Mass Incarceration Research Articles

Pain in Prison: A Risk Factor Analysis of 57 Prisoners' Deaths by Suicide in Illinois, United States.

United States prisons have elevated rates of suicide deaths compared to the general population. Thus, this manuscript aims to identify suicide risk factors, using data collected in Illinois (IL) state prisons between 2013-2021. First, we present comprehensive demographic, psychological, and prison-related descriptive statistics regarding 57 suicide decedents. Next, we compared this subset to IL state population-level prison reports to identify suicide-specific risk factors. Suicide decedents were predominately male, White, serving their first sentence, had a psychiatric diagnosis, and had no work assignment. Lethal attempts frequently occurred during evening off-hours, on Wednesdays, and were preceded by "mental health decompensation" and significant life transitions. Suicide-specific risk factors included identifying as White or Asian, having an offense type of habitual criminal or sex offender, being divorced, and not having children. We close with readily implementable suggestions to reduce suicides in prisons such as increasing off-hours and shift change staffing and social support interventions.

Abstract 4118402: National Burden, Trends, and Racial Disparities in Cardiovascular Mortality Among Incarcerated Individuals in the United States from 2000-2019

Background: Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the U.S. Mass incarceration is a national public health issue, with the US having the highest incarceration rate in the world. However, there is a paucity of data on cardiovascular mortality among incarcerated individuals, or how the racialization of mass incarceration contributes to cardiovascular health inequities. The aim of this study was to evaluate the burden of cardiovascular mortality, trends in cardiovascular deaths, as well as racial differences in cardiovascular death and receipt of care among those incarcerated in U.S. state prisons from 2001-2019. Methods: We utilized the database “Mortality in Correctional Institutions: ICD-10 Diagnosis Codes for Natural Deaths Occurring in State Prison or Local Jail Custody, 2000-2019” from the United States Bureau of Justice Statistics. This database collects inmate death records from each of the nation’s 50 state prison systems. We extracted all deaths related to cardiovascular causes to evaluate the epidemiology of individuals with cardiovascular death, trends in cardiovascular death rates, and differences between racial groups. Results: From 2000-2019, there were a total of 18227 (28.0%) deaths secondary to cardiovascular causes among those incarcerated in US state prisons. The rate of CV death increased from 71.3 per 100,000 persons in 2001 to 94 per 100,000 persons in 2019. Black individuals who died while incarcerated had higher rates of death related to a cardiovascular cause than White individuals (30.9% vs. 27.8%, p<0.0001). Black individuals had higher rates of death due to ischemic heart disease (23.2% vs 21.9%) and hypertensive-related cardiovascular deaths (3.71% vs. 2.96%) as compared to white counterparts (p<0.001). Black incarcerated individuals who died from a cardiovascular cause were less likely to be evaluated by a medical provider in prison (78.6% vs. 81.9%; p<0.0001), were less likely to have a diagnostic test performed (65.3% vs. 69%, p<0.0001), were less likely to receive medications (68.1% vs 72.6%, p<0.001), as well as treatment other than medications (49.1% vs 52.8%, p <0.0001) for the condition which caused death as compared to White counterparts. Conclusions: Deaths due to cardiovascular causes are high among patients incarcerated in US state prisons. Combined with decarceral efforts to address mass incarceration, strategies to ensure quality and equitable cardiovascular care for this population are needed.

Ethical considerations in researching marginalised voices: a focus on women and gender-diverse individuals in Central American prison

ABSTRACT This paper explores the ethical complexities inherent in researching marginalised voices within Central American prisons, specifically focusing on women and gender-diverse individuals presumed to be affiliated with armed groups. Drawing on extensive fieldwork conducted across Central America, the paper explores the challenges researchers face when navigating carceral spaces dominated by gang violence and informal governance. It highlights the need for addressing the ethical dilemmas that arise when engaging with incarcerated individuals. By highlighting the importance of reflexivity, recognition of gatekeepers, ensuring the safety of incarcerated individuals, sensitivity to vulnerabilities and diversity, and fostering empathy, the authors contribute to the broader discourse on research ethics and methodology in high-risk environments. This study casts a spotlight on the ethics of researching prisons in Central America, underscoring the urgency of ethical research practices that prioritise the dignity, agency, and humanity of research subjects.

