Prison Estate Research Articles

The Paradox of the ‘Care’ of London’s Children: Discourses of ‘Safety’ and ‘Respect’ in England’s Ministry of Justice Inspection Reports

Using English prison inspectorate reports, the article presents an Ervine Goffman-inspired sociological discourse analysis of official political accounts about the living conditions of incarcerated children held in London’s Feltham prison. Through a close reading of inspection reports, we develop a critical window into their lived experiences in an exceptionally harmful UK prison regime. The construction of this prison estate conjures its dilapidation, unhygienic conditions, and endless social danger. The stigmatizing construction of the child prisoner intimates a pervasive culture of violence and bullying, resulting in their aversion to purposive activities. While, at first blush, prison inspectorate reporting is based on the policy of efficiency to ensure a safe and rehabilitative prison experience for youth, it is argued that the nature of the reporting of incarceration obviates a critique of the wider political fabric that custodial interventions will invariably reproduce. The Inspectorate operates within the state’s dominant class-stratified political ideology. The adoption of a generic labeling discourse in the reports minimizes the communication of harms inflicted on children by criminal ‘justice’ that can only worsen their wellbeing and reproduce the harmful intensity of their pre-existing marginality.

Forgiveness and rehabilitation of Portuguese incarcerated individuals: what do they think about forgiveness?

Literature reveals that forgiveness can bring advantages to those who experience it, increasing quality of life. This study explores the relevance of forgiveness in a prison context and aims to understand how incarcerated individuals perceive forgiveness, focusing on their rehabilitation processes. The sample comprised N = 11 participants (males) who were serving a prison sentence in the Porto Prison Establishment. Qualitative data were collected through a sociodemographic questionnaire and a semi-structured interview and analyzed based on thematic analysis. The findings offer further evidence on the importance of all types of rehabilitation programs and, specifically the ones focused on forgiveness. These findings show that forgiveness can be a facilitator for behavioral changes in incarcerated individuals and highlights the importance of psychological interventions during rehabilitation. We discuss the implications of these results, suggesting the need to increase knowledge with future studies about forgiveness and rehabilitation processes with this public.

‘A pre-requisite of progress’? Prison modernisation and new prison building in England and Wales

Drawing upon archival research and documentary analysis, this article offers the first in-depth critical account of the prison modernisation narrative in England and Wales. By closely examining the claims behind the UK Government's current prison building policy, the article reveals that prison modernisation is severely undermined by a lack of supporting evidence as well as arguments which indisputably serve to contradict the government's claims. In concluding that modernisation is a seductive and elusive concept which has been deployed to legitimate and support investment in the prison estate, the article offers new and important insights that contribute to critical research agendas around the endurance, survival, and growth of the prison, despite irrefutable and overwhelming evidence of its failure. The analysis presented here should encourage and embolden academics, policy makers, practitioners and politicians in England and Wales, as well as those in jurisdictions where modernisation is also used to legitimate prison expansion, to engage more critically with the claims behind prison modernisation.

‘A whole new world …’: Exploring transcarceral habitus and women's transition from a closed to an open prison

AbstractThis article examines women's experiences of moving from a closed to an open prison in England. Transition to an open prison is often viewed in a positive, reformist light and although androcentric auto‐ethnographical work has demonstrated challenges associated with this pivot when serving a long‐term sentence, much less is known about the experiences of women. Using interview discussions, this article draws upon the concept of transcarceral habitus to examine experiences of transfer and adaptation to the open prison within the broader context of the lives of criminalised women. By extending our understanding of the women's open prison as a site of punishment and recognising the connections and pluralities of women's carceral experiences, this article seeks to disrupt unhelpful binaries that legitimise the incarceration of women and the open prison estate.

Monitoring health status of people living in prison in Europe: insights from HIPED

Abstract Aiming to improve the information available about the health status of people living in prisons in the WHO European region, a survey was sent to Member States (MS) in the Region whose Ministry of Health nominated a focal point. The survey used was derived from the operationalization of the WHO Prison Health Framework which contains 8 domains that characterize the population, the health system, the healthcare services available and the health outcomes at the individual level, in addition to influencing factors and cross-cutting principles. Data from 613 497 people living in prison establishments in 2020 was obtained from 36 MS and suggested the most common way of delivery of prison health care to be shared between the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Justice. Many MS (⅔) experienced difficulties reporting individual data that would allow the quality of primary care to be characterized. Only 4-10 MS (11.1-27.8%) could provide data on health behaviours and 14- 28 figures on the number of individuals with diagnoses on record (except for oral health status; only 4). The most prevalent condition was mental health disorders (32.8%) and 2.6% of individuals were reported to be living with HIV; in both cases suggesting severe underreporting. Weak links with community care were obvious (e.g. 47.2% of MS had a support service to register people with community health services upon release; and 11.1% did not provide any medication upon release), and possibly aggravated by poor health information systems, where most countries still keep paper-based records and among those with electronic records, most did not have interoperable systems. Even death data was poorly linked with national surveillance systems and only 18 MS had a formal data transfer system in place. Investments are needed so that prison health may be fully integrated into public health to be able to monitor progress in SDGs.

