Correctional Authorities Research Articles

Warrant Based Targeting: Prosecution-Oriented Capture and Detention as Legal and Moral Alternatives to Targeted Killing

Targeted killing has had significant political and military repercussions around the world in recent years, especially in the wake of 2011 operations against Osama bin Laden and Anwar al-Aulaqi. By contrast, adapting a time-tested, prosecution-oriented strategy to capture rather than to kill, search and detention became the de jure required modality of dealing with insurgents and criminals alike in Iraq prior to coalition troop withdrawal. Use of search and detention, called warrant-based since 2008, is also an emergent trend in combined and interagency operations, not only in present-day Afghanistan, but also in the international arena as a military adaptation to the prosecution-support function.Despite popular misconceptions of an inherently bellicose connotation to the words target or targeting, the Department of Defense (DOD) defines target as: An entity or object considered for possible engagement or other action, and [i]n intelligence usage, a country, area, installation, agency, or person against which intelligence operations are directed, and defines targeting as: The process of selecting and prioritizing targets and matching the appropriate response to them, considering operational requirements and capabilities. Warrant-based targeting, then, considers persons for possible intelligence and law enforcement engagement as targets for possible arrest and prosecution, rather than persons to be fired upon or engaged with the use of force.Compelled by strategic necessity, the U.S. military has quietly adapted its procedures to search at the point of capture, and to detain using conventional and Special Operations Forces (SOF) organizational structures in the field, in order to maximize the prospects for host-nation prosecutions — all contrary to conventional wisdom about the incompatibility of such efforts with the military’s of template-able aim points for easy targeting and destruction. Warrant-based targeting follows a guiding principle of military forces working alongside domestic and international security forces. Together, those forces assess threats, build credible bases for judicially-issued criminal arrest warrants, seek those warrants, apprehend suspects pursuant to those warrants while collecting evidence for prosecution, then hand off apprehended individuals along with evidence collected to competent civilian judicial and correctional authorities. As contrasted with proceedings pursuant to military tribunals, such an undertaking necessarily involves the effective use of information to seek a civilian judicial warrant for arrest, and works best in systems where transparent judicial processes militate against secrecy and promote public accountability.This article examines targeting and key lessons learned with respect to such operations, and proposes future locales where it might be effectively employed. Part II is an initial review of historical, targeting examples that follows commentary on legal and operational matters making targeting both necessary and proper in Iraq from 2009 onward. Part III discusses specific tactics, techniques, and procedures (TTP) involved in targeting in Iraq, now carried over to operations in Afghanistan. From a broader perspective, and in order to apply targeting beyond Iraq and Afghanistan, Part IV’s key lessons regard military cooperation with domestic law enforcement and judicial authorities. These lessons include: the necessity for proper collection and processing of forensic evidence; the inherent dilemma of military forces performing law enforcement roles; and the necessity to overcome a mindset that the military reaches mission accomplished status merely when it obtains the requisite warrant, collects evidence, and then carries out an arrest. Part V establishes what, in a world of ever-changing circumstances, the rule of law has come to mean and why targeting matters to advancing the rule of law. Concluding comments in Part VI consider why this methodology is a meaningful, albeit complicated, alternative to the expediency of targeted killing.

Anchoring Amongst the Waves: Discursive Constructions of Motherhood and Addiction

The authors problematize essentialized notions of motherhood both ideologically and through criminalized women’s accounts of correctional programming discourses that engage these notions as a way to foster “motherhood as praxis.” Using data from interviews conducted with former female prisoners, we analyze how substance using mothers invoke the concept of a “good” mother by negotiating its meaning through techniques of self-surveillance and the surveillance of other criminalized mothers. Women use this renegotiated identity as inspiration to move away from activities in conflict with motherhood, such as using drugs and/or alcohol. Correctional authorities in drug rehabilitation programs encourage women to use motherhood as an “anchor” upon which to stop using and the women appeal to this identity to responsibilize their actions. Dichotomizing conceptualizations of a selfless, nurturing, and chaste mother with an addict identity is in fact a precarious rehabilitation tactic. We hypothesize that women who feel they cannot live up to the idealized notion of motherhood might use drugs to cope with feelings of inadequacy, a point that requires further research. Using a framework where motherhood is the key to recovery not only reinforces the addict identity should a woman relapse, it necessarily indicates failure as a mother.