Thinking about prisons: A response to O’Flaherty, Sethi, and Murphy

I provide a response to the commentaries on my book The Idea of Prison Abolition (2022) by Brendan O’Flaherty and Rajiv Sethi and by Colleen Murphy. With respect to the first commentary, I briefly discuss the comparison of US prisons to Norwegian prisons; the deterrent effect of well-crafted sentences; and the prospects of a world without prisons. In response to the second commentary, I argue that the methods of the scholar-activist and those of the analytic political philosopher are not incompatible with meaningful engagement and disagreement on the abolition-versus-reform question despite these methodological differences.

Book Review: Prisons and Health in the Age of Mass Incarceration by Jason Schnittker, Michael Massoglia, and Christopher Uggen

Book Review: <i>Prisons and Health in the Age of Mass Incarceration</i> by Jason Schnittker, Michael Massoglia, and Christopher Uggen

Incarceration and women’s and men’s forms of capital and social control: a gendered test of coercive mobility

ABSTRACT Previous work has theorized that women’s forms of capital (i.e. physical, human, and social) may serve as a mechanism to more fully explain the process by which concentrated incarceration contributes to reductions in neighborhood social control. Coercive mobility theory posits that the removal of residents due to mass incarceration creates disruptions in neighboring relationships and therefore, reduces a community’s informal social control mechanisms or its ability to prevent crime. Scholars have also asserted that this process is gendered, since mostly women remain in the community and experience disruptions to their forms of capital and social control, while mostly men cycle in and out of incarceration. Using data on Baltimore residents, the present study examines the association between incarceration and women’s and men’s forms of capital and social control with the use of ordinary least squares regression models. An equality of coefficients test is used to determine whether effects to women’s and men’s capital and social control are statistically distinct, indicating a gendered experience. Findings support the adoption of a gendered perspective on coercive mobility, advancing our understanding of the community consequences of incarceration to women residents, and offer suggestions for future research and policy implications.

Unpacking Human Rights: Freedom of Consciousness, Bodily Autonomy &amp; Right to Life in the Context of War on Drugs Crimes

Abstract This study explores the interplay between the right to life, right to development, bodily autonomy and freedom of conscience, and demonstrates how these factors collectively shape the concept of freedom of consciousness and simultaneously lead to increased access to altered states of consciousness, cognitive liberty, freedom of development, and the peak experiences that Abraham Maslow researched. Second chapter delves into the intersection of human rights and drug policy, specifically examining the implications of the War on Drugs on individual freedoms. It argues that the War on Drugs has led to a violation of fundamental human rights, including cognitive liberty, bodily autonomy, and the right to life. Through an analysis of international human rights law and case studies from around the world, the paper demonstrates how drug-related crimes have resulted in mass incarceration, violence, and human rights abuses. It also explores decriminalization of drug use, end of War on Drugs and criminalization of its’ crimes. The research results provide insights into the interrelation between these three concepts, shedding light on how they intersect and influence each other and in context of War on Drugs hostile environment. Findings also suggest that the War on Drugs has resulted in a significant violation of fundamental human rights.

Jewish Soldiers in Nazi Captivity: American and British Prisoners of War during the Second World War

Jewish Soldiers in Nazi Captivity: American and British Prisoners of War during the Second World War

Book Review: Derek S. Jeffreys, America’s Jails: The Search for Human Dignity in an Age of Mass Incarceration. New York University Press. 2018.

In America’ Jails: The Search for Human Dignity in an Age of Mass Incarceration, Derek Jeffreys attempts to primarily focus on the human dignity of inmates in U.S. jails. He draws from his experience volunteering in a prison chapel, visiting various jails and prisons in Wisconsin and overseas, and his access that was granted to him inside the Cook County Jail by Sheriff Thomas J. Dart. Jeffreys states that he was freely able to speak with both inmates and staff inside the jail. He does his best to bring about many disturbing abuses inside the jail system but resists the temptation to portray those working in corrections as evil and to blame. Throughout the book, Jeffreys discusses a long common practice of placing those thought to be insignificant or in a powerless position in mental hospitals, jails, prisons, or other institutions. Jeffreys discusses his ideas of proposed policy changes that may assist in preventing abuse and neglect of inmates in jail and how to reduce the populations of those incarcerated.

Network determinants of relationship influence on HIV prevention decision-making among people in the social networks of women who have experienced incarceration in the US.

