officers and no systematic programs to rehabilitate released prisoners. In addition to improving police and judicial functioning, the national and provincial governments should invest in establishing an effective probation regime; creating alternatives to imprisonment for petty crimes, such as fines, community service, community confinement and mental health and drug treatment; and providing free legal aid to those who cannot afford it, including by fully resourcing public defenders’ offices. Strong action should also be taken against police and prison officials for often failing to get prisoners to court on their trial dates, or often only doing so after bribes have been paid. Like the police and courts, the prison system is a major contact point between citizen and state, reflecting the public’s access to justice. Major reforms are necessary to restore public confidence in the government’s ability to enforce the rule of law while protecting the rights of all citizens. Having ratified the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the UN Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (UNCAT) in June 2010, the government should allocate the necessary human and financial resources and meet its obligations under these international treaties, so as to ensure that torture and other ill-treatment of detainees are stopped and that officials and institutions responsible for such practises are held accountable. If Pakistan’s prison system remains brutal, opaque and unaccountable, it will continue to aggravate rather than help resolve the country’s major internal security challenges. RECOMMENDATIONS To the Federal Government of Pakistan and Provincial Governments: 1. Repeal the Actions (in Aid of Civil Power) Regulation 2011 for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and Provincially Administered Tribal Areas, and replace the Frontier Crimes Regulations (FCR) 1901, with an updated Penal Code, Criminal Procedure Code and Evidence Act, in accordance with Article 8 of the constitution and internationally accepted human rights standards. 2. Commit to the abolition of torture and other ill-treatment of detainees in all places of detention, and with the necessary financial and human resources take tangible steps to implement international conventions that Pakistan has ratified, including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the UN Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (UNCAT). 3. Address overcrowding in prisons by: a) enforcing existing bail laws, and urging the high judiciary to hold trial court judges accountable for failing to grant bail according to the law; b) passing a new law requiring judges to allow bail unless there are reasonable grounds to believe the prisoner would abscond or commit further offences; and c) reforming the sentencing structure for non-violent petty crimes and first-time offenders to include alternatives to imprisonment, such as fines, probation, community service and psychological and drug treatment. 4. Implement the federal Public Defender and Legal Aid Office Act and pass and implement provincial equivalents without delay; and fund and support NGOs providing free legal aid to prisoners until such offices are established. 5. Improve the quality of prison staff by: a) making the inspectorate of prisons an autonomous organisation instead of an attached department of the provincial home ministry; b) raising salaries, and linking salaries and privileges to those of the police; c) ensuring recruitment on merit and streamlining promotion mechanisms to allow the most deserving to be rewarded with career advancement opportunities; d) building a training institution in each of the four provinces; and e) improving the quality of instruction provided to prison staff through the introduction of modern curricula, based on international standards. 6. Crack down on criminality and improve prison security by: a) taking action against prison officials for failing to enforce security-related regulations; b) preventing access to mobile phones; taking steps to reduce substance abuse and other criminal activity within prisons; and taking action against prison staff responsible for providing prohibited material to inmates; c) training prison staff to more effectively quell riots and repel attacks by prisoners and providing the staff with adequate equipment; and d) installing jamming devices and CCTVs in all major prisons. 7. Improve conditions for prisoners and ensure that they are consistent with legal requirements by: a) constituting criminal justice coordination committees at the national, provincial and district levels, as mandated by Police Order (2002), and authorising them to regularly visit prisons to examine conditions, determine prison administrators’ adherence to law and raise prison-related issues with responsible government officials and policymakers; b) constituting public safety commissions at the national, provincial and district levels, as mandated by Police Order (2002), and extending their authority to hold prison officials accountable for failure to uphold prisoners’ rights and to maintain required standards in prison administration; c) ending the practice of putting condemned prisoners in death row cells while their appeals are still pending, shifting them instead to general barracks; d) investing in better medical care for inmates by allocating more resources and engaging with philanthropists and NGOs to provide better facilities; e) building separate detention facilities for women prisoners and ending the practice of housing them in separate barracks within male prisons; f) eliminating the practice of keeping juveniles in regular prisons, including by establishing functional borstal institutions in each province; and g) amending the Anti-Terrorism Act (ATA), 1997, to require juveniles charged under it to be tried in juvenile courts. 8. Take steps toward the reintegration and rehabilitation of released prisoners by: a) investing in education services and vocational training for inmates, particularly youth and women, to inculcate skills needed to re-enter the workforce; b) improving the functioning of probation and reclamation departments by developing specialised training and curriculums for probation officers and prison staff in the National Academy for Prisons Administration (NAPA), the Punjab Prisons Staff Training Institute and other training institutes; c) directing each provincial home ministry to assess the number of probation and parole officers required by existing and expected caseloads and to increase their numbers accordingly, while providing them with proper offices and adequate facilities, including transport; and d) engaging with probationers’ family members and encouraging community involvement in their rehabilitation and reintegration. 9. End military-devised “de-radicalisation” programs, developing instead a holistic policy aimed at preventing jihadi recruitment, including separating juveniles and other minor and first-time offenders from the adult prison population; making bail the norm rather than the exception; and establishing an effective probation and rehabilitation regime along the lines suggested above. To the International Community, in particular the U.S.: 10. Support the government’s reform agenda, allocating a substantial portion of civilian law enforcement assistance to prison reform, with a focus on: a) improving training programs for prison staff based on revised curriculums that bring existing prison procedures in line with international standards; b) supporting the computerisation of prison and probation records; c) working with training institutes to improve training for probation personnel and with reclamation officials/departments to rehabilitate and reintegrate released prisoners into society and the workforce; and d) supporting NGOs that provide legal aid, education, and vocational training to prisoners, particularly juveniles. 11. Urge the Pakistan military to provide international and domestic humanitarian agencies, including the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), complete access to the estimated thousands of detainees, including juveniles, under its custody, including that of its intelligence agencies, in Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and FATA. 12. Condition military assistance on the Pakistani military immediately ending practices that violate international conventions and basic international legal standards, including illegal detention, collective justice, torture, and extrajudicial killings; and scrutinise the military’s actions when reporting on Pakistan’s compliance with the ICCPR, UNCAT and other treaties. Details: Islamabad, Brussels: International Crisis Group, 2011. 41p. Source: Internet Resource: Asia Report No. 212: Accessed October 18, 2011 at: Year: 2011 Country: Pakistan URL: Shelf Number: 123053 Keywords: Correctional AdministrationPrison OvercrowdingPrison ReformPrisonersPrisons (Pakistan) |
Author: Bastick, Megan Title: The Role of Penal Reform in Security Sector Reform Summary: Penal reform activities have been carried on in Europe and the United States since at least the late eighteenth century. Security sector reform (SSR), a much newer concept, is a governance-driven approach that looks to strengthen the roles of both state and non-state actors to deliver security to individuals and communities. As such, attention to the penal system is important in any comprehensive SSR process. However, much SSR programming overlooks penal elements, and lessons learnt through long experience in penal reform have not been applied to other SSR activities. There is limited discourse between the penal reform community ofpractice and the wider SSR community. This paper seeks to initiate a dialogue concerning the relationship between penal reform and wider security sector reform and governance. It is based on desk research and a number of interviews with penal reform practitioners. Details: Geneva: Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF), 2010. 78p. Source: Internet Resource: CDAF Occasional Papers No. 18: Accessed November 15, 2011 at: http://www.dcaf.ch/DCAF-Migration/KMS/Publications/The-Role-of-Penal-Reform-in-Security-Sector-Reform Year: 2010 Country: International URL: http://www.dcaf.ch/DCAF-Migration/KMS/Publications/The-Role-of-Penal-Reform-in-Security-Sector-Reform Shelf Number: 123352 Keywords: Correctional AdministrationPrison AdministrationPrison ReformPrisons |
Author: Yordanova, Maria Title: Penitentiary Policy and System in the Republic of Bulgaria Summary: The analysis of the legal framework of the prison system, of the state and specific problems of that system, as well as the empirical studies conducted, demonstrate the need of further development of the penitentiary reform as part of the reform of penal legislation and of criminal justice. This implies continued alignment of national legislation with European standards, accompanied by comprehensive practical modernization and humanization of the penitentiary system. The recommendations outline some important guidelines in this respect. In principle, such reforms require considerable costs which, however, can be optimized by introducing a balanced complex of measures, including abolition of the penal sanction of imprisonment for less serious offences and expanding the scope of application of non-custodial measures, shortening the term of custodial sentences, a broader reasoned application of the mechanisms of suspended sentencing, release on parole etc. On the other hand, the costs of “investments” in the reform must match the “benefits” they are supposed to generate. The most important indicators of the benefits of the reforms and of the effectiveness of the penitentiary system are reduction of crime at large and of recidivism in particular, successful reintegration of prisoners after service of the sentence, as well as enhancement of public security. Special attention must be paid to intervention for drug-using or drug-dependent prisoners. Drug distribution and drug use are a serious problem not only for criminal justice and the penitentiary system but a serious social problem in its own right. There is a pressing need of an integral and consistent State policy in this area, including, among other things, a complex of measures vis-`а-vis drugdependent prisoners, applicable both while such persons serve their sentence and after their release. Inspections, monitoring and independent civic oversight, as well as the publicity of their results, are and will continue to be an important guarantee of control over the further progress of the penitentiary reform and over the all-round functioning of the penitentiary system. Details: Sofia, Bulgaria: Center for the Study of Democracy, 2011. 108p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed February 27, 2012 at: http://www.csd.bg/fileSrc.php?id=20419 Year: 2011 Country: Bulgaria URL: http://www.csd.bg/fileSrc.php?id=20419 Shelf Number: 124292 Keywords: Correctional AdministrationCorrectional InstitutionsPrison AdministrationPrison ReformPrisons (Bulgaria) |
Author: Prison Reform Trust Title: No Way Out: A briefing paper on foreign national women in prison in England and Wales Summary: Foreign national women, many of whom are known to have been trafficked or coerced into offending, represent around one in seven of all the women held in custody in England and Wales. Yet comparatively little information has been produced about these women, their particular circumstances and needs, the offences for which they have been imprisoned and about ways to respond to them justly and effectively. This Prison Reform Trust briefing, drawing on the experience and work of the charity FPWP Hibiscus, the Female Prisoners Welfare Project, and kindly supported by the Barrow Cadbury Trust, sets out to redress the balance and to offer findings and recommendations which could be used to inform a much-needed national strategy for the management of foreign national women in the justice system. An overarching recommendation of Baroness Corston’s report published in 2007 was the need to reduce the number of women in custody, stating that “custodial sentences for women must be reserved for serious and violent offenders who pose a threat to the public”. She included foreign national women in her report, seeing them as: A significant minority group who have distinct needs and for whom a distinct strategy is necessary. However, when the government response and then the National Service Framework for Improving Services to Women Offenders were published the following year, there were no references to this group. Four years further on little progress has been made. "In spite of their evident needs”, The HM Chief Inspector of Prison’s Annual Report for 2008-9 pointed out that: Support for foreign national women, a significant proportion of women prisoners, is still not well developed in many prisons. If anything, due to the government’s focus on ensuring that “foreign criminals” do not have rights to remain in the country, the expansion of the Immigration Removal Centre (IRC) estate and a focus on fast track removals, the plight of this group has worsened. One of the key elements of the UK Borders Act 2007, which came into force in January 2009, was automatic deportation of non-British citizens who have been sentenced to a period of imprisonment for 12 months and over. The intolerance of any non-UK national who breaks the law remaining in the country is further emphasised in the most recently published UKBA five year strategy which talks of: Considering with partners, including the Crown Prosecution Service, the most effective use of out of court disposals such as cautions together with immigration powers, to remove low level foreign national offenders as an alternative to prosecution. This comes at a time when an increasing percentage of foreign women, who come to the attention of the criminal justice and immigration systems and who end up in custody, have been living in the UK long enough for their children to consider this country as home. Drawing on Hibiscus’ records of its work with foreign national women, this report attempts to gain a better understanding of the current situation for these women, see this in the context of changes over the last few years and outline what needs to be done. Details: London: Prison Reform Trust, 2012. 16p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed February 28, 2012 at http://www.prisonreformtrust.org.uk/Portals/0/Documents/NoWayOut.pdf Year: 2012 Country: United Kingdom URL: http://www.prisonreformtrust.org.uk/Portals/0/Documents/NoWayOut.pdf Shelf Number: 124309 Keywords: Correctional AdministrationFemale InmatesInmates, Foreign Born (U.K.)Prison Reform |
Author: Northern Ireland. Committee on the Administration of Justice Title: Prisons and Prisoners in Northern Ireland -- Putting Human Rights at the Heart of Prison Reform Summary: A great deal has been written and said over the past number of years in relation to the Northern Ireland Prison Service (NIPS). Hundreds of recommendations for change have been made, and although many of them have been taken on board, there exists a mass of unimplemented recommendations. The nature of the proposals made by the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission, the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee, the Prisoner Ombudsman for Northern Ireland, Criminal Justice Inspection and others, imply that considerable deficiencies remain unaddressed. CAJ believes that the approach to improving the prison system as a whole has been both insufficient and piecemeal, and what is needed is a comprehensive and systemic review. Having considered some 40+ reports and reviews relating to prisons in Northern Ireland written since 2002, what is most startling is the repetition of themes and issues which have significant human rights implications and which remain insufficiently addressed. The report therefore groups together into broad themes the recommendations which have been made over the past number of years by numerous review and inspection reports in order to help identify the overall issues which remain unsatisfactorily addressed, and facilitate a human rights analysis upon which a review could be premised. The same concerns in relation to a number of themes have frequently been raised in 7 or more of the 40 review/inspection reports referred to in this report, thus demonstrating that many recommendations to the prison service are not effectively, efficiently or consistently acted upon. It seems clear that the prison system in Northern Ireland is in a state of crisis – the number of reports and recommendations and the frequency with which recommendations are repeated alone are evidence of this. What has happened repeatedly in the prison system over the years has been that that each ‘crisis’ is treated with a plaster, without ever dealing with the root causes of the problem. The focus and response by the prison service to these issues - which dwells on the numbers of recommendations and the development of paper-exercise policies and action plans, fails to recognise and address the bigger problems underlying the recommendations themselves. The problems identified are not simply operational matters that can be addressed by an action plan; rather what is required is a focus on the issues and problems behind the recommendations. In short, what is needed is widespread cultural and systemic change. Details: Belfast: Committee on the Administration of Justice, 2010. 60p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed September 27, 2012 at: http://www.caj.org.uk/files/2011/01/17/prisons_report_web2.pdf Year: 2010 Country: United Kingdom URL: http://www.caj.org.uk/files/2011/01/17/prisons_report_web2.pdf Shelf Number: 126475 Keywords: Correctional InstitutionsHuman RightsPrison ReformPrisons (Northern Ireland) |
Author: Lofstrom, Magnus Title: Evaluating the Effects of California’s Corrections Realignment on Public Safety Summary: In response to a court order to reduce the population in its seriously overcrowded prisons, California began implementing a major new corrections realignment plan in October 2011. The plan shifts responsibility for a substantial number of non-serious, non-violent, non-sexual felony offenders from the state to its 58 counties. Ultimately, this reform is projected to reallocate about 30,000 low-risk felons from state prisons to either county jails or an alternative form of community corrections. Additionally, county probation departments will take on the supervision of roughly 60,000 additional offenders on Post-Release Community Supervision (PRCS). Although the counties receive funding to cover the cost of supervising these felons, the state has not established any statewide standards, nor provided any funding, for evaluating county policies and practices in managing this new program. This report provides guidelines on how to monitor the effects of realignment—most fundamentally, is it achieving the goals of assuring public safety and doing so efficiently? It also presents a brief review of the various data that can be used to monitor the effects and evaluate the success of realignment at the local level. Finally, it describes several research designs for accomplishing these tasks. Details: San Francisco: Public Policy Institute of California, 2012. 18p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed October 1, 2012 at: http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/report/R_812MLR.pdf Year: 2012 Country: United States URL: http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/report/R_812MLR.pdf Shelf Number: 126534 Keywords: Correctional SystemPrison OvercrowdingPrison ReformPrisons (California, U.S.) |