Prison Inmates’ Views of Whether Reporting Rape Is the Same as Snitching

Although the prevalence of sexual assault in U.S. prisons is debated, it is known that the consequences for victims can be quite severe. The Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) requires prison officials to keep track of incidents of sexual assault, but accurate figures will be generated only to the extent that inmates regularly report these acts. Male rape itself is a highly underreported phenomenon and even less reported in prisons due to inmate cultural norms that frown upon forwarding inmate information to correctional authorities. This article examines whether prison inmates believe that reporting prison rape is equivalent to snitching and analyzes possible explanations for the inmates' responses. Results indicate that inmates are less likely to view the reporting of prison rape as snitching earlier in their current commitment periods, and White inmates are more likely than Black inmates to think reporting rape is snitching. As this topic is extremely under studied, a number of suggestions for future research are advanced.

Up to 2000 doctors may not have had correct authority to section patients

The Department of Health has been forced into taking retrospective legal action to correct an irregularity in the approvals process for doctors working under the Mental Health Act. The move was prompted by the discovery that four Strategic Health Authorities had not fully complied with section 12 of the Act. …

Analysis of awareness on adverse event reporting among physicians and nurses and contribution of pharmacovigilance training

BackgroundPharmacovigilance, derived from the Greek word; ‘pharmakon’, a drug or medicine, and from the Latin ‘vigilans’ watchful or careful, is defined as ‘all methods of assessment and prevention of adverse...

Conditional Release and Human Rights in Canada: A Commentary

Liberty interests and human rights are at stake when granting, denying, suspending, or revoking conditional releases of prisoners. An evidence-based program of gradual conditional release is the best way of reducing recidivism and enhancing public safety. The “get tough on crime” approach affects the degree to which conditional release is used and relied upon by correctional and parole authorities. This commentary reviews key concerns regarding the accountability of both Parole Board Canada and the Correctional Service of Canada when making decisions about conditional release. Factors that have influenced the diminishing contribution to early release are discussed. The “changing profile” of the federal prisoner population is used to identify important failures in Canadian public policy and in upholding the human rights of prisoners.

Blended Sentencing, Early Release, and Recidivism of Violent Institutionalized Delinquents

This study explores the recidivism outcomes of 1,804 serious and violent delinquents sentenced under a blended sentencing statute and released early by juvenile correctional authorities without continuing their blended sentence in adult prisons. Released at an average age of 19, roughly 50% of releases were rearrested for a felony-level offense postrelease. The remaining 50% of all releases did not incur a postrelease arrest or were rearrested for an offense no higher than a misdemeanor. Measures for assaultive institutional misconduct and prior delinquent adjudications were predictive of recidivism in models examining rearrest for any offense and rearrest for a felony only. Substance abusers, gang members, those with a gang-related commitment offense, and homicide-related state commitments were significantly more likely to be rearrested for any offense postrelease. This article ends with a discussion of implications specific to this high risk cohort of released delinquent offenders.

When Two Worlds Collide: Aboriginal Risk Management in Canadian Corrections

In the last two decades, Indigenous lobbies have pointed a harsh finger at the endemic overrepresentation of Indigenous individuals in prisons in Canada and abroad. In reaction to such a condemnatory critique, correctional authorities in Canada have sought to 'aboriginalize' prisons. This paper addresses some of the prison's adaptation schemes to shed light on three contradictory logics of risk-based management: (1) high-risk aboriginal offenders have little access to risk-reducing programmes; (2) aboriginality undergoes an ontological mutation that occurs during the process of risk assessment; and (3) aboriginal correctional staff play a contradictory role in the (re)production of 'aboriginal risk'. To what extent, then, does the aboriginalization of prisons constitute a valuable transformation?

