Prison Incarceration Research Articles

Crime, the Criminal Justice System, and Socioeconomic Inequality

Crime rates in the United States have declined to historical lows since the early 1990s. Prison and jail incarceration rates as well as community correctional populations have increased greatly since the mid-1970s. Both of these developments have disproportionately impacted poor and minority communities. In this paper, we document these trends. We then assess whether the crime declines can be attributed to the massive expansion of the US criminal justice system. We argue that the crime rate is certainly lower as a result of this expansion and in the early 1990s was likely a third lower than what it would have been absent changes in sentencing practices in the 1980s. However, there is little evidence that further stiffening of sentences during the 1990s—a period when prison and other correctional populations expanded rapidly—have had an impact. Hence, the growth in criminal justice populations since 1990s has exacerbated socioeconomic inequality in the United States without generating much benefit in terms of lower crime rates.

Incarceration and Crime

Recent reforms in California caused a sharp and permanent reduction in the state’s incarceration rate. We evaluate the effects of that incarceration decline on local crime rates. Our analysis exploits the large variation across California counties in the effect of this reform on county-specific prison incarceration rates. We find very little evidence that the large reduction in California incarceration had an effect on violent crime, and modest evidence of effects on property crime, auto theft in particular. These effects are considerably smaller than existing estimates based on panel data for periods of time when the U.S. incarceration rate was considerably lower. We corroborate these cross-county results with a synthetic-cohort analysis of state crime rates in California. The statewide analysis confirms our findings from the county-level analysis. In line with with previous research, the results from this study support the hypothesis of a crime-prison effect that diminishes with increased reliance on incarceration.

Social support and the gendered experience of incarceration in South Korean prisons

ABSTRACTAlthough many studies on social support have demonstrated promising evidence of positive outcomes in a variety of criminal justice settings, not enough empirical research has been conducted on gender effects in a prison setting. Using a sample of 359 Korean inmates (303 men and 56 women), this study examines whether social support lessens involvement in prison misconduct and whether male and female inmates are similarly affected. The findings indicate that female inmates are less likely to engage in misconduct than male inmates. In addition, whereas male inmates are provided with more institutional social support than female inmates, female inmates are more likely to be provided with more informal social support than male inmates. Implications for further research and correctional policy are discussed.

Crime, the Criminal Justice System, and Socioeconomic Inequality

Crime rates in the United States have declined to historical lows since the early 1990s. Prison and jail incarceration rates as well as community correctional populations have increased greatly since the mid-1970s. Both of these developments have disproportionately impacted poor and minority communities. In this paper, we document these trends. We then present an assessment of whether the crime declines can be attributed to the massive expansion of the U.S. criminal justice system. We argue that the crime is certainly lower as results of this expansion and the crime rate in the early 1990s was likely a third lower than what they would have been absent changes in sentencing practices in the 1980s.However, there is little evidence of an impact of the further stiffening of sentences during the 1990s, a period when prison and other correctional populations expanded rapidly. Hence, the growth in criminal justice populations since 1990s have exacerbated socioeconomic inequality in the U.S. without generating much benefit in terms of lower crime rates.

An Absent Presence: Visitor Narratives of Journeys and Support for Prisoners During Imprisonment

The system of allocation of prisoners to prisons in Scotland results in the incarceration of prisoners at significant distance from their homes, creating an obstacle to the maintenance of family ties. Using unpublished statistical and primary research data collected with visitors of prisoners during 2014, this qualitative study reports an examination of peregrinations designed to provide prisoner support. More specifically, it converges upon perceptions of why, in the minds of visitors, these journeys are consequential for sustaining the welfare of their loved ones, and notes that prison authorities over-represent visitation as a panacea for alleviating the pains of imprisonment.

Epidemiology of Sexually Transmitted Infections Among Offenders Following Arrest or Incarceration.

We sought to estimate rates of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) among criminal offenders in the 1 year after arrest or release from incarceration. We performed a retrospective cohort study of risk of having a positive STI (chlamydia, gonorrhea, or syphilis) or incident-positive HIV test in the 1 year following arrest or incarceration in Marion County (Indianapolis), Indiana. Participants were 247,211 individuals with arrest or incarceration in jail, prison, or juvenile detention between 2003 and 2008. Test positivity rates (per 100,000 and per year) were highest for chlamydia (2968) and gonorrhea (2305), and lower for syphilis (278) and HIV (61). Rates of positive STI and HIV were between 1.5 and 2.8 times higher in female than male participants and between 2.7 and 6.9 times higher for Blacks than Whites. Compared with nonoffenders, offenders had a relative risk of 3.9 for chlamydia, 6.6 for gonorrhea, 3.6 for syphilis, and 4.6 for HIV. The 1-year period following arrest or release from incarceration represents a high-impact opportunity to reduce STI and HIV infection rates at a population level.