Author: Hunnicutt, Wendell Allen Title: Romilly and Rush: The Parallel Paths of Penal Reform in Britain and America, 1780 - 1830 Summary: After the end of the American Revolution, efforts were made in both American and in Britain to alter the penal code in order to reduce the number of offenses that carried the death penalty and to replace capital punishment with incarceration in a penitentiary. In Pennsylvania, Dr. Benjamin Rush achieved apparent success in this matter since, by the time of his death, the local jail was well on its way to being transformed into the total penal institution recognizable in the nineteenth-century penitentiary. Sir Samuel Romilly, on the other hand, faced relentless opposition in Parliament in his efforts to repeal the numerous statutes that constituted England’s “Bloody Code.” The revolutionary spirit in America allowed for the alteration in the penal code and the experimentation with less severe forms of punishment. In Britain, the spirit of revolution seemed too real and threatening to the entrenched elites and therefore efforts to alleviate the law’s harshness came to naught as long as Napoleon Bonaparte remained in power. By the 1820s American interests had changed and penal reform slowed; in Britain, the absence of revolutionary threat allowed Britons to establish a police force and to relax their harsh laws. Details: Arlington, TX: University of Texas at Arlington, 2010. 174p. Source: Internet Resource: Dissertation: Accessed October 19, 2012 at: http://dspace.uta.edu/bitstream/handle/10106/5134/Hunnicutt_uta_2502D_10749.pdf?sequence=1 Year: 2010 Country: United States URL: http://dspace.uta.edu/bitstream/handle/10106/5134/Hunnicutt_uta_2502D_10749.pdf?sequence=1 Shelf Number: 126762 Keywords: Benjamin RushCapital Punishment (U.S., U.K.)Correctional Reform MovementsDeath PenaltyPrison ReformPunishmentSamuel Romilly |
Author: Denman, Kristine Title: New Mexico's Transition from Prison to Community Initiative: A Gaps Analysis Summary: In March 2008, Governor Richardson convened a Task Force to review current practices and make recommendations for prison reform in New Mexico, with the goal of improving reentry success among those released from correctional supervision and thereby ensuring community safety. In June 2008, Governor Richardson‟s Task Force on Prison Reform produced the first of two reports identifying the needs of the State‟s prisons and offering recommendations to improve reentry success among the State‟s prisoners. As a result of the recommendations, The New Mexico Corrections Department (NMCD) created a Reentry and Prison Reform Division, tasked with carrying out reform efforts within the NMCD. The Task Force and the Reentry and Prison Reform Division modeled its prison reform efforts after the national Transition from Prisons to Community Initiative (TPCI). The primary purpose of the current report is to highlight the strengths and gaps in NMCD‟s progress towards the implementation of TPCI in the institutional setting. The gaps analysis is not meant to be an indictment of the system, but rather a useful guide for where the system is currently and where it can improve as it moves towards full implementation of an evidence-based reentry model. While we touch on issues related to community supervision, the primary focus in this report is on the prison system. We introduce the project in the first chapter and describe the methods we used to assess progress and gaps in the TPCI implementation. The second and third chapters describe the key process goals (Chapter 2) and infrastructure goals (Chapter 3) defined in the TPCI model and identify the gaps in the implementation of these goals. At the end of each section within Chapters 2 and 3, we provide a summary table, which highlights the goals of the TPCI model and New Mexico Task Force recommendations (the ideal), describes current progress towards implementation of these goals, and summarizes the significant gaps in implementation. These summary tables are meant to provide the reader with a snapshot of the key points for each section. However, we encourage the reader to also read the accompanying text since this provides much richer detail and information beyond the table summaries. We present a basic logic model for TPCI implementation and evaluation within NM Correctional facilities in Chapter 4. This logic model is not meant as a complete guide for implementation and evaluation of the model, but rather as a baseline from which NMCD can build a full-scale logic model for the implementation and evaluation of the TPCI program for New Mexico. In the final chapter, we summarize the results of the gaps analysis, and offer some suggestions for moving the reentry initiative forward. Details: Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico, Statistical Analysis Center, 2011. 122p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed January 17, 2013 at: http://www.jrsa.org/awards/judging/research_policy_analysis/NM_Final_Report.pdf Year: 2011 Country: United States URL: http://www.jrsa.org/awards/judging/research_policy_analysis/NM_Final_Report.pdf Shelf Number: 127345 Keywords: CorrectionsEvidence-Based PracticesPrison ReformPrisoner Reentry (New Mexico) |
Author: Southern Center for Human Rights Title: Roadblocks to Reform: Perils for Georgia's Criminal Justice System Summary: Georgia has the highest rate of adults under correctional control of any state in the country, and its corrections budget reflects this fact. This report evaluates current practices of Georgia's Special Council on Criminal Justice Reform, including the contracting out of government responsibilities of running correctional facilities to private companies. It details the risks posed by contracting out and proposes common-sense reforms to cabin the perverse incentives of private companies: increasing transparency, enforcing accountability, and evaluating costs and performance, while also ensuring respect for the constitutional rights of those facing criminal charges or serving prison terms. Details: Atlanta, GA: Southern Center for Human Rights, 2012. 17p. Source: Internet Resource: http://www.inthepublicinterest.org/sites/default/files/SCHR%20Roadblocks%20to%20Reform%20-%20Georgia%20FINAL.pdf Year: 2012 Country: United States URL: http://www.inthepublicinterest.org/sites/default/files/SCHR%20Roadblocks%20to%20Reform%20-%20Georgia%20FINAL.pdf Shelf Number: 127438 Keywords: Correctional InstitutionsCriminal Justice SystemsPrison ReformPrisoners (Georgia, U.S.) |
Author: Hudson, Sara Title: Panacea to Prison? Justice Reinvestment in Indigenous Communities Summary: High Indigenous incarceration rates have elicited a long list of so-called solutions over the years. Since the 1991 Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody (RCIADIC), countless reports and programs have aimed to reduce the Indigenous incarceration rate. Yet the percentage of Aboriginal people in custody has continued to rise, nearly doubling from 14% of the prison population in 1991 to 27% in 2012. The latest ‘solution’ to high Indigenous incarceration, and the focus of this monograph, is Justice Reinvestment. Justice Reinvestment is a school of thought from the United States that proposes redirecting money spent on prisons into programs that address the underlying causes of offending in communities with high levels of incarceration. Justice Reinvestment involves three steps: 1.gathering data on offending and the criminal justice system 2.using the data to create justice maps (areas with the greatest concentration of offenders) 3.redirecting funds from corrective services to implement programs in ‘targeted’ locations to reduce offending and evaluating the effectiveness of the programs. The underlying premise of Justice Reinvestment—to build communities rather than prisons—has proven seductive, and many countries are now applying or investigating Justice Reinvestment. Australia is the latest country to consider adopting Justice Reinvestment. The Australian Senate is conducting an inquiry into the value of a Justice Reinvestment approach to criminal justice in Australia, with a particular focus on the over-representation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in Australia’s prisons. Advocates of Justice Reinvestment in Australia have been quick to highlight the success stories from overseas but a number of important differences exist between the criminal justice systems in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. These disparities suggest that the application of Justice Reinvestment strategies in Australia could be difficult, and that Australia needs to exercise caution and not embrace Justice Reinvestment just because everyone else is. In the United States, three-quarters of offenders are given custodial (prison) sentences, whereas only one-fifth of the sentences imposed in Australia are custodial, which means, the United States has more room to ‘manoeuvre’ because it has more offenders to keep out of prison compared to Australia. A key feature of Justice Reinvestment in the United States is the devolution of power from state to local authorities. But in Australia, criminal justice is already the responsibility of state and territory governments, and it is highly unlikely that this responsibility will be devolved to local government authorities. Advocates of Justice Reinvestment claim it saves money, but in all the states in the United States where Justice Reinvestment strategies have been applied, prisons may have closed but correctional service budgets have continued to grow. In the United Kingdom, Justice Reinvestment approaches seem to be accompanied by a parallel rise in the prison population. Justice Reinvestment appears to recycle familiar old ‘preventive’ and community-based programs in a new wrapping. The localised, community-focused approach characteristic of Justice Reinvestment is already a feature of Aboriginal Community Justice Groups in NSW, Queensland and the Northern Territory. Justice Reinvestment supporters have yet to explain how the approach will be any different or an improvement on existing community-based justice programs. Following the 1991 RCIADIC, crime ‘prevention’ polices have applied ‘culturally appropriate’ or ‘culturally secure’ approaches to reduce Indigenous incarceration. For example, initiatives such as Circle Sentencing and the Koori and Murri courts, where Aboriginal offenders are brought before their community elders for sanctioning, were established. Yet such initiatives have merely ‘tinkered’ with aspects of the criminal justice system and not addressed the underlying reasons why people are offending. In the fight against Indigenous disadvantage and incarceration, Justice Reinvestment threatens to become a distraction from focusing on the fundamentals such as education and employment that will lead to change. Zero employment among 35% of the Aboriginal population plays a critical role in the high rates of Indigenous incarceration, with unemployed Indigenous people 20 times more likely to be imprisoned than employed Indigenous people. In fact, unemployment has been found to be a greater risk factor for offending than Indigenous status. Education and employment may not sound as novel or exciting as Justice Reinvestment, but evidence shows they play a critical role in the high Indigenous incarceration rate. Improving educational outcomes should not be reliant on the diversion of funds from prison services but a basic right that states and territories should be covering in their education budgets. Details: St. Leonards, NSW, AUS: Centre for Independent Studies, 2013. Source: Internet Resource: CIS Policy Monographs, No. 134: Accessed February 14, 2013 at: http://www.cis.org.au/images/stories/policy-monographs/pm-134.pdf Year: 2013 Country: Australia URL: http://www.cis.org.au/images/stories/policy-monographs/pm-134.pdf Shelf Number: 127620 Keywords: Aboriginal AustraliansIndigenous PeoplesPrison ReformPrisoners |
Author: Spatial Information Design Lab Title: Justice Re-Investment New Orleans Summary: This report focuses on allocating public safety resources with a new approach, known as Justice Reinvestment, in which public officials identify ways to reduce the growth of the prison population and reinvest those savings in the parts of cities to which most people released from prison return. The states of Connecticut, Texas, Arizona, and Kansas have passed Justice Reinvestment laws. In Texas, for example, lawmakers created a $241 million network of treatment and incarceration diversion programs rather than spending $500 million on new prisons. Lawmakers in Kansas mandated a twenty percent reduction in parole revocations and set aside $7 million for reinvestment in high incarceration communities. The Council on State Governments has provided technical support to lawmakers in half a dozen other states considering similar justice reinvestment initiatives. Typical projects include introducing day reporting centers as alternatives to jails and prisons, promoting workforce development and job placement, providing drug treatment and other community-based programs to inmates and parolees, and strengthening family networks as people return home. This final report based on work done for a grant titled "Rebuilding Community, Prisoner Reentry and Neighborhood Planning in Post-Katrina New Orleans." The report contains three parts: 1. An Introduction to the concepts of Million Dollar Block maps and Justice Reinvestment. 2. Mapping Incarceration in Post-Katrina New Orleans. 3. A description of the neighborhood planing process and the four pilot projects were were implemented as a result of that process. Details: New York: Spatial Information Design Lab, Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation. 2009. 29p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed February 21, 2013 at: http://www.spatialinformationdesignlab.org/MEDIA/JR_NewOrleans.pdf Year: 2009 Country: United States URL: http://www.spatialinformationdesignlab.org/MEDIA/JR_NewOrleans.pdf Shelf Number: 127653 Keywords: Alternatives to IncarcerationJustice Reinvestment (New Orleans)Prison ReformUrban Planning |
Author: Males, Mike Title: Beyond Realignment: Counties’ Large Disparities in Imprisonment Underlie Ongoing Prison Crisis Summary: This publication analyzes the changes in state prison commitments by county since the implementation of the Public Safety Realignment Act of 2011 (AB 109), which redirects people convicted of low-level, non-violent crimes from state to county supervision. AB 109, commonly referred to as Realignment, is intended to reduce unconstitutional levels of prison overcrowding, save money, encourage counties to develop and implement best practices and alternatives to incarceration, and reserve state prisons for people convicted of serious offenses. However, while many counties have followed the mandate and dramatically reduced their prison commitments for low-level offenses, others continue to sentence high rates of these offenders to state prison. Details: San Francisco: Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, 2013. 8p. Source: Internet Resource: Research Brief: Accessed April 6, 2013 at: http://www.cjcj.org/files/Beyond_Realignment_March_2013.pdf Year: 2013 Country: United States URL: http://www.cjcj.org/files/Beyond_Realignment_March_2013.pdf Shelf Number: 128313 Keywords: Criminal Justice ReformPrison OvercrowdingPrison ReformPrisonersPrisons (California) |
Author: Lockyer, Kevin Title: Future Prisons: A radical plan to reform the prison estate Summary: Future Prisons calls for the government to shut more than 30 run-down and poorly-located prisons and replace them with 12 state of the art ‘Hub Prisons’, containing up to 3,000 inmates. The new prisons would lead to huge costs savings, a reduction in reoffending rates and a better quality of life for prisoners and prison staff. The report says that the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) could meet its entire 2015/16 spending commitment by ‘swapping old for new’ and financing the construction of new, large prisons to replace expensive, hard-to-maintain and poorly-located older prisons. In operational costs alone, this plan would save more than £600 million a year on completion – fully 20% of the prison budget. This is equivalent to around 9% of the MoJ’s entire departmental budget. Taking construction into account, which could be financed through public sector borrowing, private finance or development finance, the savings would amount to around £10 billion over a 25 year repayment period. The report, written by Kevin Lockyer, a former prison governor and deputy director in the MoJ, argues that trying to simply cut prison numbers and closing down prisons is not the right way to reduce the prison population or protect the public. Instead the focus must be on how to reduce the cost per prisoner. Costs vary widely across the country from £108,000 per place at HMP Kennet to £26,000 at Wayland. Brand new analysis comparing establishments with the same functions, shows for the first time that age is the key determinant of a prison’s effectiveness, rather than size: newer prisons had lower reoffending levels, a greater respect between staff and prisoners and a better quality of life and safety measures than older prisons. It argues that the Conservatives and penal lobby were correct to dismiss Labour’s 2007 plans to build new Titan ‘super’ prisons, proposed to facilitate a large expansion of the prison estate without evidence of effectiveness. However, the new proposal greatly differs from the Titan scheme in that Policy Exchange is not suggesting an expansion of the prison estate but merely the replacement of old for new establishments. The report shows that a quarter of prisons are Victorian or older while a further quarter were built in the 1960s and 1970s, often to poor standards and designs with poor materials. Hub Prisons would also be materially different to Titans. To date, a campus-style approach centred around a shared-service hub has been considered expensive in terms of the staff required for it to run securely and safely. But the Policy Exchange proposal, with its use of innovative technology, makes this kind of approach affordable. Hub Prisons would contain relatively small, self-contained, housing units and plenty of open spaces. They would include a range of accommodation types, with more traditional radial-style houseblocks for remand prisoners and assessment and induction purposes, and with smaller living units for longer sentenced prisoners The report recommends: •Closing more than 30 run down and dilapidated prisons and constructing 10-12 state of the art Hub Prisons. •Locating the prisons on brownfield sites near to main transport routes and to hold more prisoners as close to home as possible. •Constructing the prisons using cutting-edge architecture, with technologies such as biometric security systems. Halfway houses would be located inside the prison estate and the sites would include courts to cut the cost of transferring prisoners for trial. •Allowing private providers to compete on a level playing field with the public sector to manage and run the new establishments. Details: London: Policy Exchange, 2013. 50p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed June 18, 2013 at: http://www.policyexchange.org.uk/images/publications/future%20prisons.pdf Year: 2013 Country: United Kingdom URL: http://www.policyexchange.org.uk/images/publications/future%20prisons.pdf Shelf Number: 129034 Keywords: Costs of CorrectionsCosts of Criminal JusticePrison ReformPrisons (U.K.) |
Author: Muir, Rick Title: Tomorrow’s Prisons: Designing the future prison estate Summary: With much of the prison estate far too old to meet modern needs, there is an urgent need for fresh thinking about what we do in our prisons – and how they should be designed to facilitate those objectives. This project, of which this paper is the first output, aims to provide such new thinking by setting out a challenging but achievable agenda for change. We see two alternative futures for the prison estate: •We can continue on our present course, expanding the estate by building ever larger prisons based on standard designs. This might seem like the politically safer course, but it is a highly costly one and will do little to address the challenges identified. •We can embrace an ambitious but practical agenda of prison modernisation, which would create a more diverse range of penal institutions that are smaller, locally rooted, specialised and focused on rehabilitating prisoners. The report sets the scene for the second phase of the project, which will set out in detail what that alternative scenario could look like and how the political, financial and practical challenges to it can be overcome. Details: London: Institute for Public Policy Research, 2010. 51p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed July 18, 2013 at: http://www.ippr.org.uk/images/media/files/publication/2011/05/Tomorrows_prisons_web_1789.pdf Year: 2010 Country: United Kingdom URL: http://www.ippr.org.uk/images/media/files/publication/2011/05/Tomorrows_prisons_web_1789.pdf Shelf Number: 129448 Keywords: Alternative to IncarcerationPrison ReformPrisoner RehabilitationPrisons (U.K.) |