Instant Detection of Synthetic Cannabinoids on Physical Matrices, Implemented on a Low-Cost, Ultraportable Device.

Synthetic cannabinoids (SCs) make up a class of novel psychoactive substances (NPS), used predominantly in prisons and homeless communities in the U.K. SCs can have severe side effects, including psychosis, stroke, and seizures, with numerous reported deaths associated with their use. The chemical diversity of SCs presents the major challenge to their detection since approaches relying on specific molecular recognition become outdated almost immediately. Ideally one would have a generic approach to detecting SCs in portable settings. The problem of SC detection is more challenging still because the majority of SCs enter the prison estate adsorbed onto physical matrices such as paper, fabric, or herb materials. That is, regardless of the detection modality used, the necessary extraction step reduces the effectiveness and ability to rapidly screen materials on-site. Herein, we demonstrate a truly instant generic test for SCs, tested against real-world drug seizures. The test is based on two advances. First, we identify a spectrally silent region in the emission spectrum of most physical matrices. Second, the finding that background signals (including from autofluorescence) can be accurately predicted is based on tracking the fraction of absorbed light from the irradiation source. Finally, we demonstrate that the intrinsic fluorescence of a large range of physical substrates can be leveraged to track the presence of other drugs of interest, including the most recent iterations of benzodiazepines and opioids. We demonstrate the implementation of our presumptive test in a portable, pocket-sized device that will find immediate utility in prisons and law enforcement agencies around the world.

Greenspace in prison improves well-being irrespective of prison/er characteristics, with particularly beneficial effects for younger and unsentenced prisoners, and in overcrowded prisons

In this paper, we present evidence of estimated significant associations between greenspace and prisoners’ self-reported well-being, self-harm and violence in prisons in England and Wales. Refining and extending our previous research that estimated the relationship between greenspace and self-harm and violence while controlling for the effects of prison characteristics (e.g. prison size, over-crowding and security level), the findings in the present study show that greenspace remains significantly related to self-harm and violence when we additionally control for prison population characteristics (such as prisoner age, ethnicity, sentence length) and when we use additional self-reported indicators of well-being. Furthermore, our findings also show that the beneficial effects of greenspace appear to be particularly prominent in prison establishments that suffer from overcrowding or hold relatively large shares of younger and un-sentenced prisoners. Finally, our results reveal that greenspace has important impacts on the inter-relationships between self-reported well-being, self-harm and prison violence.

Substantial and procedural guarantees of the Sexual Rights of persons with diverse Sexual Orientation held in the La Vega de Sincelejo Prison.

Sexual and reproductive rights are also human rights because they respond to a fundamental aspect of the life project, even when people are deprived of their liberty. It is the obligation of the State to guarantee substantial and procedural measures so that persons with diverse sexual orientations deprived of liberty in the La Vega Prison Establishment in Sincelejo can enjoy such rights. In view of the above, the objective was proposed to determine the substantial and procedural guarantees of the sexual rights of persons with diverse sexual orientations detained in the Medium Security Penitentiary and Prison Establishment La Vega in the year 2020. In order to comply with this objective, it was approached from the qualitative research tools. The analysis resulted in the non-compliance with international and national regulations governing the matter, as well as the orders of the Constitutional Court in its rulings on the right to the enjoyment of intimate visits. Such non-compliance is associated with the inconvenient application of procedures that delay the right, as well as the prevention and disclosure measures that should be carried out inside the prison.