State Policies for the Residency of Offenders in Long-Term Care Facilities: Balancing Right to Care With Safety

The presence of residents in long-term care facilities who are registered sex offenders, other predatory offenders, parolees, or inmates transferred by correctional authorities is controversial and has raised concerns about how to care for this potentially dangerous population who may jeopardize the safety of others. Although the present offender population appears to be small, it is likely that demographic and economic pressures will increase its size. Since 2004, 14 states have passed legislation about placement of sex and other offenders in facilities and 5 have implemented non-law policies. Because legislation is relatively recent, it is not possible to evaluate best practices at this time. Research should be a priority to determine best policies and practices to balance the right to care with safety.

Tobacco Smoking Among Incarcerated Individuals: A Review of the Nature of the Problem and What is Being Done in Response

Smoking is a major health problem, however the issue is even more pronounced among those incarcerated in prisons, where smoking rates are often three times that of the general population. While effective treatments have been demonstrated in the tobacco literature, research examining treatment within prisons is limited in scope. This article reviews the existing literature evaluating the extent of this problem, its demonstrated effects, and the responses by health care and correctional authorities. Overall, this problem is far reaching, and while there is trend toward curbing smoking within institutions, a great need for empirically-grounded treatments and prevention programs remains.

Working Paper: Work Release as Economic Stimulus: Overview of Current and Potential Usage in the 50 States

Work release programs are authorized by the statutes of all fifty states. Some states have clearly articulated work release programs while others are partial, with little statutory governance for their establishment or operation. Yet most correctional authorities agree that work release provides crucial transitioning into functional re-entry. As the recent crises in the California correctional system dramatized, overflowing systems can no longer be tolerated. The contemporary penal climate, which prioritizes economic efficiency and evidence-based corrections, is ripe for a re-invigoration of a tried and true technique. Therefore, in order to document the current state of work release in the U.S., we combined a review of statutory authorization with an examination of implementation. We begin by describing the reasons why work release makes sense, focusing on the example of Washington state, followed by a review of the current parameters of work release in state law. By examining how work release now works, we can suggest how best to take advantage of the interest in bringing economic efficiency to the correctional system.

Impact of a Mental Health Training Course for Correctional Officers on a Special Housing Unit

Impact of a Mental Health Training Course for Correctional Officers on a Special Housing Unit

Historical account of the two family-group names in use for the single accepted family comprising the “fish blood flukes”

AbstractThe family-group name for the “fish blood flukes” is unstable, with both “Aporocotylidae Odhner, 1912” and “Sanguinicolidae von Graff, 1907” in use for the single family. Although “Sanguinicolidae von Graff, 1907” (or. Graff, 1907.) has been a widely-accepted family-group name for the fish blood flukes subsequent to Yamaguti’s 1954 and 1958 synoptical publications (“Systema Helminthum”), a critical examination of the relevant literature, much of it published in German during 1900 through 1926, reveals that “Aporocotylidae Odhner, 1912” is the earliest available family-group name for these flukes. The name Aporocotylidae, moreover, was in wide usage by alpha taxonomists before 1954 and by several authors between 1954 and the present time. We speculate that the recent long-standing uncertainty about the earliest available family-group name primarily stems from the (1) logistics of Ludwig von Graff’s tome published in 1904–1908, (2) bibliographic confusion between that work and another Graff work published in 1907 (both of which treat Sanguinicola but not Aporocotyle), (3) initial ambiguity regarding the phylogenetic relatedness of the first four aporocotylid species that were named, (4) lack of consensus on the status of Aporocotylidae and Sanguinicolidae and the genera included within them, and (5) misleading application of. Graff, 1907. to Sanguinicolidae by Poche in 1926, Fuhrmann in 1928, Yamaguti in 1954 and 1958, and subsequent review articles that treated fish blood flukes. Under the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN, Article 8.3), “Sanguinicolidae” was not made available by Graff because he disclaimed the name in the same, and only, work wherein he used the name (ICZN, Article 8.3). Sanguinicolidae was first made available in 1926 by Poche, who referenced Graff’s 1907 work. Hence, “Poche, 1926” comprises the correct authority and date for that family-group name, not “von Graff, 1907” or “Graff, 1907”. Since we presently accept only a single family for all fish blood flukes and abide by the Principal of Priority (ICZN, Article 23), we herein regard Sanguinicolidae Poche, 1926 as a junior subjective synonym of Aporocotylidae Odhner, 1912.