Many cisgender women in the US who have experienced incarceration are at substantial risk for HIV acquisition after they return to the community. Various network interventions have been leveraged for HIV prevention in this population. The objective of this study was to identify network and relationship determinants of influence on HIV prevention decisions, including PrEP. We conducted interviews with a network mapping exercise with participants recruited from the social and sexual networks of women who had experienced incarceration. Participants enumerated important individuals in their lives from the past six months and provided demographic and relationship data as well as whether each relationship influenced their HIV prevention decisions. We abstracted network data from the interview transcripts and described the data set using descriptive statistics and network density graphs. To measure associations between characteristics at each level and whether a relationship was considered influential regarding PrEP decision-making, we use multiple logistic regression with random intercepts for each respondent. We interviewed 32 participants, average age 33.5 years (SD = 8.98), majority female (n = 28, 87.5%), white (n = 23, 71.8%), heterosexual/straight (n = 25, 78.1%), and with a personal history of incarceration (n = 29, 90%). They reported 253 relationships (119 family, 116 friend, 18 sexual relationships). Most adult network members had used drugs or alcohol (n = 182, 80.9%), and of those, 30.8% had used them with the participant (n = 53). The mean network size was 7 (SD = 4) and network density was 52.2%. In the full model, significant positive predictors of an influential relationship included participant non-heterosexual identity (OR 27.8), older average age in the network (OR 3.9 per standard deviation), and being a current or prior sexual partner (OR 10.1). Significant negative predictors included relationships with individuals who use or had used drugs (OR 0.28), longer average relationship duration in the network (OR 0.09) and being in a network with at least one sexual partner (OR 0.2). There are significant positive and negative determinants of relationship influence related to PrEP at individual-, dyad-, relationship-, and network-levels. These support using nuanced network approaches to behavior change that respect and leverage the diversity of relationships that comprise the social networks of women who have experienced incarceration.

This Is Our Freedom: Motherhood in the Shadow of the American Prison System

This Is Our Freedom: Motherhood in the Shadow of the American Prison System

Disrupting the Reproductive Lives of Japanese American Families During Wartime: The Overlapping Histories of Removal, Incarceration, and Eugenic Sterilization, 1942–1946

The World War II mass incarceration of 120,000 Japanese Americans disrupted families, enacted intergenerational trauma, and characterized Japanese Americans as inherent racial threats. This federal exercise in biopolitical management intersected with state-sponsored eugenic sterilization in California institutions. Linking War Relocation Authority and California Department of Institutions records, we document 32 Japanese American sterilization survivors during the wartime incarceration period (1942–1946). We show how federal and state authority converged to deprive Japanese Americans of civil rights and reproductive liberty. We add original research and analysis to the intertwined histories of Japanese American incarceration, eugenics, and family in the United States.

Who Benefits from Mass Incarceration? A Stratification Economics Approach to the “Collateral Consequences” of Punishment

A rich empirical literature documents the consequences of mass incarceration for the wealth, health, and safety of Black Americans. Yet it often frames such consequences as a regrettable artifact of racially disproportionate criminal legal system contact, rather than situating the impetus and functioning of the criminal legal system in the wider context of White political and economic domination. Revisiting a quarter century of mass incarceration research through a stratification economics lens, we highlight how mass incarceration shapes Black–White competition for education, employment, and financial resources and contributes to Black–White disparities in well-being. Highlighting persistent research gaps, we propose a research agenda to better understand how mass incarceration contributes to systematic White advantage. To address mass incarceration's consequences and transform the conditions of White political and economic domination under which it arose, we call for legislative and judicial intervention to remedy White hyper-enfranchisement and reparations to eliminate the Black–White wealth gap.

Carceral Soundscapes

My central research focus seeks to define a poetics of the carceral; to accomplish this goal, I study the relationship between inmate authors, the space of the prison, and the soundscapes their works create. My work builds on that of scholars like Nicole Fleetwood who have shifted conversations toward the materiality of the prison in recent years. My work emerges in conversation with this scholar, as I expand her frameworks to examine how the material shape of the prison is revealed through and imprinted on the work of incarcerated poets. In my paper, I argue that inmate authors articulate the prison experience in unique ways by reconstructing and experimenting with sound to push back against a dehumanizing carceral space. I begin by foregrounding the work of Reginald Dwayne Betts, as he uses the material prison to create soundscapes of his experience. His material use of legal documents and prison moderators creates a tension between the sounds the prison implicitly creates, and those Betts explicitly recreates. The sensory experience of prison, how it is heard and seen, and the recreations of that experience allow us to understand the architecture of carceral space. Ultimately, my paper identifies new directions for analyzing how inmate artists transform the experience of carceral space and inscribe the material life of the contemporary American prison into poetry.