Author: Levin, Marc A. Title: The Verdict on Federal Prison Reform: State Successes Offer Keys to Reducing Crime & Costs Summary: Key Findings • The federal government should better utilize probation, accountability courts, and other community-based sanctions that the states have used to control criminal justice costs and improve public safety. • The federal prison system should expand good time credits. • The federal government should implement better strategies to improve ex-offender reentry and limit the “collateral consequences” of incarceration. • Congress should reverse decades of overcriminalization and limit the use of criminal law to regulate behavior that is not traditionally considered criminal in nature. Details: Austin, TX: Texas Public Policy Foundation, 2013. 11p. Source: Internet Resource: Policy Perspective: Accessed August 6, 2013 at: http://www.texaspolicy.com/sites/default/files/documents/2013-07-PP24-VerdictOnFederalPrisonReform-CEJ-LevinReddy.pdf Year: 2013 Country: United States URL: http://www.texaspolicy.com/sites/default/files/documents/2013-07-PP24-VerdictOnFederalPrisonReform-CEJ-LevinReddy.pdf Shelf Number: 129561 Keywords: Alternatives to IncarcerationCommunity Based CorrectionsCosts of CorrectionsFederal Prisons (U.S.)Prison Reform |
Author: British Academy Title: A Presumption Against Imprisonment: Social Order and Social Values Summary: The British Academy has today published a report, which urges that the UK stop relying so heavily on imprisonment as a form of punishment. Instead of imprisoning so many people for so long, the new report argues that in many cases, alternative measures will provide better, and more sustainable, long term outcomes. The report, titled 'A Presumption Against Imprisonment: Social Order and Social Values', was written by a group of academic experts including Professor Andrew Ashworth FBA, Professor Roger Cotterrell FBA, Professor Andrew Coyle, Professor Antony Duff FBA, Professor Nicola Lacey FBA, Professor Alison Liebling and Professor Rod Morgan. The report illustrates how changes to criminal law and policy have led to progressively harsher sentencing regimes, with longer periods of imprisonment imposed on persistent offenders and the increased use of mandatory minimum and indeterminate sentences for certain crimes. The prison population in England and Wales almost doubled between 1992 and 2011, rising from just under 45,000 to 88,000. Although it has fallen back to about 85,500 today, it is estimated that by 2018 the prison population could reach more than 90,000. (A similar increase has occurred in Scotland.) The report suggests a range of strategies to reduce our reliance on imprisonment, including reviewing sentence lengths, using diversion from the courts more extensively and promoting greater use of alternative forms of sentence. In addition to these strategies, the report recommends three 'overarching institutional proposals': - the creation of a Penal Policy Committee, accountable to Parliament, to formulate policies on the appropriate use of imprisonment; - greater attention by the Sentencing Council to the costs and effectiveness of different forms of sentence; - an urgent review of cases of Imprisonment for Public Protection in which the minimum term has been served, with a view to release. Details: London: The British Academy, 2014. 116p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed August 4, 2014 at: http://www.britac.ac.uk/policy/Presumption_Against_Imprisonment.cfm Year: 2014 Country: United Kingdom URL: http://www.britac.ac.uk/policy/Presumption_Against_Imprisonment.cfm Shelf Number: 132878 Keywords: Alternatives to IncarcerationCriminal Justice ReformPrison ReformPrisons (U.K.)Punishment |
Author: Farrall, Stephen Title: Intelligent Justice: Balancing the effects of community sentences and custody Summary: The paper draws on evidence from the United States, where research has shown that imprisoning a large number of people for longer periods causes crime to fall in the short term but rise in the long term when they are eventually released. Places where many people are jailed see a range of negative consequences, including increased rates of sexually transmitted diseases, teenage births and serious juvenile delinquency. This results in more people being imprisoned and creates a system 'that feeds upon itself', exacerbating the very social problems that led to increases in crime. The pamphlet states that prison's effect of deterring people from committing crime can be overestimated. The key factor which prevents most people from offending is how likely they are to be punished, rather than how severe the punishment is. Crime reduction caused by prison taking offenders out of the community can also be overestimated, the pamphlet adds. For example, evidence suggests that, in some cases, imprisoning one person creates a 'job vacancy' for another to take their place and commit offences. The paper illustrates that, by the Ministry of Justice's own admission, current data such as reconviction statistics do not reliably measure the true impact of probation supervision and offender management programmes. This has important ramifications for the government's desire to use payment by results in prisons and probation. Finally, the pamphlet offers suggestions on how people who have committed crime should be reintegrated into society. Emphasising the importance of redemption, the paper says that it is usually more effective - and cheaper - to get people to 'buy into' behaviour rather than compel or cajole or supervise them into it. Details: London: Howard League for Penal Reform, 2014. 22p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed September 27, 2014 at: https://d19ylpo4aovc7m.cloudfront.net/fileadmin/howard_league/user/online_publications/Intelligent_Justice.pdf Year: 2014 Country: United Kingdom URL: https://d19ylpo4aovc7m.cloudfront.net/fileadmin/howard_league/user/online_publications/Intelligent_Justice.pdf Shelf Number: 133450 Keywords: Criminal Justice ReformDeterrencePrison Construction (U.K.)Prison ReformPunishment |
Author: Prison Reform Trust Title: Bromley Briefings Prison Factfile: Autumn 2014 Summary: The facts and figures about the deteriorating state of our prisons and the poor state of people in them present a stark and disturbing picture. Strip away the political rhetoric, public relations gloss, and popular media misrepresentation. Discount the vested interest of those who profit from growing a market in incarceration. And you are left with a public prison service cut by $263million in three years, struggling to cope with the loss of more than 12,500 (28%) of its staff since 2010 and an ever-rising prison population. Warning signs reveal a prison system under unprecedented strain. There has been a sharp drop in individual prison performance and a marked increase in staff sickness levels. Detailed reports by HM Chief Inspector of Prisons chart a decline in standards and much reduced opportunities for rehabilitation and resettlement. Serious assaults, prisoner on prisoner and prisoner on officer, have risen in adult male establishments along with concerted indiscipline. Saddest of all, for the first time in over five years, the number of deaths by suicide has risen drastically. Every effort is being made to reverse what could so easily become a trend, rather than a spike, in numbers of tragic self-inflicted deaths. People in prison are particularly vulnerable. Compared to the general population where 6 percent have attempted suicide, 21 percent of men and 46 percent of women in prison have tried to kill themselves at some point in their lives. No one wants to see the painstaking gains made by safer custody staff and prisoners working as Samaritan listeners, improved support, training, first night arrangements, better assessment and management of risk, all swept away by reduced staffing levels, harsher regimes and increased uncertainty and hopelessness. The scale and driving pace of change in the justice system mean that mistakes are inevitably being made at every level. Prison population figures are being hastily recalculated upwards to reflect the rise in custodial remand and the increased numbers of sexual offenders sentenced by the courts as well as the unquantifiable impact of a Justice Secretary determined to promote 'proper punishment' and increased use of imprisonment. A rushed benchmarking process followed hard on the heels of the massive work and pay restructuring exercise curiously entitled 'fair and sustainable'. Outcomes are as yet untested because so many prisons are operating well below new minimal staffing levels due to a combination of unfilled vacancies and long term absence on sick leave. Too many establishments, particularly in London and the South East are reliant on a small army of reservists, former staff recruited from the North who will not know their prisoners in the jails into which they are parachuted, and remaining exhausted, governors and staff working excessive hours. From the outside it looks as if the prison service is taking a pounding in return for its disciplined approach and capacity to cope with adversity. From the inside, people in prison endure worsening conditions, less time out of cell, reduced contact with staff, new mean and petty restrictions and unjustified curbs on release on temporary license. Overcrowding means that people awaiting trial are mixed in with sentenced prisoners regardless of their innocent until proven guilty status and young people are held with adults notwithstanding their developmental stage. One young man told the Prison Reform Trust's advice and information service that "he is hearing voices and they are scaring him. He says he phones his mum sometimes when the voices are scaring him, but can't always get to phone when she's around." Prisons are less safe and less decent than they were even a year ago when we published our Autumn 2013 compendium of facts and figures. An incoming administration of government in May 2015 must not accept this deterioration in prison standards and conditions as the new normal. It should rebuild confidence in a vital public service and acknowledge painstaking gains made by staff and the responsible prisoners who manage to effect reform from within. It must turn its attention to the new demographic and changing needs of a rapidly ageing prison population. It must re-establish the defining principle that people are sent to prison as a punishment rather than for punishment. And from the wreckage it must create a just, fair and effective penal system. Details: London: Prison Reform Trust, 2014. 84p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed October 3, 2014 at: http://www.prisonreformtrust.org.uk/Portals/0/Documents/Bromley%20Briefings/Factfile%20Autumn%202014.pdf Year: 2014 Country: United Kingdom URL: http://www.prisonreformtrust.org.uk/Portals/0/Documents/Bromley%20Briefings/Factfile%20Autumn%202014.pdf Shelf Number: 133949 Keywords: Correctional InstitutionsInmatesPrison ConditionsPrison ReformPrisonersPrisons (U.K.) |
Author: Mangan, Fiona B. Title: Prisons in Yemen Summary: Summary - Since the 2011 crisis sparked by the Arab Spring, Yemen has been in a critical political transition. Improving government institutions and rule of law are key goals. Reforming the prison system must be at the core of any strategy for improving rule of law institutions. - Security is universally weak across central prisons. Facilities lack both the physical infrastructure and technical expertise to counter the serious security and terrorist threats they face. Prison breaks are frequent, resulting in serious consequences for broader rule of law and citizen security. - Most facilities have no proper classification and segregation systems in place, and thus detainees held for lesser crimes often mix with serious offenders, and pre-trial detainees with sentenced prisoners. is practice not only violates detainee rights but also enables criminalization, radicalization, and recruitment throughout the detention system. - Overcrowding and substandard prisoner care both result in physical and psychological damage and contribute to frequent rioting and security incidents. - Most guards have no training before taking on their positions is lack has a negative eject on treatment of detainees, security, and prison guards themselves. Prison guards showed signs of psychological strain, fear, and stress, in part due to managing roles they have not been adequately prepared for. - Within the scope of challenges facing Yemen is a risk that reform of detention and prison facilities might not be prioritized. However, given the centrality of a safe and strong detention system for law enforcement and antiterrorism, a failure to do so would be a mistake. - A number of simple, often not costly, reforms-such as establishing basic training for prison leaders, reinforcing a prison order and routine, establishing secure key control and prisoner classification, and baseline security protections-would address many of the most serious rights violations and security concerns. Details: Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, 2015. 103p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed May 13, 2015 at: http://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/PW106-Prisons-in-Yemen.pdf Year: 2015 Country: Yemen URL: http://www.usip.org/sites/default/files/PW106-Prisons-in-Yemen.pdf Shelf Number: 135624 Keywords: Correctional InstitutionsPrison ConditionsPrison ReformPrisonsPrisons (Yemen) |
Author: Great Britain. Parliament. House of Commons. Justice Committee Title: Prisons: planning and policies. Ninth Report of Session 2014-15 Summary: This is our first major inquiry on prisons planning and policies in this Parliament, and it has provided an opportunity to consider the impact of the Government's programme of reforms and efficiency savings across the prison estate. In particular we have examined two measures that have been employed by the Ministry of Justice to reduce the operational costs of the system: benchmarking; and structural reforms replacing inefficient prisons with new prisons and extra house blocks in existing prisons, the "new" programme. These policies have been implemented alongside the creation of working prisons and resettlement prisons, designed to improve the effectiveness of the prison estate in increasing employability and reducing re-offending, as well as the tightening of operational policies on earned privileges and temporary release in order to improve their public credibility. They have also come at a time when the total prison population has returned to very high levels. We express concern that that despite the Government's efforts to supply sufficient prison places to meet demand, the proportion of prisons that are overcrowded is growing, and the proportion of prisoners held in crowded conditions remains at almost a quarter, with consequent effects on the ability to maintain constructive regimes. We welcome the reduction which has taken place in the cost of a prison place, although we note that it remains high, and is unlikely to fall significantly while the pressures on estate capacity remain at current levels. We say that the new-for-old programme is a good one in principle, providing opportunity to improve the physical infrastructure of the estate, remove structural inefficiencies, and employ new technologies. But we point out that the policy of replacing older establishments with newer ones is being implemented in a way which results in the creation of large, multi-purpose prisons, while questions arising from available evidence on the relationship between the size and effectiveness of institutions do not appear to have been addressed by the Government, and we argue that reconfiguration of the estate provides an opportunity to build smaller, more specialised, establishments, for young offenders and female offenders, in line with recommendations we have made in previous reports. The benchmarking process seeks to ensure that public prisons are run in the most efficient way possible, while maintaining safety, decency, security and order. The rationale of benchmarking as a means of reducing public expenditure was widely supported, and we conclude that it is in principle an effective way of reducing expenditure more rapidly than would be possible through prison-by-prison competition. Evidence from HM Inspectorate of Prisons, the Government's own performance data, Independent Monitoring Boards, and the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman all indicate a deterioration in standards of safety and performance across the prison estate over the last two years, with fewer opportunities for prisoners to undertake purposeful work or educational activities. The decrease in safety is particularly troubling, with an increase in assaults and self-inflicted deaths. We considered it improbable that there is no link between estate reconfiguration, benchmarking, and changes in operational policy, including the Incentives and Earned Privileges scheme, and the shift in safety across the prison estate. In particular, we conclude that the fall in staffing levels stemming from redundancies and increased turnover, which at their most acute have resulted in severely restricted regimes, are bound to have reduced the consistency of relationships between officers and prisoners, and in turn affected safety. In previous Reports we have commended the Government's creation of a nationwide network of resettlement prisons. It should not, however, confuse the priorities of multiple purpose establishments, and dilute the priority accorded to resettlement needs elsewhere in the estate. Prison industries are becoming more common but it remains the case that most prisons do not have the facilities for workshops on a scale that would enable the majority of prisoners to do work which will equip them for employment on release. If support for offenders in moving from custody into the community is to work to best effect, staffing shortages and clearing the backlog of risk assessments must be resolved urgently. Both issues are likely to hamper considerably the efforts of the new providers of Community Rehabilitation Companies as they seek to implement their through-the-gate Prison governors in public sector prisons and some private sector prisons are no longer responsible for the sum total of everything that happens within their prison walls. There is a risk that the proliferation of partner organisations providing services to prisons could distract prison management teams from their core role. They are also constrained in their operational decisions when decisions are taken from the centre on such matters as the Incentives and Earned Privileges scheme, the "lights out" policy and release on temporary licence. This potential effect is all the more important when resources are such that reduced staffing levels are impinging on the safety of prisoners and staff for which Governors have ultimate responsibility. We also note that prisoners themselves have an important role to play in creating effective regimes, including through prison councils. The success of the Government's policy also depends crucially on the ability of NOMS to predict demand for places with sufficient accuracy, and to provide places accordingly. The aim of the new-for-old programme is for old and inefficient facilities to be closed as modern cheaper establishments open, yet the latest projections indicate that the prison population is predicted to continue to grow. There is a risk that as the building of new prisons inevitably takes place several years in advance of those places becoming available, by the time they are in operation it will not be possible to yield savings from further prison closures as there are insufficient places to meet demand. We conclude that the size of the prison budget, the fact that it completely dominates expenditure on crime, the importance of reducing crime, and other problems identified in this report all indicate that we need to re-evaluate how we use custody and alternatives to custody in a cost-effective way which best promotes the safety of the public and reduces future crime. Details: London: The Stationery Office Limited, 2015. 84p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed June 2, 2015 at: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201415/cmselect/cmjust/309/309.pdf Year: 2015 Country: United Kingdom URL: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201415/cmselect/cmjust/309/309.pdf Shelf Number: 135846 Keywords: Correctional AdministrationPrison ReformPrisons |
Author: Levine, Barbara R. Title: 10,000 fewer Michigan prisoners:Strategies to reach the goal Summary: Michigan's prisoner population has grown from fewer than 7,900 in 1973 to over 43,000. Corrections has gone from 1.6 percent of General Fund spending to nearly 20 percent. Today the budget of the Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC) is roughly $2 billion. This growth is not the inevitable product of increases in the size of the general population or of increased crime. On the contrary, Michigan's population growth has been modest and index crime rates have been declining steadily for the last three decades. Prison expansion resulted from specific changes in law, policy and practice that caused the state's incarceration rate to rise from 160 per 100,000 residents in 1983 to 442 today. Reexamining policies in light of current research could allow Michigan, in the next five years, to: Have 10,000 fewer prisoners. Reduce the prisoner population to 33,704 (about the same amount as in 1990 and 35 percent below the high point in 2006). Close seven entire prisons and six additional housing units. Avoid the need to train 2,000 new corrections officers to replace retirees. Save nearly $250 million annually. Details: Lansing, MI: Citizens Alliance on Prisons and Public Spending, 2015. 94p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed July 17, 2015 at: http://media.mlive.com/lansing-news/other/CAPPS%20Report.pdf Year: 2015 Country: United States URL: http://media.mlive.com/lansing-news/other/CAPPS%20Report.pdf Shelf Number: 136092 Keywords: Alternatives to IncarcerationCosts of CorrectionsPrison PopulationPrison ReformPrisoners |