International Trends in Prison Upsizing and Downsizing: In Search of Evidence of a Global Rehabilitation Revolution

Our review of global trends in the use of incarceration reveals that both the number of people incarcerated worldwide and the global rate of incarceration continue to increase in every global region. In addition, there have been sizable global increases in the use of pretrial detention, the proportion of female prisoners, the proportion of foreign prisoners, prison privatization, and prison crowding. After reviewing these global trends, we examine the available data on correctional performance, focusing on global crime trends in the subgroup of countries (n = 20) where three-quarters of the world’s prison population is currently located. While most (17/20) of these countries continued to increase their prison population despite decreases in most crime categories, three countries—the Russian Federation, South Africa, and Pakistan—have reduced their reliance on incarceration (number and rate) while also reducing their crime rates. Compared to other countries with large prison populations, the United States’ overall increase in both the prison population (+14.4% since 2000) and incarceration rate (+2.2) can be described as modest. Our review of global trends in corrections and sentencing policy reforms revealed an emerging focus on offender rehabilitation in both prison and community corrections settings and a growing recognition of the link between community development and crime. Focusing on the potential impact of rehabilitation-rich policy reforms in the United States, we highlight the results of a recent simulation modeling study (Taxman & Pattavina, 2013) designed to estimate the impact of expanding our institutional corrections treatment infrastructure. This study reported significant, but relatively small, long-term reductions in prison populations when treatment capacity and treatment quality are increased. These findings suggest that even major improvement in the quantity and quality of prison programming—by itself—will not fundamentally change the life course of prisoners, resulting in continued high return-to-prison rates for these offenders. We conclude that for the United States to significantly reduce its reliance on incarceration, we will need to rethink our approach to crime and punishment. Our global review of corrections and sentencing strategies identified a number of possibilities. Using the global incarceration rate and the global crime rate as benchmark performance “tipping points,” we call for the development of corrections and sentencing policies—and the hiring of corrections personnel—based on the new goal of corrections: individual and community rehabilitation.

Fourth City: Essays from the Prison in America. By Doran Larson (ed.). East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 2014. 338 pp. $34.95 paper.

Fourth City: Essays from the in America. By Doran Larson (ed.). East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 2014. 338 pp. $34.95 paper.Doran Larson's collection, Fourth represents the first collection of essays written entirely by authors incarcerated within the U.S. prison system at the time of writing. The title indicates its ambition-to represent the frequently unheard voices of those from a population exceeding that of Houston, Texas. Organized into two large sections, One: Life on the Streets of and Two: The Rules of Law, Policy, and Practice in City, essays in this collection discuss individual experiences, interpersonal relationships, and institutional-level problems within prisons. Smaller subsections address issues such as Coping with Life in City, Family Life in and from City, Civil Dysfunction and Its Critics, or Mental and Physical Health Care. Part One, each of these subsections is followed by a short Ticket In essay detailing the route that led the writer's imprisonment. Part Two subsections are followed by a Kite Out, prison slang for a note passed between prisoners, but here addressed young people outside prison to help them towards better paths (p. 5). The collection opens with Larson's introduction discussing the concept of Prison and mass incarceration, and each subsection is introduced by a short overview highlighting issues raised by essays in the section. The book closes with suggestions for further reading (other prison writing and responses American mass incarceration), a glossary of prison jargon, short notes on contributors, and an index.Some of the world's great writings witness the carceral experience: Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning, Dr. Martin Luther King's Letter from a Birmingham Jail, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Antonio Gramsci's Letters, and Min^e Okubo's Citizen 13660. Larson's introduction argues for the value and power of these writers' witness as well, claiming Prison City may best be understood as the city of violent longing (p. 5). this collection, each writer bears witness, as each seeks humanize a population that is often stereotyped and subjected symbolic violence by media and the popular imagination.A few of these essays (Danner Darcleight's Concrete Carnival and Running Water's Prison or Kids: It's Not a Joke for example) have seen print in other venues, but most are new in print. These essays are not a representative sampling of America's incarcerated, but selected responses a call for essays. Writers are mostly male, serving long-term or life sentences and many have participated in educational programs and workshops inside correctional facilities. Many have experienced multiple encounters with the law and prisons, and thus represent a range of institutional settings. Some essays by incarcerated women and transgender (MtF) prisoners add important perspectives although, scattered throughout the volume, their voices are somewhat muted.This collection is aimed squarely at an ordinary citizen reader who knows little about the details of prison life. With each essay, the reader gains familiarity with prison terminology and social dynamics; later essays make specific recommendations for institutional reform and effective rehabilitation. Sensitive their audience, many authors emphasize responsibility and self-discipline, education (formal and informal), and personal transformation even as they critique the prison industrial complex, the criminalization of addictions and certain populations, public policies like the War on Drugs, and inadequate mental health care both inside and outside prisons. …

If You Build It, They Will Fill It: The Consequences of Prison Overcrowding Litigation

This article examines the consequences of prison overcrowding litigation for U.S. prisons. We use insights derived from the endogeneity of law perspective to develop expectations about the likely impact of overcrowding litigation on five outcomes: prison admissions, prison releases, spending on prison capacity, prison crowding, and incarceration rates. Using newly available data on prison overcrowding litigation cases joined with panel data on U.S. states from 1971 to 1996, we offer a novel and comprehensive analysis of the impact that overcrowding litigation has had on U.S. prisons. We find that it had no impact on admissions or release rates and did not lead to any reduction in prison crowding. Litigation did, however, lead to an increase in spending on prison capacity and incarceration rates. We discuss the implications of these results for endogeneity of law theory, attempts to achieve reform through litigation, and the politics of prison construction.