Another One Bites the Dust: Recent Initiatives in Correctional Reform in New Zealand

Since the end of the 19th century, New Zealand has experimented with a variety of correctional ideas, the majority of which have imitated progressive initiatives taken overseas. However, none of the earlier attempts proved effective in reducing recidivist rates. Undeterred, in recent years, two new and quite different programs, the first known as He Ara Hou; the second as Integrated Offender Management, have been trialled by correctional authorities. This article explains the philosophy and application of the latest two programs, and discusses why they also failed.

Problems of Implementing Offender Programs in the Community

ABSTRACT Rehabilitation of offenders is, at present, an important focus among many correctional departments. A substantial body of international research literature now exists to guide the design and development of new programs that aim to reduce re-offending. However, successful implementation of these programs has been challenging for many correctional authorities. Drawing on the experience of a community correctional agency in Australia, this paper identifies and examines a number of barriers to successful delivery of community-based offender rehabilitation programs and services. The findings suggest that basing interventions on scientific knowledge about “what works” in offender rehabilitation is necessary but not sufficient for effective programs and services. More careful attention needs to be paid to how correctional authorities can take this research and implement it in practice.

The Jailbreak Health Project – incorporating a unique radio programme for prisoners

Several studies in NSW have identified prisoners to be at high risk for blood borne viruses. The prevalence of hepatitis C among men in NSW correctional centres is 40% and over 60% among women. It is even higher among those with histories of injecting drug use. As part of the state's strategy to minimise the spread of blood borne viruses and promote healthy lifestyles among prisoners, the Community Restorative Centre broadcasts a weekly half hour radio programme to prisoners and the community. The project is funded through the NSW Health Department and aims to provide support to prisoners, ex-prisoners and their families. Jailbreak's success hinges on the participation of the very people [prisoners] the show wishes to target. The radio show is aimed specifically at broadcasting health promotion and harm-minimisation messages to prisoners and their supporters although this is not obvious. When you tune in to Jailbreak you will hear a diverse range of opinion, music and poetry from people caught up in the criminal justice system. Nevertheless at the heart of this exciting and challenging project is the delivery of engaging, relevant and clear health messages to prison inmates, ex-inmates and families in relation to HIV, hepatitis and sexual health. Since 2002, valuable health information, often in the form of personal stories, vignettes and quiz questions, can be heard in and around Sydney on 2SER 107.3 FM or online at http://www.2ser.com. Jailbreak has not been without controversy and has to balance the security focus of correctional authorities and the illegality of substance use in correctional centres with the need to convey messages to prisoners in relation to harm-minimisation.

Mental health and suicide prevention services for Canadian prisoners

There is a dissonance between the purposes and services of the justice system compared to the needs of suicidal people or those with mental health problems. Correctional authorities are faced with sometimes difficult responsibilities when they have to incarcerate those who fall through the gaps in the social safety net. Correctional Service Canada’s (CSC) mandate is to carry out the sentences of two or more years imposed by the Court; consequently that federal authority may have more time and means than its provincial counterparts receive for inmates on remand or serving shorter sentences. CSC developed strategies for inmates with mental health problems and, specifically, an exhaustive suicide prevention program. The implementation of all the components of the mental health strategy is not completed but it is based on good planning. With respect to suicide prevention activities, these are mainly based on screening the most vulnerable inmates at the time of intake, but they cover a larger spectrum.