Author: Ball, W. David Title: The New Normal? Prosecutorial Charging in California After Public Safety Realignment Summary: On April 4, 2011, Governor Jerry Brown signed Assembly Bill 109, the 2011 Public Safety Realignment Act ("Realignment" or "AB 109"), into law. AB 109 was one response to the 2009 Three-Judge Court Order for California to significantly reduce its prison population to 110,000 people, or 137.5% of design capacity, by year-end 2013. Affirmed by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2011 in Brown v. Plata, the Three-Judge Court Order determined prison overcrowding to be "the primary cause of the state's unconstitutional failure to provide adequate medical and mental health care to California prisoners," concluding that population reduction was the most narrowly drawn, least intrusive remedy. Realignment shifts the responsibility of supervising, tracking and imprisoning specified non-serious, non-violent, non-sexual ("triple-nons" or "N3 felonies" or "non-non-nons") offenders previously bound for state prison to county jails and probation (see Overview of Public Safety Realignment. The law states that "the purpose of justice reinvestment is to manage and allocate criminal justice populations more cost-effectively, generating savings that can be reinvested in evidence-based strategies that increase public safety while holding offenders accountable." The implementation of Realignment in California is the largest correctional experiment of its kind. Through AB 109, the Legislature has allocated over $2 billion in the first two years of implementation to assist California's 58 counties in carrying out the legislation's provisions. In addition, more than 100,000 offenders have had their sentences altered through mid-2013. The advent of Realignment, of course, affected the decision-making of all the official actors in the criminal justice system. But the prosecutor's role is unique in one clear sense: Prosecutors have, in formal legal terms, virtually un-reviewable autonomy in the choice to charge or not charge an offender (so long as any charge matches provable facts with statutory elements). Traditionally, in deciding whether to charge as high as the provable facts allow, they consider contextual aspects of the commission of the offense itself but also any relevant background aspects and criminal record of the offender. How does this power operate in the wake of AB 109? On the one hand, AB 109 simply classified a large number of pre-existing felonies under California Penal Code S1170(h) because they were deemed "triple-nons." In that sense, prosecutors in theory might be indifferent to the change; they would continue to charge these felonies according to the same factors as they always had, and the changes in site of incarceration and possible change in de facto length of sentences would happen of their own accord. In a sense, the only mandated change in prosecutorial choice here had to do with sentence recommendation: Because judges now have the power to impose a split sentence for an AB 109 conviction - fractioning the sentence between jail time and community supervision - when prosecutors exercise their usual function of recommending sentences, they now have to build the matter of split versus straight sentences into that responsibility. Prosecutors have also always been free to consider such resource factors as their own and other agencies' budgets and crowding in jails and prisons. But many aspects of AB 109 were likely from the start to weigh significantly on the decisions made by prosecutors as they exercise their traditional charging and recommendation choices after October 2011. The most salient aspects were the change in site and de facto length of incarceration, as well as the secondary effects of new county responsibilities for post-release supervision of many prisoners returning home. In particular, in exercising discretion, prosecutors might be influenced by their views on the differences in the severity of experience of incarceration in jail as opposed to prison, or by their concerns about jail crowding or the extra costs that county jails and other county agencies might have to absorb under AB 109. Details: Stanford, CA: Stanford Criminal Justice Center, Stanford Law School, 2014. 187p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed October 28, 2015 at: http://law.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/default/files/publication/513777/doc/slspublic/DA%20report%20Feb%202014.pdf Year: 2014 Country: United States URL: http://law.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/default/files/publication/513777/doc/slspublic/DA%20report%20Feb%202014.pdf Shelf Number: 137169 Keywords: CorrectionsCriminal Justice ReformJustice ReinvestmentPrison OvercrowdingPrison ReformPrisonsProsecutionProsecutorial DiscretionProsecutorsPublic Safety Realignment |
Author: Robinson, Cathy Title: Women's Custodial Estate Review Summary: The commissioning of this review outlined the Government's vision for rebalancing the custodial system in England and Wales, closing small and expensive prisons, as capacity allows and replacing them with fit-for-purpose accommodation where the prisoners could best address their offending behaviour needs and prepare for release. During the course of the review the team considered not only where, but also how women are held, so that the report includes a focus on regimes provided in women's prisons. Women represent only five percent of the prison population and are held in a small number of prisons compared with men. It is therefore necessary to ensure that their small numbers do not result in less favourable treatment, through careful consideration of their particular needs. We also need to ensure that the estate is effective, affordable and sustainable. The review recommends the establishment of strategic prison hubs, located as far as possible close to major centres of population. These hubs should be of an appropriate size to serve the courts, hold women from the surrounding region and provide a range of interventions. Moreover, they should provide an appropriate physical environment to support women's caring responsibilities through family visits, which maintain and build upon relationships with children and other family members. These hubs will enable most women to remain in their closest prison throughout their sentence and will support the Government's approach to Transforming Rehabilitation through their links to Community Rehabilitation Companies and "through the gate" support for all prisoners. They will also enable a larger number of women, subject to appropriate risk assessment, to undertake work outside of prison which can be continued after their sentence and which will further support rehabilitation and maintenance of family contact and personal responsibility. The review team has considered the recommendation of Baroness Corston for small custodial units. The team agreed with the underlying argument, that women should be held in appropriate physical conditions as close to home as possible, so that they can be supported back into their communities on release. However, women's prisons provide a wide range of services, particularly in partnership with health, to those who have significant needs when they enter prison. Women's access to this support is vitally important to their rehabilitation and reducing reoffending. Details: London(?: National Offender Management Service, 2013. 38p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed November 24, 2015 at: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/252851/womens-custodial-estate-review.pdf Year: 2013 Country: United Kingdom URL: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/252851/womens-custodial-estate-review.pdf Shelf Number: 131845 Keywords: Female InmatesFemale OffendersFemale PrisonersPrison ReformPrisons |
Author: Scottish Prison Service Title: Unlocking Potential, Transforming Lives Summary: This report is a robust and intelligent appraisal of where we are now and where we need to get to in future. It is long overdue. The authors persuasively make the case for SPS becoming an ambitious organisation that has at its core skilled and professionalised people who are highly trained and continually developed. Through our people I am convinced that we will achieve and honour the ambitions to which the report convincingly encourages us to aspire: Unlocking Potential, Transforming Lives. Our exciting future is set out in the pages of this report and, as I anticipated in the 2012 annual SACRO lecture, it heralds what I believe will be a golden age for the Scottish Prison Service. The Scottish Prison Service has a strong record of service delivery, achievement and sound operational management. We need to build on these past successes and on our heritage, whilst having the courage to reflect and then decide what needs to change to meet future expectations. We need to demonstrate our effective contribution towards National Outcomes and the Strategy for Justice in Scotland. To be truly effective in this we cannot work alone. It is only by working together with other providers that we will make Scotland safer and stronger. We must focus on what we know works in reducing reoffending and provide sound evidence of our progress. We need to transform our approach to offender management and our efforts to improve wellbeing. In particular, we need to reduce reoffending amongst those 9,000 - 10,000 short-term offenders leaving our care each year. Our future Vision will focus on each individual in our care throughout their time in custody and beyond. By taking an individualised asset-based approach we will continue to address risks and needs but also build on an individual's strengths and potential. By doing this, we will empower those in our care to unlock their potential and transform their lives. This is a demanding agenda that should engage, challenge and motivate staff and offenders alike. It means we must develop our staff to be even better at what they do now and to take on the new things that they will need to do tomorrow as we operate in new and different ways, changing how we work both within and beyond the prison walls. Some of you may still be questioning why we need to change. Now, not only as an organisation but as a nation, we have high and legitimate aspirations for our generation and for those who follow. If we are going to achieve these, we have to address the seemingly intractable issue of recidivism, a burden that is a millstone around our economy's neck. To be clear, this is not a soft-touch liberal agenda; it makes hard-nosed economic sense to do so. Audit Scotland reported that the cost of crime in our country is about $3 billion every year. How many schools, hospitals, roads or houses does that represent? Moreover, for the victims of crime there can be no more powerful justification for tackling reoffending and supporting reintegration than doing so in their name to try, as best we can, to ensure that there are far fewer victims of crime in future. The recommendations set out in the report change our aspirations as a national service. Much can be done immediately, as many of the recommendations are both practical and feasible. Some are so fundamental that we need to take time to consider them, seeking agreement on how we move forward. We will also need to consider affordability and cost in prioritising the order in which we take things forward. The Organisational Review Report provides the basis of our future Road Map for change, change which will be both incremental and transformational. This change will enable our organisation to help to create a justice system in Scotland that is a model of excellence. I have accepted in principle the broad direction of the recommendations in the Report. This is a unique opportunity to deliver a singular Vision that we can all work together to achieve. Details: Edinburgh: Scottish Prison Service, 2013. 254p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed November 28, 2015 at: http://www.sps.gov.uk/Corporate/Publications/Corporate9.aspx Year: 2013 Country: United Kingdom URL: http://www.sps.gov.uk/Corporate/Publications/Corporate9.aspx Shelf Number: 137349 Keywords: Correctional AdministrationCorrectional InstitutionsPrison AdministrationPrison ReformPrisons |
Author: Austin, James Title: Eliminating Mass Incarceration: How San Francisco Did It Summary: San Francisco has rapidly reduced its jail and prison populations with a series of "best practices" innovations that have built on California's well-publicized legislative reforms enacted since 2009. Since 2009, California has reduced the size of number of people in prison, jail, felony probation and parole by nearly 150,000. At the same time, the state's crime rate has dramatically declined and is now lower than what was in 1960. If the rest of the country could match San Francisco's rates, the number of individuals under correctional supervision would plummet from 7 million to 2 million. Details: Washington, DC: JFA Institute, 2015. 30p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed January 13, 2016 at: http://www.jfa-associates.com/publications/reduce/Reforming%20San%20Franciscos%20Criminal%20Justice%20System-JA4.pdf Year: 2015 Country: United States URL: http://www.jfa-associates.com/publications/reduce/Reforming%20San%20Franciscos%20Criminal%20Justice%20System-JA4.pdf Shelf Number: 137564 Keywords: Correctional InstitutionsCorrectional PoliciesCorrectional ReformCriminal Justice ReformMass IncarcerationPrison Reform |
Author: Charles Colson Taskforce on Federal Corrections Title: Transforming Prisons, Restoring Lives: Final Recommendations of the Charles Colson Task Force on Federal Corrections Summary: After decades of unbridled growth in its prison population, the United States faces a defining moment. There is broad, bipartisan agreement that the costs of incarceration have far outweighed the benefits, and that our country has largely failed to meet the goals of a well-functioning justice system: to enhance public safety, to prevent future victimization, and to rehabilitate those who have engaged in criminal acts. Indeed, a growing body of evidence suggests that our over-reliance on incarceration may in fact undermine efforts to keep the public safe. Momentum is strong for a new direction, for a criminal justice system guided by proven, cost-effective strategies that reduce crime and restore lives. But translating this impulse for reform into lasting change is no small challenge. This report provides both an urgent call to action and a roadmap for reforming the federal prison system, which, with 197,000 people behind bars, was the largest in the nation as 2015 drew to a close. By adopting the recommendations detailed here, and committing sufficient resources to ensure their effectiveness, we can reduce the federal prison population by 60,000 people over the coming years and achieve savings of over $5 billion, allowing for reinvestment in programs proven to reduce crime. Most important, these proposed reforms and savings can be achieved through evidence-based policies that protect public safety. Such savings will not only bring fiscal responsibility to a policy area long plagued by the opposite tendency, but will also free critical funds the US Department of Justice (DOJ) needs for other priorities, such as national security, state and local law enforcement, and victim assistance. And just as critically, these reforms will make our communities safer by ensuring we send the right people to prison and that they return to society with the skills, supervision, and support they need to stay crime free. While enacting these initiatives may seem daunting, doing nothing is not a sustainable option. The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world, confining more than 2.2 million people in its jails and prisons on any given day. Sentencing reform and other policy changes will reduce our reliance on prison and cut costs as we reconsider which people truly need to be behind bars and for how long. But the country still faces the enormous challenge of reintegrating millions of formerly imprisoned people back into society, where the enduring stigma of a criminal record complicates their efforts to find housing and jobs. Fortunately, signs of meaningful progress shine brightly in the states. Lawmakers from Texas, Utah, Georgia, South Carolina, and a host of other states have re-examined government's expensive preference for incarceration and have embraced a more diversified, evidence-based approach that delivers better public safety at less cost. Reform has come much more slowly at the federal level. Despite recent reductions, the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) has experienced a seven-fold increase in its population since 1980. Costs have spiked right along with that growth. Now almost $7.5 billion, federal prison spending has grown at more than twice the rate of the rest of the DOJ budget and accounts for about one-quarter of the total. Details: Washington, DC: The Urban Institute, 2016. 132p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed January 27, 2016 at: http://colsontaskforce.org/final-recommendations/Colson-Task-Force-Final-Recommendations-January-2016.pdf Year: 2016 Country: United States URL: http://colsontaskforce.org/final-recommendations/Colson-Task-Force-Final-Recommendations-January-2016.pdf Shelf Number: 137694 Keywords: Correctional InstitutionsCosts of PrisonsCriminal Justice ReformFederal Bureau of PrisonsPrison ReformPrisons |
Author: Pettus-Davis, Carrie Title: From Mass Incarceration to Smart Decarceration Summary: A prolonged era of mass incarceration has led to staggering rates of imprisonment in the United States, particularly among some of the most vulnerable and marginalized groups. Given the rising social and economic costs of imprisonment and tight public budgets, this trend is beginning to reverse (Petersilia & Cullen, 2014). At the beginning of the 21st century, the United States finds itself facing the enormous challenge of decarcerating America, which is at the same time an enormous opportunity. Through decarceration, the lives of millions of people can be vastly improved, and the nation as a whole can leave behind this short-sighted and shameful period of mass incarceration. But how will this be accomplished, and by whom? Seldom before in the nation's history has the need for applied social innovation been more urgent. More so than most, the profession of social work is positioned to lead in this far-reaching social justice challenge. Social work is uniquely qualified because of its history of reform efforts, an ethical commitment to social justice, and emerging leadership in structural and behavioral interventions addressing complex social problems (Abramovitz, 1998; Brekke, Ell, & Palinkas, 2007; Fraser, 2004). Social work can bring siloed social sectors and diverse academic disciplines together to create a rational and effective response as prisons and jails devolve. Smart Decarceration will be proactive, transdisciplinary, and empirically driven. Effective decarceration will be occurring when (1) the incarcerated population in U.S. jails and prisons is substantially decreased; (2) existing racial and economic disparities in the criminal justice system are redressed; and (3) public safety and public health are maximized. Details: St. Louis, MO: Washington University in St. Louis, 2014. 12p. Source: Internet Resource: CSD Working Paper No. 14-31: Accessed March 4, 2016 at: http://csd.wustl.edu/Publications/Documents/WP14-31.pdf Year: 2014 Country: United States URL: http://csd.wustl.edu/Publications/Documents/WP14-31.pdf Shelf Number: 138033 Keywords: DecarcerationPrison PopulationPrison ReformPrisonersPrisons |