Explaining penal momentum: Path dependence, prison population forecasting and the persistence of high incarceration rates in England and Wales

AbstractThis article seeks to explain the persistence of high incarceration rates in England and Wales. Building upon recent theoretical work on path dependence, we identify prison population forecasting as a poorly understood positive feedback mechanism that helps to determine the overall scale, scope and reach of the prison estate by connecting capital expenditure decisions with ‘business as usual’ planning cycles that assume considerable policy continuity with the past. We illustrate this point with reference to recent controversies over women's imprisonment where the everyday, routinised working practices of the penal system have played an important role in sustaining prison expansionism long after the initial conditions that fuelled the mid‐1990s prison boom have faded. Disrupting these self‐fulfilling logics will not be easy and we conclude this article with a call for a more deliberative democratic politics that confronts penal momentum and invites greater consideration of the many possible futures of penal policy.

ASSOCIATION OF DIGNITY OF LICENSE IN THE CONDITIONS OF INTERNAL CULTURAL AND SOCIO-POLITE SELF-RELEASE OF THE CONNECTOR OF A TWENTY SIDE

The article defects priority idiological and centenary positions of the Ukrainian society in the 19th century. The acceptance of consciousness and self-relevant is characterized by a comprehensive analysis. The aim and the tasks: вy working out ethical and philosophical literature, to justify the establishment of dignity of personality in the conditions of domestic cultural and socio-political selfdetermination of the late twentieth century.Research methods are the main methods of research are historical, structuralfunctional, systemic and comparative. To solve specific research tasks also used the principles of systemicity, objectivity, ascension from abstract to concrete, etcEmphades of a new state in ethical and phylosophic keys, analyzes the values of Ukrainians, slogans, native ideas are analyzed. Research results: Scientifically illustrated embodies of the national self-release of the Ukrainian society: Selfrelease of the Naziological State Ukraine: Sovereignty of Ukraine (1985-1991 gg.); Nassional State Formation of Ukraine in the conditions of socio-purity and socioeconomic neoperedelenost (1992-1996 gg.); Creation of oligarchata as a diverse manifestation of a democratic regime in Ukraine (1996-2004 gg.); Polarization of the Farility (2005-2014 gg.); Thick ethape, which is purely formally defined as "post-revolutionary". The author exemplary aspects of the social realities of the reorganization, and the presentation of honor and dignity of the license. Discussion. It is condemned that for the self-release of the national state, the slide of restructuring of steel, the significant income from the public discourse of the topics of repressions, reversed to the families of the species of culture, science, public expressions, popularization of the creativity of the dyspasses and diaspree Figur. Conclusion. In such a way, the protest in the second half of the 1980s is Pastepeno Gladenna, which has received the introduction of privacy in its own participants.Many were re-enriched, rising from the laurel of the prison establishment, the inside of the country, and in the finishing of the bobs for Naziovnoye venereal, the rule of law and market economy. The dignity of a person on the day of restructuring, in the whole, was disturbed from the ancestors of the historical objects of the maintenance of the specialty – Ego Simbiosis with such categories, as freedom, will be, independence.

A Qualitative Study of the Implementation and Continued Delivery of Complete and Partial Smoke-Free Policies Across England's Prison Estate.

In the United Kingdom, smoking among prisoners is up to five times more prevalent than the national average. Between 2015 and 2018, HMPPS introduced a complete smoke-free policy in all closed prisons, and a partial policy permitting smoking only in smoking shelters in open prisons. This study aimed to explore the views of stakeholders regarding the implementation and continuation of smoke-free policies, including the management of nicotine addiction during imprisonment and after release. Individuals with key strategic and/or operational roles in delivering smoke-free prison policies across England were purposively sampled to complete a semi-structured interview. Twenty-eight interviews were analyzed thematically. The smoke-free implementation across the closed prison estate was viewed as a success, though there were reports of reduced availability of smoking cessation support since the roll out. Participants thought the majority of tobacco smokers living in closed prison environments were now using an electronic cigarette, typically as a temporary means to manage nicotine addiction until release. In open prisons the partial policy has been less successful; high rates of smoking resumption on moving from closed to open conditions were reported, with many participants arguing that the open estate should also go completely smoke free. It was envisaged that most prisoners would resume smoking on community release. The smoke-free policies provide a unique opportunity to promote lifelong cessation in this highly disadvantaged group. However more could be done to adopt a consistent smoke-free policy across all prisons, and to support prisoners in quitting smoking and nicotine use during and after imprisonment. Our results identify the urgent need for more work to explore rates and reasons for relapse to smoking on transfer to the open estate and after release. With the majority of smokers in the closed prison estate now using e-cigarettes to manage their nicotine addiction, one way to support long-term tobacco abstinence could be to place greater emphasis on this switching behavior as a way of reducing tobacco-related harm within this population.