Population Health Implications of Medicaid Prerelease and Transition Services for Incarcerated Populations.

As states expand prerelease and transition services for incarcerated individuals under the Medicaid Reentry Section 1115 Demonstration Opportunity, we sought to systematically inform Medicaid state and plan administrators regarding the population size and burden of disease data available on incarcerated populations in both jails and prisons in the United States. We analyzed data on eligibility criteria for new Medicaid prerelease and transition services based on incarceration length and health conditions across states. We estimated the potentially eligible populations in prisons and jails, considering various incarceration lengths and health status requirements. We also compared disease prevalence in the incarcerated population with that of the existing civilian Medicaid population. We found that rural and smaller states would experience a disproportionately large proportion of their Medicaid populations to be eligible for prerelease and transition services if new Medicaid eligibility rules were broadly applied. Self-reported psychological distress was notably higher among incarcerated individuals compared with those currently on Medicaid. The prevalence rates of previously diagnosed chronic hepatitis C and kidney disease were also much higher in the incarcerated population than the existing civilian Medicaid population. We estimated large volumes of potentially Medicaid-eligible entrants as coverage policy changes take effect over the coming years, particularly impacting smaller and more rural states. Our findings reveal very high disease prevalence rates among the incarcerated population subject to new Medicaid coverage, including specific chronic, infectious, and behavioral health conditions that state Medicaid programs, health plans, and providers may benefit from advanced planning to address.

Emotion regulation as affective neoliberal governmentality.

Emotion regulation is central in many therapy models, including couple and family therapy models. This article draws on poststructuralist governmentality studies and processual affect theory to offer insight into how the therapeutic concept of emotion regulation may reflect and support neoliberal affective forms of self-governance. We suggest that couple and family therapy-through using professional discourses and affect-oriented techniques or interventions-may be another site wherein neoliberal governmentality is implemented and extended in contemporary westernized neoliberalized societies. In facilitating emotion regulation, we argue that there is a risk that therapists may implicitly promote a neoliberal worldview that encourages clients to mobilize neoliberal techniques to become self-improving, entrepreneurial subjects, responsible for their happiness and well-being. Conditions of precarity associated with individualist, neoliberal capitalist ideologies and policies (e.g., unemployment, job insecurity, forced migration, wealth inequalities, mass incarceration, social isolation) generate emotional burdens for people to manage that professional techniques or interventions may normalize as clients' self-management tasks. We theorize emotion regulation as an affective governmentality tactic of power and suggest that couple and family therapy can offer points of resistance to individualization and responsibilization and opportunities for creating or affirming alternative subjectivities and affectivities.

“I’m a Monster, but I’m Not a Monster”: Symbolic and Social Identity Work Among Child Sexual Exploitation Material Users

Child sexual exploitation material (CSEM) users elicit strong negative reactions from society and people within their networks. There are symbolic and social boundaries that these individuals have transgressed, and subsequent identity work involves the negotiation of self and self-presentation. This article combines results from two studies to explore negotiation of identity, symbolic and social boundaries, and associated narratives among 103 CSEM users. One study was an anthropological ethnography with 17 months of UK fieldwork in community-based group programs, and the other involved four months of interviews in sexual offense treatment units of a US prison. Participants’ identity work had commonalities: distinguishing between acts vs identities; differentiating crimes from identities; comparing offenses to others viewed as worse; framing childhood experiences as influencing offending; and situating both offending and post-offending identities within larger society. Results are discussed in the context of debates about risk, treatment, prevention, harm, denial/downplay/minimization, and reintegration. Furthermore, we highlight how identity work occurs within potentially competing/contrasting personal, judicial, treatment, media, and societal reactions to and expectations of individuals who have committed sexual offenses. Finally, we demonstrate the methodological and analytical value of cross-disciplinary comparative qualitative research by showing similarities across participants from different countries, settings, timeframes, and interventions.

Association between lifetime criminal legal involvement and acute healthcare utilization in middle-aged and older US adults, 2015-2019.