Author: JustSpeak Title: Unlocking Prisons: How We Can Improve New Zealand's Prison System Summary: Unlocking Prisons is a comprehensive report on how we can improve New Zealand's prison system. This report looks at why we imprison people; the impact imprisonment has on prisoners, their families and the wider community; and the alternatives and improvements to prisons that will better keep our communities safe and ensure crime is dealt with appropriately. Part 1 Part One of the report looks at why we send offenders to prison and whether sending offenders to prison achieves these legislative purposes. Prison is generally intended to be used as a measure of last resort for dealing with an offender, after all community-based sentences have been exhausted. However, this report suggests that too often people are sent to prison when it will not achieve the purposes of sentencing. JustSpeak recommends that judges more thoroughly assess whether sending the particular offender to prison will actually accomplish the stated sentencing purposes. JustSpeak also recommends an increasing in the use of other sentencing options such as home detention. Compared to imprisonment, other sentencing options have been shown to reduce certain types of re-offending, are significantly cheaper, and, overall, make communities safer. To expand their use, JustSpeak recommends that the threshold for a "short term of imprisonment" be extended to three years and that the Sentencing Council, originally recommended by the Law Commission, be established. Part 2 Part Two sets out the evolution of prisons from the late 1700s to present, with a focus on Anglo-American experiences. In recent decades private prisons have become commonplace, raising important ethical questions about balancing the state's monopoly on the use of force over citizens against the potential fiscal gains to be made in privatising prisons. International research suggests that inmates and staff in private prisons are more likely to experience degrading prison conditions, increased misuse of force, decreased security, and inadequate health, education and work programmes. Part Two goes on to analyse the make-up of our prison population and offers insights into the life of a prisoner, from the procedure of processing a new inmate to visitor rights and the accessibility of hobbies for prisoners. Healthcare in New Zealand prisons is particularly concerning. A 2012 Ombudsman's investigation revealed several issues, such as a failure to record prisoner requests for medical appointments, lengthy waiting times for prisoners seeking medical advice and, more generally, unsatisfactory standards of dental and mental health services. The prison health budget is not ring-fenced, meaning it may be diverted to other costs at any time. Part 3 Part Three looks at the future direction of prisons in New Zealand, while also considering some successful initiatives that are currently in operation within our prison system. Part Three recommends better publicity, support and further rollout of these positive initiatives, which are often restricted to the regions where they began or were piloted. To achieve the goal of reducing re-offending, we need better data on which programmes are working and more universal implementation of those programmes. Details: Wellington, NZ: JustSpeak, 2014. 170p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed May 26, 2016 at: https://www.hrc.co.nz/files/2714/2550/8324/JustSpeak_2014_-_Unlocking_Prisons.pdf Year: 2014 Country: New Zealand URL: https://www.hrc.co.nz/files/2714/2550/8324/JustSpeak_2014_-_Unlocking_Prisons.pdf Shelf Number: 139226 Keywords: Alternatives to IncarcerationCorrectional InstitutionsPrison ReformPrisons |
Author: Heiden, Zachary Title: Change is Possible: A Case Study of Solitary Confinement Reform in Maine Summary: Solitary confinement destroys lives. Over the past four decades, prisons across the country have increasingly relied on solitary confinement - isolating prisoners in small poorly-lit cells for 23-24 hours per day - as a disciplinary tool for prisoners who are difficult to manage in the general population. But research has shown that these conditions cause serious mental deterioration and illness. Prisoners in solitary confinement hallucinate, they deliberately injure themselves, and they lose the ability to relate to other human beings. When these prisoners are eventually released from solitary confinement, they have difficulties integrating into the general prison population or (especially when they are released directly onto the streets) into life on the outside. Because of this, human rights advocates across the country are engaged in a campaign to reduce the use of solitary confinement and to improve conditions in solitary units and facilities. Lawsuits are being filed, bills and regulations are being proposed, and exposes are being written, all with the goal of bringing about a change to this barbaric practice. A number of organizations, including my own - the American Civil Liberties Union - have committed a great deal of thought, time, and money to identifying and deploying successful strategies for reforming solitary confinement. No one approach will get the job done, but advocates are trying multiple approaches, with as much coordination as possible, to bring about significant lasting change. Maine has been one of the success stories of this effort. The number of prisoners in solitary confinement has been cut in half; the duration of stays in Maine's solitary units is generally now measured in days rather than weeks or months; and the treatment of prisoners in these units includes substantially more meaningful human interaction and more opportunity for rehabilitation. For seven years, I have been involved in Maine's campaign to reduce the use of solitary confinement. Many times over those years, it seemed that nothing would ever change. Reform measures were watered down, improved policies were ignored, and legislative proposals were flat-out rejected. Then, at some point, through a combination of will, skill, and luck, reforms began to take hold. While Maine's correction system is far from perfect, the dramatic reduction in the use of solitary confinement and the improvement in the manner in which solitary is employed are almost beyond what I could have imagined seven years ago. The purpose of this report is twofold: first, to document those changes and the processes that led to them; and second, to inspire other prison reform advocates with Maine's example. There are times when every advocate for prison reform feels that change is not possible - that the legal and cultural barriers are too firmly rooted, or that the public's antipathy to prisoners and their families is too powerful. This despondency might lead reformers to settle for superficial measures or, worse yet, to give up the fight in favor of easier targets. It is my great hope that the message of this report - that reform of the use of solitary confinement is both necessary and possible - will provide some measure of encouragement in those difficult moments that every worthwhile campaign experiences. Details: Portland, ME: American Civil Liberties Union of Maine, 2013. 43p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed June 11, 2016 at: https://www.aclu.org/files/assets/aclu_solitary_report_webversion.pdf Year: 2013 Country: United States URL: https://www.aclu.org/files/assets/aclu_solitary_report_webversion.pdf Shelf Number: 136751 Keywords: Administrative SegregationIsolationPrison ReformSolitary Confinement |
Author: Joldersma, Cisac, ed. Title: Final Report: Prisons of the Future Summary: It is the year 2050. We travel around Europe. In every country, we look around for prisons. In our mind, we have the image of a traditional prison: a high secure building with fences, windows with bars, and cameras all around. We wonder why we cannot find these kinds of prisons. We ask people in the street where to find a prison. They look at us if they have never heard of such a building where offenders are staying together, excluded from society. We further discuss with them the crime rate in their country. They explain that in the last years the crime rate decreased a little, but still offences are taking place. They have no idea where we can find offenders living together; offenders are part of society. We interview experts of the criminal justice system, on what happened to their prisons. They tell us, that all around Europe, governments decided that new traditional prisons are not needed anymore. European criminal law has been changed and some offences are decriminalized, such as drug use and drunken driving. Drug users and drunk drivers are seduced to addiction treatment and urged to compensate victims. Research has also proved conclusively that detention is not effective and efficient to reduce recidivism. The longer offenders stay in traditional prisons, the higher the risk of recidivism, and the lower the chance of a successful reentry in society. Politicians have been convinced by researchers that traditional prisons primarily have a symbolic value to satisfy the public need. Traditional prisons appear to have deterrence effects on the public, but to some offenders they are - in a peculiar way - attractive. Consequently, other sanctions than regular imprisonment have become more common. More offenders stay at home, supervised by electronic monitoring. The use of community services has also increased, and offenders are supervised by layman probation officers. More offenders have been convicted by means of restraining and protecting orders. We like to know what happens when offenders breach the conditions, because traditional prisons are not available anymore as a last resort. New time-out facilities have been created. Offenders reside in an open, low secure setting. The time-out facilities are also accessible for ex-offenders who want to stay voluntarily because they feel they are at risk for relapse. We still wonder what happens to offenders who have been convicted for serious crimes and who used to stay in high secure prisons. They admit that there are still a few old prisons available for offenders of serious crimes. However, moral quality of life inside the old prisons changed a lot in comparison to the past. Offenders with (life)long prison sentences are quite busy during working days. They work four days a week within the prison or outside the prison area. Additionally, within certain limits, they are enabled to autonomously take decisions regarding their personal life. With regard to sex offenders, circles of support and accountability have been established. After a short stay in prison, they are offered the possibility of a prerelease option to live in community with support and supervision of volunteers. Volunteers are coached by professionals. The circles help to manage sex offenders' risk and support them in becoming part of the local community. Walking around, we follow the sign of a forensic care hospital. The lady at the reception tells us that in this hospital, partners, family, worried neighbors or care takers can register patients for psychiatric treatment. The forensic care hospital also treats patients who have not already committed a serious crime, but who need psychiatric treatment due to their high risk profile and mental illness. The forensic care hospital provides voluntary treatment as well as enforced treatment. We are curious what services can be provided to people who are in need of care, but avoid care at the same time. We think about homeless people with low secure risks, but socially unacceptable or deviant behavior. For these homeless people, tiny houses are available. The person who is not welcome anymore in a neighborhood, can register for renting such a 'tiny house'. The houses can easily be moved to another area in case of nuisance. We enter a community centre and ask if they know the offenders in the neighborhood. The neighborhood team confirms that there are some offenders living in their area. They try to support them on basic reintegration issues, such as housing, debts, relational issues, and basic social skills. They offer these services to inhabitants of the neighborhood, regardless of them being an offender or not. All clients are encountered respectfully; the client is 'in the lead' organizing as much as possible his of her own personalized trajectory. The scenario above elaborates on basic principles as normalization and reintegration. It makes clear that prisons of the future are related to all kind of sentences, sanctions, psychiatric treatments, and social services. Furthermore, the focus in the project prisons of the future is on what happens in practice. Therefore, in this report we preferably use the term 'prison and probation practice' instead of prison or prison policy. With regard to the scenario above, it is hard to believe that in the near future there are only a few prisons. On the contrary, other probable scenario's are possible. A scenario could be that, in the near future, differences between offenders and other citizens will be more and more emphasized and offenders are more and more excluded from society. Offenders can be gathered in warehouses that are located in large prison industry complexes, far away from local communities. Another probable scenario is more focus on risk assessments. A high risk offender will be controlled at more areas of life than a low risk offender. The high risk offender has to stay in a high secure setting as long as it is expected that the offender will be of a high risk to society. Another possible scenario is that of personalized sentencing. Personalized sentencing is, as personalized medicine for the individual patient, customized to the individual offender. Deprivations of liberty can be matched precisely with the expected experience and impact they have on the offender. In conclusion, there are different roads and routes to shape future prisons. It is hard to predict where we exactly are going to. Details: The Hague: European Commission, 2016. 250p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed July 11, 2016 at: http://www.europris.org/resources_package/prisons-of-the-future-final-conference-presentations-and-summary-report-3-4-march-2016-2-2/ Year: 2016 Country: Europe URL: http://www.europris.org/resources_package/prisons-of-the-future-final-conference-presentations-and-summary-report-3-4-march-2016-2-2/ Shelf Number: 139610 Keywords: Correctional InstitutionsCorrectional ReformPrison ReformPrisons |
Author: Lofstrom, Magnus Title: California's Historic Corrections Reforms Summary: California leads the nation in correctional reforms and reduced reliance on incarceration. In 2011, the state enacted public safety realignment, which shifted the management of lower-level felons from the state prison and parole systems to county jail and probation systems. Three years later, voters approved Proposition 47, which further re-prioritized correctional resources and lowered incarceration. In this report, we describe the impact of these historic changes. Over the past decade, California has reversed a long-term trajectory of increasing incarceration. - Since reaching a peak in 2006 of almost 256,000 inmates, the total population incarcerated in California's state prisons and county jails has dropped by roughly 55,000. The incarceration rate has fallen from 702 to 515 per 100,000 residents-a level not seen since the early 1990s. - Realignment substantially reduced the prison population, but led to an increase in the county jail population of about 10,000 inmates, pushing the statewide jail population above its rated capacity and leading to more early releases due to overcapacity. Proposition 47 brought the statewide jail population down to pre-realignment levels. Dramatically reduced incarceration from realignment did not lead to a broad increase in crime rates. - Crime rates in California are on a long-term decline, though there are year-to-year fluctuations. Realignment resulted in an additional 18,000 offenders on the street, but through 2014, we found no evidence of an impact on violent crime. Auto thefts did increase, by about 60 per 100,000 residents in 2014. - From 2014 to 2015, the violent crime rate increased by 8.4 percent and the property crime rate by 6.6 percent. The role of Proposition 47 on crime remains unknown, but preliminary data show that compared to other states, California's increase in property crime appears to stand out more than its increase in violent crime. Reforms have not yet succeeded in reducing the state's high rates of recidivism. - Rearrest and reconviction rates for offenders released from state prison are similar to pre-realignment levels. The two-year rearrest rate is 69 percent. The two-year reconviction rate (42%) is about 5 percentage points higher than before realignment, but this higher rate may simply reflect prosecution of offenses that in the past would have been processed administratively. - Realignment helped stanch the flow of returning offenders to state prison for parole violation. Two-year return-to-prison rates dropped from 55 percent pre-realignment to 16.5 percent. - Offenders released from state prison who are supervised by county probation have higher recidivism rates than those supervised by state parole. This difference is primarily due to a significantly higher share of so-called high-risk offenders among the former population. Details: Public Policy Institute of California, 2016. 36p., app. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed October 7, 2016 at: http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/report/R_916MLR.pdf Year: 2016 Country: United States URL: http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/report/R_916MLR.pdf Shelf Number: 140601 Keywords: Correctional InstitutionsCorrectional ReformPrison ReformPrisonersPrisons |
Author: Flaherty, Aaron Title: Responsible Prison Project: Reshaping the Texas Prison system for Greater Public Safety Summary: The "Responsible Prison Project" is comprised of five residents of the Darrington Unit corrections facility in eastern Texas, each of whom is a graduate of an in-prison seminary program. Last month, the men composed a report entitled, "Reshaping the Texas Prison System for Greater Public Safety." The proposed solutions, the authors say, are to help the Texas Department of Criminal Justice fulfill its stated mission to "provide public safety, promote positive change in offender behavior, reintegrate offenders into society, and assist victims of crime." "It has often been said that those who are closest to a problem are closest to its solution," the document begins. "That is no less true of prisoners." The document highlights a number of specific issues in the prison, from prisoner intake, to conditions and practices in the facility, to reentry programming. Each section paints a picture of current state of affairs, followed by a proposal for change. Details: s.l.: 2016. 104p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed October 26, 2016 at: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3149075-Responsible-Prison-Project.html#document/p2 Year: 2016 Country: United States URL: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3149075-Responsible-Prison-Project.html#document/p2 Shelf Number: 146021 Keywords: Correctional InstitutionsCriminal Justice ReformPrisonPrison ReformReligion |
Author: Association of State Correctional Administrators Title: Aiming to Reduce Time-In-Cell: Reports from Correctional Systems on the Numbers of Prisoners in Restricted Housing and on the Potential of Policy Changes to Bring About Reforms Summary: A new report, jointly authored by the Association of State Correctional Administrators (ASCA) and the Arthur Liman Program at Yale Law School, reflects a profound change in the national discussion about the use of what correctional officials call "restrictive housing" and what is popularly known as "solitary confinement." Just published, Aiming to Reduce Time-In-Cell provides the only current, comprehensive data on the use of restricted housing, in which individuals are held in their cells for 22 hours or more each day, and for 15 continuous days or more at a time. The Report also documents efforts across the country to reduce the number of people in restricted housing and to reform the conditions in which isolated prisoners are held in order to improve safety for prisoners, staff, and communities at large. The 2016 publication follows the 2015 ASCA-Liman Report, Time-In-Cell, which documented the use of restricted housing as of the fall of 2014. As ASCA explained then, “prolonged isolation of individuals in jails and prisons is a grave problem in the United States.” Today, a national consensus has emerged focused on limiting the use of restricted housing, and many new initiatives, as detailed in the report, reflect efforts to make changes at both the state and federal levels. The 2016 Report is based on survey responses from 48 jurisdictions (the Federal Bureau of Prisons, 45 states, the District of Columbia, and the Virgin Islands)—that held about 96% of the nation’s prisoners convicted of a felony. That number excludes people held in most of the country’s jails (housing hundreds of thousands of people), in most of the country’s juvenile facilities, and in military and immigration facilities. Tallying the responses, the new 2016 Report found that 67,442 prisoners were held, in the fall of 2015, in prison cells for 22 hours or more for 15 continuous days or more. The percentages of prisoners in restricted housing in federal and state prisons ranged from under 1% to more than 28%. Across all the jurisdictions, the median percentage of the prison population held in restricted housing was 5.1%. How long do prisoners remain in isolation? Forty-one jurisdictions provided information about the length of stay for a total of more than 54,000 people in restricted housing. Approximately 15,725 (29%) were in restricted housing for one to three months; at the other end of the spectrum, almost 6,000 people (11%) across 31 jurisdictions had been in restricted housing for three years or more. The Report also chronicles efforts throughout the country and the world to reduce the use of restricted housing. In August of 2016, the American Correctional Association (ACA) approved new standards, calling for a variety of limits on the use of isolation, including a prohibition against placing prisoners in restricted housing on the basis of their gender identity alone. The standards also included provisions that pregnant women, prisoners under the age of 18, and prisoners with serious mental illness ought not be placed for extended periods of time in restricted housing. Further, in some jurisdictions, prison systems (sometimes prompted by legislation and litigation) have instituted rules to prevent vulnerable populations from being housed in restricted housing except under exceptional circumstances and for as short an amount of time as possible. As the Report also details, several jurisdictions described making significant revisions to the criteria for entry, so as to limit the use of restricted housing, as well as undertaking more frequent reviews to identify individuals to return to general population, thereby reducing the number of people in restricted housing by significant percentages. In short, while restricted housing once was seen as central to prisoner management, by 2016 many prison directors and organizations such as ASCA and the ACA have defined restricted housing as a practice to use only when absolutely necessary and for only as long as absolutely required. The goals of ASCA and the ACA are to formulate and to apply policies to improve the safety of institutions and communities by ensuring that the separation of individuals to promote safety and well-being need not be accompanied by deprivation of all opportunities for social contact, education, programming, and other activities. Details: New Haven, CT: Yale University, School of Law, 2016. 127p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed December 7, 2016 at: https://www.law.yale.edu/system/files/area/center/liman/liman.new.combined.113016.mf.pdf Year: 2016 Country: United States URL: https://www.law.yale.edu/system/files/area/center/liman/liman.new.combined.113016.mf.pdf Shelf Number: 147928 Keywords: Administrative SegregationPrison ReformRestricted HousingSolitary Confinement |