Covid-19 has caused a dramatic change to prison life: Analysing the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on the pains of imprisonment in the Scottish Prison Estate

Covid-19 has caused a dramatic change to prison life: Analysing the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on the pains of imprisonment in the Scottish Prison Estate

Prison-based democratic therapeutic communities, medication, and the power to exclude.

In 1962, the first custodial Democratic Therapeutic Community (DTC) was established in the English prison estate at HMP Grendon. Today, the Category B male prison estate in England and Wales has three DTCs and three 'TC+' units for prisoners with learning disabilities. There is one DTC in the female estate at HMP Send. The services fall under the remit of the Offender Personality Disorder Pathway, a jointly commissioned initiative that aims to provide a pathway of psychologically informed services for a highly complex and challenging group of prisoners who are likely to have a severe personality disorder. Several of these units make clear that prisoners prescribed psychotropic medicines are specifically excluded from entry and participation in the available therapy. This analysis paper explores whether an evidence-based rationale exists for this practice and examines the impact on those whose care pathways may comprise hospitals and prisons.

Me-thinking: report on a pilot intervention with women in custody

PurposeThis pilot study aims to assess the feasibility of conducting shared philosophical inquiry with women at risk of re-offending to improve motivation to change. The philosophy sessions aimed to give participants new ways to think about their lives and to help them have more control over their own mind by learning new ways to think differently.Design/methodology/approachThe pilot study adopted a mixed-methods approach to collect and analyse data pre- and post-intervention. Ten women serving a custodial sentence at the Democratic Therapeutic Community (DTC) in HMP Send were recruited to take part in ten weekly sessions of philosophical discussion. The intervention was adjunctive and not meant to replace other treatments an inmate may already be receiving.FindingsThe results showed that most participants experienced improved levels of well-being and mental health post-intervention, and that the intervention has the potential to help participants better critically assess their own behaviour and ways of thinking. It also suggested that the intervention has the potential to help participants engage more effectively with the therapeutic process.Research limitations/implicationsThe results of this study are limited by the small sample size and the lack of a control group. As such this study cannot rule out that the changes observed in participants were a function of time or the specific therapeutic environment they were in (or both).Originality/valueThis pilot study is innovative not just for introducing philosophy classes to the women’s prison estate for the first time in England and Wales, but also in its ambition to contribute to the “what works” agenda in offender rehabilitation.

Researcher entanglements and the problem of evil

Researchers can learn much from engaging with the complexities of evil. This article details how I felt enmeshed in a process where I was both seeing, and in some ways contributing to, aspects of evil while researching in prison. The context for this study was a high-security prison establishment recently scarred by three high-profile incidents that merged terror with violence. By introducing examples from my fieldwork, I explore various ways in which ‘researcher entanglements’ emerged. I argue that the real danger of evil is that it leads to moral righteousness and toxic cycles that are hard to break.

Managing inclusion or preparing for exclusion? A critical examination of gender-responsive management of female Central and Eastern European prisoners in England and Wales

This article examines practitioner understandings and implementation of gender-responsive support within female prisons in England and Wales in the context of a growing emphasis on effective deportation of foreign national prisoners. Drawing on a case study of female prisoners from Central and Eastern states of the European Union (EU), we argue that the aims of gender-responsivity, designed to address women's gendered vulnerabilities to support their re-entry in the UK, are pragmatically re-shaped to accommodate the uncertainty surrounding their immigration status. We show how in practice, gender-responsive support functions at best to ‘manage’ gendered needs of women who are ‘not of interest’ to immigration authorities, and at worst to legitimate exclusion by side-lining vulnerabilities of women deemed as having ‘no right to remain’ in the UK. This occurs in the context of limited access to legal redress to challenge deportation decisions, unevenly spread resources in the female prison estate, and practitioners’ occupational cultures which emphasise paternalistic valuations of female foreign national prisoners’ femininity. We locate the findings in criminological debates about ‘gendering of borders’ and conclude with a reflection on the implications for advocacy at the time of increasingly restrictive immigration controls following the UK's exit from the EU.