Five decades into the era of mass incarceration, a growing number of older adults have experienced criminal legal involvement (CLI) in their lifetime. Studies have shown that prior incarceration is associated with substantial disease burden, but little is known about the distinct needs and utilization patterns of middle-aged and older adults with lifetime CLI compared to those without. Using a nationally representative data set, we tested the association between lifetime CLI exposure and use of acute care services among middle-aged and older adults. Our sample included 44,007 US adults (25,074 middle-aged-50-64 years; 18,709 older- ≥65 years) who participated in the National Survey of Drug Use and Health (2015-2019). The data is publicly available. Our independent variable was lifetime CLI. Using separate negative binomial regression models for middle-aged and older adults, we tested the association between lifetime CLI and acute healthcare utilization (ED visits and nights spent inpatient) controlling for relevant sociodemographic covariates. For middle-aged respondents, 19.1% reported lifetime CLI; for older adults, the rate of exposure was 9.6%. In multivariate models, CLI was associated with increased ED visits in middle-aged adults (IRR 1.18, 95% CI 1.06-1.31) but not older adults (IRR 0.99, 95% CI 0.85-1.16). CLI was associated with increased nights hospitalized in both groups (middle-aged: IRR 1.33, 95% CI 1.08-1.62; older adults: IRR 1.26, 95% CI 1.01, 1.57). Middle-aged and older adults with lifetime CLI experience higher rates of acute care utilization than their peers with no lifetime CLI, even after adjustment for confounders. As the cohort of adults from the era of mass incarceration ages, understanding the mechanisms by which lifetime CLI impacts health outcomes is crucial in designing interventions to improve outcomes and reduce unnecessary acute healthcare utilization.

Mass incarceration as a driver of the tuberculosis epidemic in Latin America and projected effects of policy alternatives: a mathematical modelling study

Tuberculosis incidence is increasing in Latin America, where the incarcerated population has nearly quadrupled since 1990. We aimed to quantify the impact of historical and future incarceration policies on the tuberculosis epidemic, accounting for effects in and beyond prisons. In this modelling study, we calibrated dynamic compartmental transmission models to historical and contemporary data from Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, El Salvador, Mexico, and Peru, which comprise approximately 80% of the region's incarcerated population and tuberculosis burden. The model was fit independently for each country to incarceration and tuberculosis data from 1990 to 2023 (specific dates were country dependent). The model does not include HIV, drug resistance, gender or sex, or age structure. Using historical counterfactual scenarios, we estimated the transmission population attributable fraction (tPAF) for incarceration and the excess population-level burden attributable to increasing incarceration prevalence since 1990. We additionally projected the effect of alternative incarceration policies on future population tuberculosis incidence. Population tuberculosis incidence in 2019 was 29·4% (95% uncertainty interval [UI] 23·9-36·8) higher than expected without the rise in incarceration since 1990, corresponding to 34 393 (28 295-42 579) excess incident cases across countries. The incarceration tPAF in 2019 was 27·2% (20·9-35·8), exceeding estimates for other risk factors like HIV, alcohol use disorder, and undernutrition. Compared with a scenario where incarceration rates remain stable at current levels, a gradual 50% reduction in prison admissions and duration of incarceration by 2034 would reduce population tuberculosis incidence by over 10% in all countries except Mexico. The historical rise in incarceration in Latin America has resulted in a large excess tuberculosis burden that has been under-recognised to date. International health agencies, ministries of justice, and national tuberculosis programmes should collaborate to address this health crisis with comprehensive strategies, including decarceration. National Institutes of Health.

Communal Intimacies

The reproduction of the American home hinges on a clear public/private distinction, wherein the private sphere is traditionally viewed as domestic — a space for interpersonal care and social reproduction, distinct from the abstract political culture of the public. Due to American legal and cultural norms maintaining this division, the mainstream LGBTQ rights movement has privileged privacy as a portal of legitimation, often to the detriment of poor, queer people of color without access to private property. Amid residential segregation, mass incarceration, and welfare reform, queer people of color must reshape and repurpose both public and commercial space to collectively affirm their erotic desires and care for each other through “communal intimacies,” the spatial-kinship practices that decouple care from the domestic, create a pathway for the transfer of libidinal pleasures, and act as a foundation for envisioning and enacting a world of belonging and transformation despite gentrification. Through cultural analysis of John Leguizamo's performance of the “Manny the Fanny” character from his 1991 show Mambo Mouth and Sean Baker's 2015 film Tangerine, this article illustrates novel forms of homemaking that blur the boundaries denoting the public/private spatial divide inherent in neoliberal property regimes.