Author: Austin, James Title: How Many Americans are Unnecessarily Incarcerated? Summary: Nearly 40 percent of the U.S. prison population - 576,000 people - are behind bars with no compelling public safety reason, according to a new report from the Brennan Center for Justice at NYU School of Law. The first-of-its-kind analysis provides a blueprint for how the country can drastically cut its prison population while still keeping crime rates near historic lows. In 1963, the March on Washington marked a turning point in the long fight for civil rights for African Americans. A century after President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, hundreds of thousands converged at his memorial to celebrate a century of liberation and to protest what Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. called the manacles of segregation and the chains of discrimination. In the intervening fifty years, we have come a remarkable distance, but the shackles of systemic racism continue to bind communities of color. We stand on the frontlines in the fight to build a society free from racial discrimination. In 2015, we honored the sacrifices of our forbearers and galvanized international attention to systemic discrimination with a "Journey for Justice from Selma, Ala. to Washington, D.C. While national support for this effort provides hope the tide may be turning, it also belies a sad truth: Many of the grave inequalities we fought decades ago still persist, more than fifty years after the Civil Rights Act. The single greatest injustice that threatens our safety and hinders our progress? Mass incarceration. People of color bear the brunt of our criminal justice system in disproportionate and devastating numbers. This is in part because racial disparities exist at all stages of the system, which relies on corrosive practices that harm people of color. Our communities have already suffered from historic and systemic economic injustice and racially targeted criminal justice policies. These wounds have not healed and have been aggravated by the staggering number of people trapped in prisons over the past forty years. Today, an estimated 2.2 million people are locked inside jails and prisons. African Americans make up roughly 13 percent of the U.S. population but 37 percent of the nation's prisoners. People with dreams and aspirations suffer in airtight cells of prison and poverty. But the injustice does not end there. More than half of formerly incarcerated Americans are unemployed a year after release. Communities of color are over policed, over-prosecuted, over-incarcerated and yet underemployed. If we do not take steps now, Americans of color will forever be relegated to a penal and permanent underclass, and mass incarceration will continue to cage the economic growth of our communities. We have reached a crisis point, and we need solutions. This groundbreaking report from the Brennan Center for Justice offers a pathway to reduce our prison population and its tragic racial disparities. It documents the number of people behind bars without rationale, and reveals the unnecessary trauma this causes. It recommends real solutions that can help end over-incarceration. I urge lawmakers to give deep consideration and deeper commitment to this report's findings and recommendations. This nation must continue to march forward, toward a day when all people are treated based not on the color of their skin but on the content of their character, uncolored and un-stigmatized by a criminal record. It is time that we end the plague of mass incarceration Details: New York: Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, 2016. 80p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed December 9, 2016 at: https://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/publications/Unnecessarily_Incarcerated.pdf Year: 2016 Country: United States URL: https://www.brennancenter.org/sites/default/files/publications/Unnecessarily_Incarcerated.pdf Shelf Number: 145623 Keywords: Correctional Institutions Correctional Policies Correctional ReformMass IncarcerationPrison ReformPrisoners |
Author: Prison Reform Trust Title: Why focus on reducing women's imprisonment? Summary: Key points • The women's prison population in England and Wales more than doubled between 1995 and 2010 - from under 2,000 women to over 4,000. The numbers have since declined by over 10% – from 4,279 women in April 2012 to 3,821 in April 2016. But the UK still has one of the highest rates of women’s imprisonment in Western Europe. • Women are a small minority of those in the criminal justice system, representing less than 5% of the prison population, and are easily overlooked in policy, planning, and services - they have been described as 'correctional afterthoughts'. • The drivers and patterns of women’s offending are generally different from men’s. • Most of the solutions to women's offending lie in improved access to community based support services, including women’s centres. These enable women to address underlying problems which may lead to offending but which the criminal justice system cannot solve. • The impact of imprisonment on women, more than half of whom have themselves been victims of serious crime, is especially damaging and their outcomes are worse than men's. • Most women have neither a home nor a job to go to on release. • Women are much more likely to be primary carers, with children far more directly affected by a prison sentence as a result. Details: London: PRT, 2017. 16p. Source: Internet Resource: Prison Reform Trust Briefing: Accessed March @, 2017 at: http://www.prisonreformtrust.org.uk/Portals/0/Documents/Women/whywomen.pdf Year: 2017 Country: United Kingdom URL: http://www.prisonreformtrust.org.uk/Portals/0/Documents/Women/whywomen.pdf Shelf Number: 141301 Keywords: Female InmatesFemale OffendersPrison ReformWomen Prisoners |
Author: John Howard Association of Illinois Title: Reforming Illinois' Prison System from the Inside-Out: A Blueprint for the Implementation of Risk Assets Needs Assessment and System Change in the Illinois Department of Corrections Summary: Illinois has two public safety problems. It has one of the most crowded adult prison systems in the United States, and despite spending $1.3 billion annually on the Illinois Department of Corrections (IDOC), there are not enough resources to effectively house, supervise, and provide rehabilitative programming to the approximately 49,000 men and women who are in state prisons or the additional 25,000 who are on Mandatory Supervised Release under IDOC's Parole Division. These problems have led to an increasingly dangerous situation for inmates and correctional staff, with prisoners being housed in prison gymnasiums and reports of increased violence inside facilities. This makes for hazardous conditions not only inside prisons, but also for Illinois' communities. Every year, Illinois releases more than 30,000 people from its prisons. While there is no evidence to suggest that exposure to harsh and overcrowded conditions makes inmates less likely to commit new crimes, research has shown that these kinds of environments can make inmates worse and more likely to reoffend when they are released. Given these conditions, coupled with the Parole Division's chronically low resources and the multiple barriers former prisoners face returning home, it should come as no surprise that almost half of the inmates who leave the IDOC return to prison within three years of their release, creating a vicious and costly cycle. To address these problems, Illinois needs to safely decrease the number of people under state correctional supervision. This will require an on-going commitment to comprehensive criminal justice reform, including investing in crime prevention programming to strengthen communities, expanding alternatives to incarceration for low-level offenders, reforming overly punitive criminal sentences, and removing unfair obstacles to reentry. Just as importantly, Illinois must ensure that IDOC has the capacity it needs to make the most effective use possible of its limited resources both inside and outside of its facilities, so that when inmates are released they are less likely to return to custody because they are re-integrated safely and successfully back into their communities. Inside the IDOC, the most important initiative to reduce Illinois' over-reliance on incarceration is the implementation of a new and more effective inmate assessment tool called RANA, which stands for Risk Assets Needs Assessment. The problem with the IDOC's current assessment system is that it relies primarily on offenders' committing offenses to make security and programming decisions. So, for instance, if a person is convicted of a low-level offense, he or she will more than likely be treated the same as all other low-level offenders, be housed in a minimum-security facility, and be paroled under the same conditions of release. This kind of assessment system is based on the false assumption that offenders convicted of similar kinds of crimes need the same kind of treatment and supervision. It is also limited in that it ignores the importance of evaluating and developing positive vocational, social, and psychological strengths and assets that lead offenders to turn away from crime. While the IDOC's current approach to inmate assessment may make a certain amount of intuitive sense, it does not provide the agency with a reliable means to provide rehabilitative programming targeted to address the precise needs of individual prisoners that will discourage future criminal activity or encourage pro-social behaviors and attitudes. Using its current assessment system, the IDOC ends up spending its limited security and programming resources on inmates without any certainty that its actions will reduce recidivism. The implementation of RANA will improve upon the IDOC's current assessment system by enabling the agency to focus on the factors that lead people under correctional supervision to return to prison. As mandated, RANA requires the IDOC to adopt an evidence-based assessment tool that will evaluate risks, assets, and needs that are proven to influence recidivism and to create individual case plans that address these factors inside and outside facilities. The benefits of reform are not speculative. Research and the experience of other states indicate that the implementation of a RANA-like system can lead to more efficient use of programming and security resources, reduce recidivism, and ultimately decrease the costly number of people under state correctional supervision. Details: Chicago: The Association, 20113. 27p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed May 16, 2017 at: http://www.thejha.org/sites/default/files/JHA%20Blueprint%20Reforming%20IL%20Prison%20System%20from%20the%20Inside%20Out.pdf Year: 2013 Country: United States URL: http://www.thejha.org/sites/default/files/JHA%20Blueprint%20Reforming%20IL%20Prison%20System%20from%20the%20Inside%20Out.pdf Shelf Number: 131202 Keywords: Correctional ReformCorrectional SupervisionOffender SupervisionPrison OvercrowdingPrison Reform |
Author: Great Britain. House of Commons. Justice Committee Title: Prison Reform: Governor empowerment and prison performance Summary: Within our overarching inquiry into the Government's prison reform programme we held a short 'sub-inquiry' into the plans for governor empowerment and prison performance, which are a central part of the overall programme. The Government intends to give prison governors greater autonomy and flexibility to shape the services provided in their prisons, emphasising the role of prisons in rehabilitation. Most of our witnesses supported these intentions, but many expressed concerns about the lack of clarity on the practical implications of the reforms. Some also questioned whether the reforms would address the current crisis in prisons. In this report, we have tried to clarify how the plans for governor empowerment and prison performance might operate and what risks will need to be mitigated. From April onwards, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) will be responsible for prisons commissioning and policy, while the new HM Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) will be responsible for the operational management of prisons. We heard that policy and operations are not easily separated in the prison context and that this separation could result in governors as well as the Secretary of State receiving conflicting advice from the MoJ and HMPPS. Governors will operate to, and be accountable through, three-year performance agreements they sign with the Secretary of State. These agreements will be based around four new performance standards, which are tied to the four purposes of prison included in the Prisons and Courts Bill: public protection; safety and order; reform; and preparing for life after prison. It is not clear to us what will happen in cases of poor performance, and how accountability will be attributed. The Ministry will publish official statistics on prison performance against these standards, possibly instead of the league tables it had initially announced. We consider that the Ministry should use these data to understand more fully the factors underpinning poor and high performance, to inform practice across the estate. Governor empowerment We are generally supportive of the principle of greater governor empowerment, but we have not seen any evidence that it will necessarily lead to better outcomes for prisoners, and we note that the six initial reform prisons will only be evaluated after the reforms take effect across the prison estate. We raise a number of potential issues associated with governor empowerment including: - the potential for greater governor autonomy and accompanying deregulation to result in an increase in prisoner complaints if not balanced with the need for minimum standards that apply consistently across prisons; - the availability of support and development opportunities for governors in time before the reforms begin to take effect; and - the need to coordinate contributions made by various agencies involved in providing services related to rehabilitation, including prisons and probation, at a local level, and to apportion accountability for post-release outcomes between prison governors and probation services. There also remains considerable uncertainty around how the Government's plans will apply to the privately managed prison estate, and how the new offender management model, with one keyworker overseeing the casework of six prisoners, will work in practice. Performance The shift to a common performance framework for private and public sector prisons, and towards more meaningful outcome measures for prisons that can incentivise desired behaviours in governors and staff, was broadly welcomed by witnesses, although some questioned the extent to which new measures differed significantly from existing ones. In the light of the challenges arising from the performance metrics for Transforming Rehabilitation, which had limited testing prior to implementation, we seek information on the manner in which prison performance measures have been tested and the results of these tests. Some of our witnesses suggested other measures should be used, and we consider that there is merit in testing measures related to staffing and prisoners' personal development. Commissioning Giving governors greater involvement in commissioning services in their prisons could lead to better outcomes for prisoners and innovation, but only when commissioning is based on evidence and evaluated rigorously, and when procurement processes, as well as performance agreements, are designed to facilitate innovation. However, it could also lead to a lack of alignment of services across the estate, and an increase in the overall cost of service provision, as economies of scale in the provision of goods and services could be lost. We recognise the need for central oversight to ensure service provision is coordinated across the prison estate and meets minimum quality standards, and recommend the Government decides on the appropriate level at which to commission services and goods on a case by case basis. Details: London: House of Commons, 2017. 48p. Source: Internet Resource: Twelfth Report of Session 2016-17: HC 1123: https://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201617/cmselect/cmjust/1123/1123.pdf Year: 2017 Country: United Kingdom URL: https://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201617/cmselect/cmjust/1123/1123.pdf Shelf Number: 146262 Keywords: Correctional AdministrationPrison AdministrationPrison ReformPrisons |