An Investigation Into the Impact of Dementia Knowledge and Attitudes on Individuals’ Confidence in Practice: A Survey of Non-Healthcare Staff Inside the Prison Estate in England and Wales

AimsWhilst the majority of age groups are seeing a decline in numbers in prison custody, the older male population continues to rise year on year. This unexpected trend has led researchers to investigate the needs of this particular cohort in more detail and start to question if the prison estate is able to care for the specific needs of the ageing population. This primary research specifically, looks to investigate what relationship, if any knowledge and attitudes to dementia have on how the confidence in practice levels of non-healthcare prison staffMethodsThis research, in a specific, applied context considers the relationship between attitudes toward the prison estate alongside knowledge and attitudes toward dementia in general and the potential relationship these may have on confidence levels. To do this, the research scored individuals’ responses against the dementia knowledge assessment scale, attitudes to the prison estate and general attitudes toward dementia. These three independent variables were measured both overall and individually against individual confidence in practices scores. 50 individuals participated with differing roles and length of service in the prison estateResultsThe results of the study found that the overall model was significant. Of the three independent variables, it was found that positive attitudes to dementia were the most influential predictor of confidence. Knowledge of the condition and attitudes to the prison estate, the second and third independent variable however were not significant predictors of confidence in practice levels. Overall, the results indicate that there is a relationship between knowledge, attitudes, and confidence in delivery of dementia care in the prison estate as an overall model.ConclusionThe main objective of this study was to determine the knowledge and attitudes to dementia of non-healthcare prison staff and if that knowledge and those attitudes had an impact on confidence in practice levels. It could be argued that this research has fulfilled its primary aim, reporting that knowledge about and attitudes toward dementia scores are a significant predictor of knowledge of the condition in non-healthcare-based staff.

From Fallen Women to Citizen Mothers: Gendered Carcerality in Pahlavi Iran

Modern carcerality in Iran, with its attendant systems of surveillance, policing, and mass imprisonment, was a gendered project from the outset. In turn, the new modern prisons of the Pahlavi era (1925–79) provoked gendered anxieties about seemingly rising rates of female and child criminality, the deteriorating family unit, and the inherent sin and vice of life in a modern city. In general, it is difficult to overstate the wholesale changes that the modern carceral system has brought to Iran. The establishment of modern prisons, an effort begun in the first decades of the 20th century, has led to an enduring transformation in social worlds for Iranians of all genders. For much of Iran's pre-20th-century history, forced confinement of any kind was a relative rarity, legal practices and norms were diffuse and diverse, and long periods of incarceration were virtually nonexistent. The conceit of prisoner reform central to the modern penitentiary model—wherein centralized modern governments imagine prisons as rehabilitative spaces in which socially undesirable “criminals” can be reformed into good “citizens”— is nowhere found in the archive of Iran's pre-20th-century punishments.

Audit of fidelity of implementation of the older prisoner health and social care assessment and plan (OHSCAP)

ABSTRACT Numbers of older prisoners have been increasing in recent years and there is no national strategy addressing their care. Older prisoners have more physical health needs, complex social care needs and high rates of mental disorder compared with younger prisoners. These needs are often not identified or addressed. We developed the Older prisoner Health and Social Care Assessment and Plan (OHSCAP), a structured approach for identifying and managing the health and social care needs of older prisoners. It consists of an assessment, care plan and review of needs. The current study aims to establish the fidelity of implementation of the OHSCAP as part of a larger RCT. Compliance, context and competence fidelity were audited to assess compliance with training and the manual, adequacy of completion and identification of needs and quality of care planning. Results showed that the OHSCAP was not implemented as intended with needs identified not being consistently translated into care plan actions, little evidence to suggest that prisoner involvement in the care planning process and difficulties in collaborative working. Implications with respect to effectively embedding complex interventions within prisons, along with wider policy-related issues affecting the entire prison estate are discussed.

Women's adversities

It is up to the State to promote appropriate measures to “guarantee fundamental rights and freedoms and the respect for the principles of a democratic law State”, in accordance with Article 9 (b) of the Constitution of the Portuguese Republic. Our objectives were to examine how the Portuguese legislator is attentive to the particularities of being a woman in matters such as hygiene, health, motherhood and parental education during the execution of sentences and we wanted to investigate the mechanisms triggered by the State for protection, as a preventive measure, of women as victims of crimes. We made research, in numerical terms, to know the rate of constituted women accused in criminal proceedings, as well as the number of convicted, from a set of recent and of reference official documentary sources, based on the existing statistical resources. We also made an analysis of the pertinent legislative diplomas, among them, the aforementioned Code of the Execution of Penalties and Freedom Deprivation Measures and the General Regulation of Prison Establishments. The fulfilment of a prison sentence implies vast and varied consequences, from personal to familiar, passing through social and professional consequences, among others. We concluded that compared to the male universe, the number of women accused and convicted is clearly lower. On the other hand, it is women who make up the largest share as victims of certain offenses. According to the 2019 Annual Report, authored by APAV, female victims amounted to 8,394.