Human Rights Compliance and the Role of External Prison Oversight

Introduction to the special issue Correctional authorities around the world are under increasing legislative and societal pressure to introduce more austere (no-frills) prison regimes, impose new restrictions on prisoners, and tighten security requirements. Even traditionally liberal and open European regimes have taken measures in recent years to introduce more Spartan and, in some instances, more punitive prison regime in response to the prevailing law-and-order agenda. The war on terrorism has also provided legitimacy for some countries to further oppress their prisoner populations--not only convicted and alleged terrorists have been affected but, in some instances, the entire prison population. In this societal context, those responsible for administering prisons are now faced with an ever more difficult task in ensuring legal standards of humane detention. Guaranteeing the human rights of prisoners will continue to be an important challenge for many countries, including advanced democracies such as Canada. The best argument for observing human rights standards is not merely that they are required by international or domestic but that they actually work better than any known alternative--for offenders, for correctional staff, and for society at large. Compliance with human rights obligations increases, though it does not guarantee, the odds of releasing more responsible citizen. In essence, prison environment respectful of human rights is conducive to positive change, whereas an environment of abuse, disrespect, and discrimination has the opposite effect: Treating prisoners with humanity actually enhances public safety. Moreover, through respecting the human rights of prisoners, society conveys strong message that everyone, regardless of their circumstance, race, social status, gender, religion, and so on, is to be treated with inherent respect and dignity. The best approach to ensure that the rule of is upheld in corrections is to conceptualize the business of corrections as human rights business. The same can also be said of the business of policing and the business of national security. When government has exceptional authority over its citizens, the potential for abuse of powers is great, and the protections of fundamental rights must be core preoccupation of those empowered and trusted with those exceptional powers. In correctional context, every aspect of the prisoner's life is heavily regulated by correctional authorities. Correctional authorities make thousands of decisions every day that affect prisoners' fundamental rights (e.g., use of force, segregation, searches, transfers, visiting). Routine daily activities, such as whether prisoners can contact family and friends, whether and how they can practice their religion or access medical services, and when they can eat and sleep, are all regulated by correctional authorities. Without recognition that the business of corrections is all about promoting and monitoring respect for human rights, preventing human rights violations, and detecting and remedying human rights violations, systemic abuses of power are inevitable. Perhaps the most provocative account of the challenges faced by correctional authorities in Canada and abroad in fully meeting their respective human rights obligations is that offered by Mary Campbell (1997), who has contributed to this special issue commentary on whether prisoners' sentences should be altered in cases of gross violations of human rights by correctional authorities. This senior federal public servant was instrumental in developing one of the world's best correctional legislative frameworks--Canada's 1992 Corrections and Conditional Release Act. She writes that natural drift toward callousness at best and brutality at worst (1997, 327) exists in corrections and that a lack of genuine commitment to culture of human rights behind bars can swiftly return prison culture to the 'dark ages' where expediency rules rather than the law (323). …

A call to immunize the correctional population for hepatitis A and B

An increasing number of the 12 million people who pass through jails and prisons in the United States each year are infected with hepatitis B or C. Many have routinely engaged in sexual and drug-use behaviors that put them and their contacts at risk for infection, and many are likely to return to these behaviors on their release, further spreading the infection. Thus, the prevalence of hepatitis infections among the incarcerated population is an enormous health problem not only for the correctional system but also for the community at large. There is no federal mandate for screening members of the incarcerated population who may be at risk or those who are already infected. Public health and correctional authorities must join forces to offer educational programs, prevention services, and intervention strategies to offenders, many of whom have their first contact with the healthcare system when they enter a correctional facility. Safe and effective vaccines for hepatitis A and B have been available for >11 years and, despite the challenges of conducting an immunization program for this population, the correctional environment provides a unique opportunity to reach these individuals and reduce the spread of viral hepatitis.

Historique des normes juridiques dans les pénitenciers au Canada

The author brings forth three main periods in the evolution of legislative, statutory and administrative norms regarding the powers of the correctional authorities and the treatment of prisoners in Canadian penitentiaries, from 1834 to present. The first two periods are characterized by an extreme prescriptive profusion typical of utilitarian institutions and by the delegation of normative power to administrative authorities. During the 1980's, the intervention of the courts forces the legislature to progressively integrate the notion of respect for the rule of law and for the principles of procedural equity. The new Law on the correctional system and conditional release in effect since November 1992, is radically distinct from the types of legislations that prevailed for the preceeding fifty years in that it incorporates and ratifies the discourse on prisoners' rights. According to the author, the change of perspective is radical: the utilitarian function of carcéral norms has weakened at the benefit of a function protective of prisoners' rights.