Author: Grawert, Ames C. Title: A Federal Agenda to Reduce Mass Incarceration Summary: This report sets forth an affirmative agenda to end mass incarceration and reform our criminal justice system. Bipartisan momentum has been growing for years. We must keep it going. The United States has less than five percent of the world's population, but nearly one quarter of its prisoners. Mass incarceration contributes significantly to the American poverty rate. Conservatives, progressives, and law enforcement leaders now agree that the country must reduce its prison population, and that it can do so without jeopardizing public safety. In the last decade, 27 states have led the way, cutting crime and imprisonment together. Of course, because 87 percent of prisoners are housed in state facilities, changes to state and local law are necessary. But history proves that decisions made in Washington affect the whole criminal justice system, for better or worse. Federal funding drives state policy, and helped create our current crisis of mass incarceration. And the federal government sets the national tone, which is critical to increasing public support and national momentum for change. Without a strong national movement, the bold reforms needed at the state and local level cannot emerge. In a divisive political environment, it is tempting to assume that progress toward federal reform is impossible. But even today, the need to confront problems in the way we arrest, prosecute, and incarcerate remains a rare point of trans-partisan agreement. Republican and Democratic Congressional leaders alike acknowledge that unnecessarily long federal prison sentences continue to impede rehabilitation, driving recidivism and economic inequality. And according to a new poll from the Charles Koch Institute, 81 percent of Trump voters believe criminal justice reform is a "very important" or "somewhat important" issue. More than half know someone who is in or has been to prison. Even with broad public support, addressing the problems in our criminal justice system will not be easy. For the last eight years, the White House and Justice Department supported this important work. But Attorney General Jeff Sessions appears opposed to efforts to reduce unnecessarily harsh charging and sentencing. While President Donald Trump's own views remain unclear, key advisers such as Vice President Mike Pence, senior adviser Jared Kushner, and Gov. Chris Christie all support efforts to reduce imprisonment. To help bridge that divide, this report offers solutions that would keep crime rates low and show support for law enforcement, while reducing mass incarceration. The strongest of these policies require congressional action. Others could be implemented by a sympathetic administration. Taken together, these policies form the core of a national agenda for federal leaders to make our country safer and fairer. They also serve as models for state and local action. Legislation End the Federal Subsidization of Mass Incarceration: Federal grants help shape criminal justice policy at the state and local levels. For decades, these grants have subsidized the growth of incarceration. For example, the 1994 Crime Bill offered states $9 billion in funding to build more prisons. Today, $8.4 billion in federal criminal justice grants flow from Washington annually, largely on autopilot, encouraging more arrests, prosecution, and incarceration. To bring accountability to this flow, Congress can pass a "Reverse Mass Incarceration Act" that would dedicate $20 billion over 10 years to states that reduce both crime and incarceration. This would spur state and local action across the country. End Federal Incarceration for Lower-Level Crimes: Our criminal justice system relies heavily on prison, using it as the default punishment for most crimes. But research has shown that unnecessary incarceration is costly and ineffective at preventing recidivism and promoting rehabilitation. Early estimates show that approximately 49 percent of the federal prison population is likely incarcerated without an adequate public safety reason. Congress can pass legislation to eliminate prison terms for lower-level offenses and shorten prison terms for other crimes. In doing so, it can safely, significantly cut the prison population, saving around $28 billion over 10 years, enough to fund a Reverse Mass Incarceration Act. Institute a Police Corps Program to Modernize Law Enforcement: The country faces a national crisis in policing. Some believe that overly-zealous enforcement has reached a breaking point. Others believe police are not adequately funded or supported. All can agree that something needs to change. To advance a twenty-first century police force, Congress can allocate $40 billion over five years to recruit new officers and train them in modern policing tactics focused on crime prevention, as well as techniques to reduce unnecessary arrests, uses of force, and incarceration. Enact Sentencing Reform: While lawmakers should aspire to the bold changes to federal sentencing described above, Congress can start with a milder first step: reintroducing and passing the Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act of 2015. This proposal would cautiously reduce prison sentences for some nonviolent crimes. A bipartisan group of senators, led by Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), have already committed to reintroducing the bill this session. The White House has expressed cautious support. Executive Action Redirect Federal Grants Away from Mass Incarceration: Since many of the harmful incentives in federal criminal justice grants are written into law, truly ending the federal subsidization of mass incarceration will take congressional action, as laid out above. But the Justice Department can take the first step, by changing performance measures for grants to reward states that use federal funds to reduce both crime and incarceration. Institute New Goals for Federal Prosecutors: The Justice Department should ensure that scarce federal criminal justice resources are focused on the most serious crimes, and evaluate U.S. Attorneys nationally based on their ability to decrease both crime and incarceration. Commute Sentences to Retroactively Apply the Fair Sentencing Act: In 2010, Republicans and Democrats joined together to pass legislation to reduce the disparity between crack and powder cocaine crimes as the drugs are scientifically equivalent. But more than 4,000 federal prisoners remain incarcerated under outdated drug laws. Future presidents can bring justice to these prisoners by identifying clemency petitions meeting certain criteria, fast-tracking them for review, and granting clemency. Details: New York: Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law, 2017. 30p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed June 20, 2017 at: Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law Year: 2017 Country: United States URL: Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law Shelf Number: 146308 Keywords: Criminal Justice ReformMass IncarcerationPrison ReformSentencing Reform |
Author: Aitken, Jonathan Title: What Happened to the Rehabilitation Revolution? How sentencers can revive it How it can be helped by a hung Parliament Summary: The Rehabilitation Revolution has been championed in one form or another by at least two former Home Secretaries, five past Secretaries of States for Justice and a previous Prime Minister. Yet for all the ministerial support for the basic thesis of offender rehabilitation the reality of this so-called revolution has been a disappointment. For more than a decade, informed opinion has broadly agreed that the rehabilitation of offenders needs to be at the heart of an effective criminal justice system. Embedding rehabilitation across the criminal justice system can provide the basis on which the root causes of offending can be tackled, helping to reduce the volume and severity of offending and ultimately improving lives and enabling a reduction in the size of the prison population. The paradox of this consensus is that successive governments have failed to live up to the bold policy statements which so many have promised in the area of rehabilitative criminal justice reform. There has been no shortage of fine words: from the Labour Government's White Paper A Five Year Strategy for Protecting the Public and Reducing Reoffending1 introduced in 2006 by Home Secretary Charles Clarke; through a compendium of speeches advocating offender rehabilitation from successive Conservative Justice Secretaries Kenneth Clarke (2010-12); Chris Grayling (2012-15); Michael Gove (2015-16) and Liz Truss (2016-17), to the speech given by David Cameron in February 2016. That was the first speech from a Prime Minister on prison and rehabilitative reform for some 20 years and yet there has been depressingly little in the way of tangible progress. Both the national reoffending rate and the size of the prison population have remained stubbornly high. While it is true that in recent years the custodial population has remained stable at just under 86,000, in April 2006 it was 77,000, and given recent increases it now approaches 90,000.2 This 12 percent rise has been accompanied by year-on-year falls in recorded crime. The prison estate itself has been changing - though arguably neither fast enough nor necessarily for the best. Her Majesty's 136 prisons have now fallen to 117:3 cutting costs, but at the risk of exacerbating overcrowding. The recently opened HMP Berwyn, near Wrexham in North Wales, will offer modern facilities for more than 2,100 prisoners when completed - but the location and larger size of the prison means prisoners will be more distant from their families. For many this will make them inaccessible to their families and prove detrimental to effective rehabilitation, as highlighted in Lord Farmer's recent and important review. In the prisons dangerous episodes have been getting worse. The latest statistics show that in the past year all records were broken in English and Welsh prisons by 40,161 selfharming incidents, 120 suicides, 224 other deaths in custody and 26,022 assaults of which 6,844 were on staff - 650 of them serious. So why have successive governments failed so consistently? Why has an apparent consensus stalled? It is worth recalling David Cameron's speech in 2016 on prison and criminal justice reform, with the major commitments made in that address having mostly already been trailed in the speeches of the then Justice Secretary Michael Gove and some of his predecessors: 1. Making sure that prisons are places of positivity and reform designed to maximise the chances of people going straight when they come out. 2. Addressing prisoners' illiteracy, addiction and mental health problems. 3. Revolutionising the prison education system. 4. Measuring the performance of individual prisons. 5. Giving prison governors new powers to set up therapeutic communities, drug free wings and abstinence-based treatment programmes that prisoners need. 6. Delivering Problem Solving Courts in England and Wales. 7. Helping prisoners to find work on release. 8. Delivering lower re-offending rates. Details: London: Centre for Social Justice, 2017. 38p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed September 16, 2017 at: http://www.centreforsocialjustice.org.uk/core/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/CSJJ5667-Rehab-Revolution-WEB.pdf Year: 2017 Country: United Kingdom URL: http://www.centreforsocialjustice.org.uk/core/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/CSJJ5667-Rehab-Revolution-WEB.pdf Shelf Number: 147360 Keywords: Correctional ProgramsCriminal Justice ReformOffender RehabilitationPrison ReformPrisonsSentencingTreatment Programs |
Author: Correctional Service Canada Title: 2016 International Survey of Correctional Services: Corrections in Transformation Summary: In 2015, the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) conducted an international survey with the objective of gaining a better understanding of the challenges other nations encounter in their correctional organizations and the best practices being applied to address them. Responses from 24 organizations revealed themes related to infrastructure, resources, technology, and offender health and mental health as significant challenges. These identified challenges provided indications of where international correctional organizations are facing difficulties; however, further details would have provided greater insight into these difficulties and the responses organizations have made to address them. Thus, the 2016 survey was designed to increase our knowledge of the issues and transformation plans being used to address these challenges as well as the best practices learned through actions undertaken to deal with them. Purpose CSC conducted an international consultation with several correctional organizations around the world to gain a better understanding of not only the challenges various nations encounter in their correctional organizations, but also the strategies implemented to address these challenges. The international consultation was completed in collaboration with CSC's Intergovernmental Relations Division (IGR) and representatives from the International Corrections and Prisons Association (ICPA). Overview The following is a summary of the responses received for the International Survey of Correctional Services. The survey was developed by staff at CSC's Research Branch and Strategic Policy and Planning. It was available in English and French and could be completed online or on paper. The structure of the survey included both multiple choice and open-ended questions. Core problematic areas in correctional practices were identified and questions specific to each area were developed. The survey was organized into four key parts: Part I: Physical Infrastructure; Part II: Technology; Part III: Offender Health; Part IV: Offender Rehabilitation The target sample was approximately 170 correctional organizations affiliated with ICPA and IGR. Respondents were able to respond to the survey between July 28th and September 14th, 2016. Although 19 correctional organizations responded, results are based on 18 correctional organizations representing agencies in 12 as one submission was removed from the analyses due to data quality issues (see Appendix A for a list of participating countries). Regarding the characteristics of participating organizations, the majority of organizations were at the Federal/National level of government (53%), followed closely by organizations at the State/Regional (41%) and Local/Municipal (6%) levels. The offender population supervised by organizations was evenly split between only those with custodial sentences (47%) and those with both custodial and non-custodial sentences (53%). Notably, no organizations indicated that they only supervise those with non-custodial sentences. The results of this report are organized according to each key area assessed. The qualitative results examine the challenges and associated transformation plans for each sub-area are examined. Subsequently, the qualitative themes associated with the issues leading to transformation, the ongoing transformation projects that have occurred in the past year, as well as any best practices garnered throughout the transformation process are discussed. A summary of findings is provided at the end of the document. Details: Ottawa: Correctional Service Canada, 2016. 15p. Source: Internet Resource: 2016 No. SR-16-04 Accessed November 13, 2017 at: http://www.csc-scc.gc.ca/research/092/005008-3009-en.pdf Year: 2016 Country: International URL: http://www.csc-scc.gc.ca/research/092/005008-3009-en.pdf Shelf Number: 148140 Keywords: Correctional AdministrationCorrectional InstitutionsCorrectional ReformPrison ReformPrisons |
Author: Yates, Caitlyn Title: Penitentiary System Reform Summary: Properly functioning prisons serve as an indicator of a country's ability to confront insecurity, and Mexico's prison conditions fail to demonstrate adequate institutional capacity. The Mexican Congress passed a prison reform law in 2016 aimed at drastically reforming the justice system and prison practices. Yet, there remain serious concerns such as inadequate prison conditions, violations of prisoners' rights, and an increase in violence and organized criminal operations within the penitentiary system. This paper analyzes current Mexican prison conditions, recent policy interventions in the prison system, and policy recommendations. These include: ensuring equal rights for all incarcerated individuals, reducing prison official complicity, emphasizing restorative justice, eradicating sentencing for minor crimes, better allocating resources for prison officials and institutions, and eventually reducing extradition. Details: Austin, TX: Robert Strauss Center for Interntional Security and Law, 2017. 10p. Source: Internet Resource: Mexico Security Initiative, Policy Research Project Paper: Accessed December 5, 2017 at: https://www.strausscenter.org/images/Courses_Scholars/PRP_2017/CaitlynYates_PRP_copy.pdf Year: 2017 Country: Mexico URL: https://www.strausscenter.org/images/Courses_Scholars/PRP_2017/CaitlynYates_PRP_copy.pdf Shelf Number: 148718 Keywords: Correctional InstitutionsPrison ReformPrisons |
Author: Council of Europe. Directorate General Human Rights and Rule of Law Title: White Paper on Prison Overcrowding Summary: Introduction 1. Prison overcrowding is a recurring problem for many prison administrations in Europe. Many of the 47 Council of Europe member states have overcrowded prisons and in many states where the total number of prisoners is lower than the available accommodation places still specific prisons may often suffer from overcrowding. 2. The Council of Europe has persistently recommended to the national authorities to remedy the problem considering that prison overcrowding and prison population growth represent a major challenge for prison administrations and the criminal justice system as a whole both in terms of ensuring human rights protection and in terms of efficient management of penal institutions. On 30 September 1999 the Committee of Ministers adopted Recommendation No. R (99) 22 concerning prison overcrowding and prison population inflation. This text contains a number of pertinent advices and suggestions for practical steps to be taken at all levels - legislative, judicial and executive. 3. More than 15 years after the adoption of the recommendation and despite the efforts made by the member states the problem is still considerable at European level as it is in many other parts of the world. Therefore over the past years the European Court of Human Rights has had to assess many complaints related to bad prison conditions and has found numerous violations of Article 3 of the ECHR. 4. In the inter-state relations the problem is felt sometimes acutely in cases of requests for extradition for prosecution or in cases of transfer of sentenced persons, where the requested measure may be problematic to carry out because of concerns regarding bad prison conditions, including in particular prison overcrowding, in the receiving state. 5. A recent example of this is the judgement of the European Court of Justice in joined cases C-404/15 and C-659/15 PPU Pl Aranyosi and Robert Căldăraru, where the Court recalls that the absolute prohibition of inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment being part of the fundamental rights protected by Charter of Fundamental Rights of the EU, the authority dealing with the European arrest warrant must assess properly any such risks before deciding on the surrender of an individual. In particular, the Court states that where such a risk derives from the general detention conditions in the issuing Member State the execution of the warrant must be deferred until there is obtained additional information on the basis of which that risk can be discounted. If the existence of that risk cannot be discounted within a reasonable period, the authority must decide whether the surrender procedure should be brought to an end. 6. Several Conferences of Directors of Prison Administration have debated the issue of prison overcrowding and at the 17th Conference in Rome (November 2012) a special meeting was held with European judges and prosecutors in order to raise their awareness of the impact of pre-trial detention and of sentencing policies on prison overcrowding and of the usefulness and effectiveness of alternatives to imprisonment. At the 19th Conference of Directors of Prison and Probation Services (CDPPS) (Helsinki, 2014) an initiative was launched to set up a Working Group, comprising judges, prosecutors, representatives of the ministries of justice, of prison and probation services in order to discuss these issues and to recommend steps to be taken to tackle prison overcrowding. The idea behind this is to assist national authorities in starting a dialogue between judges, prosecutors, legislators, decision-makers and prison and probation services with a view to agreeing on long-term national strategies and on specific actions to deal with prison overcrowding. 7. The present White Paper is the result of the joint efforts of the Drafting Committee mentioned above, comprising representatives of a number of Council of Europe bodies and intergovernmental committees which have the competence and vested interest in the field of crime prevention and penal policies and practices of the Council of Europe member states. The full list of members of the Drafting Committee on prison overcrowding, set up on the initiative of the European Committee on Crime Problems as well as the bodies and committees they represent may be found in Appendix I to the present document. Details: Strasbourg: Council of Europe, 2016. 30p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed February 21, 2018 at: https://rm.coe.int/16806f9a8a Year: 2016 Country: Europe URL: https://rm.coe.int/16806f9a8a Shelf Number: 149198 Keywords: Prison Administration Prison Conditions Prison Overcrowding Prison Reform |
Author: Bird, Mia Title: Realignment and Recidivism in California Summary: California has experienced significant changes in its criminal justice landscape since the 2011 implementation of public safety realignment-which shifted the management of lower-level offenders from the state prison and parole system to county jail and probation systems. The prison population has dropped dramatically, and though jail populations rose, overall incarceration levels have declined. One goal of realignment was to reduce California's persistently high recidivism rates. Using data from 12 counties representative of the state, this report examines rearrest and reconviction rates after release from custody for two groups of offenders affected by realignment: those on post-release community supervision (PRCS) and those sentenced under section 1170(h) of the California Penal Code. Overall, we find realignment had modest effects on recidivism, with considerable variation across offender groups and counties. Specifically: Individuals on PRCS have somewhat higher recidivism than similar individuals released before realignment. PRCS offenders are released from state prison after serving time for certain lower-level felonies and receive supervision by county probation agencies. In the two years following realignment, we find that 71.9 percent of these individuals were rearrested (2.6 percentage points higher than before realignment), and 56.4 percent were reconvicted (2.4 points higher). Realignment did not have a consistent effect on recidivism for individuals sentenced under 1170(h). These offenders are sentenced for a specific set of lower-level felonies and, under realignment, serve time in county jail rather than state prison. In the two years following realignment, we find that 74.5 percent of these individuals were rearrested (2.3 percentage points higher than their pre-realignment counterparts) and 54.9 percent were reconvicted (2.0 points lower). Offenders who received straight sentences have the same or lower rates of recidivism. Realignment created two types of 1170(h) offenders: those who receive both jail time and probation supervision (known as a "split" sentence) and those who receive jail time with no supervision (known as a "straight" sentence). The group serving "straight" sentences had the best outcomes: the same two-year rearrest rates and lower two-year reconviction rates (by 3.0 percentage points). Those who received "split" sentences had higher rates of rearrest (by 7.8 points) but lower rates of reconviction (by 3.4 points) compared with similar individuals before realignment. The effects of realignment on recidivism vary substantially across counties. For example, overall we find reconviction rates were higher for those on PRCS after realignment, but in fact nine counties saw lower rates of reconviction-indicating that the overall finding is driven by a small number of counties. County variation in recidivism outcomes is likely linked to demographic, economic, and geographic differences, as well as the range of county capacity and experiences providing evidence-based interventions before realignment. However, some of this variation may be due to different intervention strategies, creating the potential for counties to learn from each other over time. Notably, offenders who received a jail term and no supervision stand out as having better outcomes on all measures of recidivism, when compared with similar individuals released before realignment. This finding suggests we need to carefully consider the complex relationship between supervision and recidivism. While it could simply be easier to detect reoffending when an individual is under supervision, the requirements of supervision could also create more opportunities for non-criminal violations. With a longer follow-up window and more recent data, the relationship between supervision and recidivism, as well as the overall effects of realignment, may change as counties build capacity and experience with evidence-based practices. Policymakers, practitioners, and researchers must continue to work together to develop the data and expertise necessary to understand the impacts of California's corrections reforms and to identify effective strategies to reduce recidivism. Details: San Francisco: Public Policy Institute of California, 2017. 34p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed May 12, 2018 at: http://www.ppic.org/publication/realignment-and-recidivism-in-california/ Year: 2017 Country: United States URL: http://www.ppic.org/publication/realignment-and-recidivism-in-california/ Shelf Number: 150170 Keywords: Criminal Justice ReformPrison reformPrisonsPublic Safety RealignmentRecidivism |
Author: Bird, Mia Title: Evaluating the Effects of Realignment Practices on Recidivism Outcomes Summary: In 2011, California enacted Public Safety Realignment, a historic policy reform that resulted in dramatic reductions to the state prison population. Realignment shifted responsibility and authority over lower-level felons from the state prison and parole system to county jail and probation systems. From our current vantage point, it is clear that the changes brought by realignment paved the way for a series of subsequent reforms. 1 Together, these reforms reflect two key features of the state's changing approach to criminal justice policy. First, the state has altered system incentives and rules to reduce its overall reliance on incarceration. Second, the state has increased the emphasis on the use of evidence-based interventions to reduce crime and criminal justice involvement. Despite the emphasis on data-driven policy and practice, dedicated resources to support data collection, evaluation, or research have not been provided. In the case of realignment, this is particularly problematic given that data capturing individuals moving through state and county criminal justice systems are kept in separate systems. Evaluating the effects of realignment or identifying effective recidivism-reduction interventions would not be possible without finding a way to collect and integrate data from these disparate systems. In 2013, PPIC initiated the Multi-County Study (MCS), a data collection effort aimed at producing an integrated dataset to address these gaps. NIJ provided support for our first phase of analytic work drawing on the MCS dataset. The planned work would focus on the following research questions: (1) What was the impact of realignment on recidivism statewide? (2) How did the effects of realignment vary across counties? (3) How have service and sanction interventions affected recidivism outcomes? Details: San Francisco: Public Policy Institute of California, 2018. 13p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed May 31, 2018 at: https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/251627.pdf Year: 2018 Country: United States URL: https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/251627.pdf Shelf Number: 150412 Keywords: Criminal Justice ReformPrison reformPrisonsPublic Safety RealignmentRecidivism |
Author: Delaney, Ruth Title: Reimagining Prison Summary: This document-unlike anything we have ever produced at the Vera Institute of Justice (Vera)-is about the possibility of radical change. It asserts a dramatic reconsideration of the most severe criminal sanction we have: incarceration. It articulates a view that is sure to be alien to many. Yet we need not accept as a given the way we do things now, and we encourage you to envision a different path. Indeed, our vision has concrete reference points. It is in the hope, daring, and promise of a small unit for young adults in a Connecticut maximum security facility. It is inspired by what we learned studying and visiting prisons in Germany, where the very conditions and operations of that entire system are defined by a commitment to uphold human dignity-a commitment born of that country's coming to terms with the Holocaust. And it is rooted in our own obligation-now physically exhibited in a museum and memorial in Montgomery, Alabama-to acknowledge and atone for our brutal history of dehumanization and racial oppression and to understand how it has shaped what we do today in our justice system. Our mission is to link these things and suggest a path forward that is as much about reconciliation as it is about criminal justice reform. In October of last year, John, a young adult in Cheshire Correctional Institution- where most people spend 22 hours a day in their cells-was accepted into a new small housing unit. Though the unit is within the same facility, John was handcuffed and shackled and placed in a prison van, subjected to strip searches, and given a medical assessment. In transit, John spent time in a kind of purgatorial interstitial space, waiting in what he described as "a full cage from top to bottom, something like on the show Lockup or Hard Time." But once inside the new unit, John entered a different world. The corrections officers greeted him and shook his hand. They asked him and the other young men in the unit serious questions about their goals and expressed genuine interest in their thoughts, feelings, and plans. In a letter to his family, John described this place as "not a regular prison environment [but] an open, caring, hopeful environment." He began to develop relationships both with older men who act as mentors in the unit and corrections officers, with whom he played chess, talked, and reflected on visits with his family. Each day, John attends group discussions with other young men and older mentors, he participates in town hall meetings where everyone gathers to talk about and resolve issues, and he joins programs that teach him about conflict resolution and money management. He spends the majority of his days outside his cell-attending programs, moving freely around the unit, and playing basketball in the outside courtyard. John, like all the men in the unit, is learning about responsibility and actively working to become a better person for himself and society. John's prison experience spans two possible futures for America's prison systems: the continuation of the punitive, retributive, and dehumanizing routines of the past; and the possibility of a reimagined future built on a wholly different set of foundational principles, designed to promote safety and success. The new unit John found himself in-called T.R.U.E., an acronym that stands for Truthfulness (to oneself and others), Respectfulness (toward the community), Understanding (ourselves and what brought us here), and Elevating (into success)-is a groundbreaking model in which we and our partners in Connecticut reimagine incarceration for young men aged 18 to 25. It was inspired by a visit to a young adult facility in Germany, where corrections officials from Connecticut were first exposed to what could be, not just what had always been. It represents a hopeful possibility for change in the way America handles incarceration. According to one of its participants, "the T.R.U.E. program is dedicated to the reclamation of moral integrity," inherent in which "is the recognition of the dignity of all prisoners in general." Unfortunately, while T.R.U.E. has inspired several other similar efforts, at the moment its goals and practices are shared by only a tiny fraction of prisons in America. At the vast majority of the facilities in the massive network of prisons across the country, people spend endless days in cells; they are marched to and from their limited activities; and their names and identities are lost, replaced with numbers, uniforms, and a stultifying idleness and isolation that impede cognition and fundamentally alters social-psychological processes. And for those who work behind the walls, the daily existence can hardly be described as enviable. It is telling that in American prisons, staff count down the years to retirement using the same language as those they are paid to keep locked up. In prison, everyone is serving a sentence. Details: New York: Vera Institute of Justice, 2018. 136p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed October 24, 2018 at: https://storage.googleapis.com/vera-web-assets/downloads/Publications/reimagining-prison-print-report/legacy_downloads/Reimagining-Prison_FINAL3_digital.pdf Year: 2018 Country: United States URL: https://storage.googleapis.com/vera-web-assets/downloads/Publications/reimagining-prison-print-report/legacy_downloads/Reimagining-Prison_FINAL3_digital.pdf Shelf Number: 153068 Keywords: Criminal Justice ReformMass IncarcerationPrison ReformPrisonersPrisons |
Author: Hewson, Alex Title: Bromley Briefings Prison Factfile: Autumn 2018 Summary: Over the past few years the Bromley Briefings have charted a depressing decline in standards of safety and decency in our prisons. This year's edition draws heavily on the shocking evidence of both the government's own data on safety - or the lack of it - and on the Chief Inspector's increasingly strident denunciation of the conditions in which many prisoners are required to live. Everyone who cares about prisons - whether they live or work in them, or are close to someone who does - wants to believe that they are close to turning a corner. Anecdotally, both staff and prisoners welcome the introduction of key working in around half of prisons in England and Wales so far. Essentially, that means some protected time for staff to do what most of them joined for - helping prisoners cope with imprisonment and prepare for a better life when they leave. But it is too soon to make the call that the system as a whole is on the path to recovery - the damage done by the savage cuts of recent years is profound, and none of the key indicators are showing improvement as yet. In innovations this year, this edition of the Bromley Briefings includes a short section about what prisoners say. In line with PRT-s core aim to give prisoners greater influence in strategic policy making about prisons, we intend to develop this aspect in future, reflecting both the insight of prisoners and their ability to provide solutions. There is also a section setting out the current and historic performance of the "ten prisons" selected by the Prisons Minister for investment and a time limited drive to show tangible improvements, especially in safety. As last year, however, we begin with a slightly longer analysis of a particular issue, drawing on evidence from a longer period, and this year from a broad geographical perspective. Professors Dirk van Zyl Smit and Catherine Appleton from the University of Nottingham will shortly publish a seminal book on life imprisonment worldwide, and we are delighted that they have authored "The long view" for us, comparing the use of indeterminate sentences in this country with jurisdictions overseas. What their analysis demonstrates is that the UK's use of indeterminate sentences is out of kilter with the majority of international comparators. But it is also at odds with our own domestic historical approach to sentencing. Draconian legislation passed by Parliament in 2003 inflated the punishment tariffs for formal life sentences and created the catastrophic growth in informal life sentences - the IPP - which was only partially reversed by legislation in 2012. The inevitable consequence of decisions made on the sentencing and release framework for indeterminate sentences is a very long-term impact on the lives of the individuals affected and the make-up of the prison population as a whole. A substantial minority of that population is serving sentences characterised by an absence of hope and in many cases a sense that punishment, though deserved, has ceased to be proportionate or just in its administration. This has profound implications for the way of life prisons provide, if the treatment of those serving the longest sentences is to be both humane and purposeful. There is an urgent need for Parliament to revisit the framework it has created for our response as a society to the most serious crime, and our treatment of those who commit it. Decisions made in the aftermath of particularly shocking individual cases have created a system which, on the long view, looks more like a cause of national shame than pride. Details: London, UK: Prison Reform Trust, 2018. 64p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed January 18, 2019 at: http://www.prisonreformtrust.org.uk/publications/factfile Year: 2018 Country: United Kingdom URL: http://www.prisonreformtrust.org.uk/Portals/0/Documents/Bromley%20Briefings/Autumn%202018%20Factfile.pdf Shelf Number: 154266 Keywords: ImprisonmentIncarcerationIndeterminate SentencingLong-Term SentencingPrison ReformPrisonersPrisonsSafetySentencing |
Author: Nevada Advisory Commission on the Administration of Justice Title: Nevada Advisory Commission on the Administration of Justice - Justice Reinvestment Initiative. Final report Summary: Over the past decade Nevada's prison population has grown significantly, resulting in higher spending on prisons and fewer resources available for recidivism reduction measures. Since 2009, Nevada's prison population has grown by seven percent, and the state's female prison population has grown at four times the pace of the overall prison population. The state currently has an imprisonment rate that is 15 percent higher than the national average. Over the same period Nevada's crime rate has fluctuated, with violent crime climbing from a 10-year low in 2011 to 2015 before experiencing a major drop in 2017. The state has the third highest murder rate and the third highest robbery rate in the nation. While many states across the nation have seen significant declines in both crime rates and prison populations, Nevada has not. Moreover, the growing population of people with behavioral health problems continues to challenge the system. Nearly 30 percent of the state's inmate population require treatment or medication for a mental health need. Growing prison costs have burdened taxpayers while gaps remain in treatment and interventions that reduce recidivism, increase public safety, and address critical behavioral health challenges. Nevada is spending over $347 million on corrections in fiscal year 2019, which has crowded out the state's ability to fund treatment and services. The prison population is projected to continue to grow, and by 2028, will increase by 1,197 beds. Fifteen percent of this overall growth will be driven by an increase in the female prison population, which is projected to grow by 14 percent over the next 10 years. The projected prison population growth is estimated to cost the state an additional $770 million in capital expenditures to build or lease new prisons and added operating costs over 10 years. In May 2018, state leaders from all three branches of government joined to request technical assistance through the Justice Reinvestment Initiative (JRI). As part of the JRI effort, state leaders charged the Advisory Commission on the Administration of Justice (ACAJ) with conducting a review of the state's criminal justice system and "us[ing] criminological research and [Nevada's] own criminal justice data to inform and motivate the development of comprehensive crime- and recidivism-reduction strategies, while shifting resources toward more cost-effective public safety strategies." Beginning in July 2018 and extending through the end of the calendar year, the ACAJ analyzed the state's sentencing, corrections, and community supervision data, and reviewed the latest research on reducing recidivism and improving public safety. The ACAJ found that, in Nevada: - Sixty-six percent of people admitted to prison in 2017 were sentenced for nonviolent crimes and four out of 10 offenders had no prior felony convictions. - Thirty-nine percent of prison admissions were the result of revocations of individuals on probation and parole supervision. Analysis of violation reports revealed that 34 percent of these violators were returned to prison for technical violations of supervision, meaning they failed to comply with a condition of supervision such as failing a drug test or not going to treatment. - The amount of time individuals spend incarcerated has increased 20 percent since 2008, and recidivism rates have increased for nearly all offense types. - The number of women admitted to prison increased 39 percent between 2008 and 2017 and the female imprisonment rate per 100,000 is now 43 percent higher than the national average. - The number of people admitted to prison with an identified mental health need has increased 35 percent over the last decade and the number of women entering prison with a mental health need has grown by 47 percent. Based on this data analysis and the directive from state leadership, the ACAJ developed a comprehensive package of 25 policy recommendations supported by a majority of ACAJ members. The recommendations are specifically designed to improve public safety by holding offenders accountable, reducing recidivism, and increasing the resources available to combat the state's behavioral health crisis. These policies, if signed into law, would avert 89 percent of the projected prison population growth, and ultimately reduce the projected 2028 prison population by more than 1,000 beds, averting $640 million in additional prison costs over the next 10 years. The money that would have been spent on new prison beds can be redirected to effective policies and practices that reduce recidivism and increase public safety including interventions to address a growing population with behavioral health needs. Details: Carson City: The Author, 2019. 41p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed February 14, 2019 at: https://www.leg.state.nv.us/App/InterimCommittee/REL/Document/13671 Year: 2019 Country: United States URL: https://www.leg.state.nv.us/App/InterimCommittee/REL/Document/13671 Shelf Number: 154594 Keywords: Costs of CorrectionsInmate PopulationJustice ReinvestmentPrison ReformPrisonersPrisons |
Author: New York City Bar Title: Mass Incarceration: Where do we go from here? Summary: With prospects for reducing mass incarceration on the national level uncertain, the Task Force on Mass Incarceration has released a report emphasizing the progress that can be made on the local level and highlighting "New York as a model for reform." A follow up to the 2015 report "Mass Incarceration: Seizing the Moment for Reform", the report describes how New York City and New York State have succeeded in decreasing the rate of incarceration through a variety of policies, and puts forth recommendations on how to continue the momentum and bring about even greater reform, while still preserving public safety and keeping crime low. Recommendations include adding a new subsection to New York's CPL 440.20 (governing motions to set aside a sentence) that would allow an individual under certain circumstances to petition the original sentencing judge to request that his or her sentence be reduced or modified on the ground that the sentence is excessive; developing a means to trigger automatic sentence reductions - beyond the current merit and good time programs - based on an individual's conduct while incarcerated; further reforms to the bail system; raising the age of criminal responsibility; sealing or expunging criminal records in certain circumstances; and making it unlawful statewide for prospective employers to ask about an applicant's criminal record before offering a job. Details: New York: New York City Bar, 2017. 27p. Source: Internet Resource: Accessed July 14, 2019 at: http://documents.nycbar.org/files/mass_incarceration_where_do_we_go_from_here.pdf Year: 2017 Country: United States URL: https://www.nycbar.org/member-and-career-services/committees/reports-listing/reports/detail/mass-incarceration-where-do-we-go-from-here Shelf Number: 156748 Keywords: Bail System Criminal Record Expungement Mass Incarceration Prison Population Prison Reform |