Flocatex and the Fiscal Limits of Mass Incarceration: Toward a New Political Economy of the Postwar Carceral State

Pick up any recent textbook on modern U.S. history, turn to the last few chapters, and you will find an outline of key developments that have shaped the past four decades or so of the nation’s domestic history. Some chapter headings include “The Decline of Manufacturing,” “Retreat from Liberalism,” “The Beleaguered Social Compact,” “The Rising Tide of Conservatism,” “The Problem of Inequality,” “The End of the Long Boom,” and “Conservatism in the Courts.” Yet few of these textbooks pay attention to one of the most dramatic social transformations of this period. Only Eric Foner’s Give Me Liberty! includes as subheadings “The Spread of Imprisonment” and “The Burden of Imprisonment,” signaling to students that one of the changes that makes the world they inherit radically different from that of their parents is the huge numbers of Americans behind bars. As many scholars of crime and punishment have pointed out, only a generation ago the nation’s incarceration rate had remained steady for a century—at about 100 prisoners per 100,000 people—and many criminologists believed that prisons were obsolete and would gradually be supplanted by “community corrections,” treatment facilities, and other alternatives for all but the most incorrigible or violent offenders. Yet, contrary to those optimistic expectations, since 1970 the number of felons confined in state and federal prisons has multiplied by a factor of eight, and the overall prison incarceration rate in the United States has zoomed to nearly 500 per 100,000 people, a fivefold increase. As late as 1977 the prison population had barely surpassed 300,000; the latest Bureau of Justice Statistics figures show that in 2010 the U.S. prison population reached its historic peak of over 1.5 million inmates, after the country had embarked on “the steepest and most sustained increase in the rate of imprisonment that has been recorded since the birth of the modern prison in the nineteenth century.”1

Detrimental for Some? Heterogeneous Effects of Maternal Incarceration on Child Wellbeing.

We use data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (N = 3,197) to consider the heterogeneous effects of maternal incarceration on 9-year-old children. We find that maternal incarceration has no average effects on child well-being (measured by caregiver-reported internalizing problem behaviors, caregiver-reported externalizing problem behaviors, Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Third Edition scores, and child-reported early juvenile delinquency) but that the effects vary by mothers' propensities for experiencing incarceration. Maternal incarceration is deleterious for children of mothers least likely to experience incarceration but mostly inconsequential for children of mothers more likely to experience incarceration. It is important that public policies take into account the fact that not all children experience similar effects of maternal incarceration. For children of mothers who are unlikely to experience incarceration, the negative consequences of maternal incarceration could be driven by at least three factors, all of which may be operating simultaneously and all of which potentially call for different policy interventions: (a) jail incarceration as opposed to prison incarceration, (b) incarceration for a crime that did minimal-or no-harm to their children, and (c) inadequate family supports for coping with maternal incarceration. We discuss these policy implications.

Commentary: not just variation in estimates: deinstitutionalization of the justice system.

T is great variation in estimates of the portion of incarcerated individuals who have mental illness. This wide variation is one of the main findings of the analysis by Prins (1) of mental illness rates in U.S. state prisons. Since at least the 1930s, social observers such as Penrose (2) have tracked the prevalence of mental illness in jails and prisons and have attempted to identify underlying clinical and social trends. In 2002, the first author and his colleagues questioned the presumption that the large number of incarcerated people with mental illness was attributable to failures in the assessment and treatment of mental illness and concluded that there is no reliable evidence that directing resources toward psychiatric treatment would have a significant impact on incarceration rates (3). In this commentary, we argue that this conclusion remains true. In the article by Prins (1), the implied logic is that there is interpretive value in examining variations in the rates of mental illnesses in jails and prisons to discern the impact of psychiatric interventions. Holding to the principle that the most parsimonious explanation is best, the factor that explains the variation in the proportions of prisoners with mental illness is variation in correctional policy and practice among jurisdictions and over time, rather than variation in access to treatment for mental illness or in how mental illness is assessed or counted in prisons and jails. The more recent variation in rates of mental illness is also likely enhanced by the beginning of a shift in correctional policy: the decline of incarceration in prisons (4). Abramson (5) laid the groundwork for examining connections between deinstitutionalization of psychiatric treatment and the rising number of incarcerated people with mental illnesses. Historically, institutions such as orphanages, poorhouses, and asylums have, each in their own time, experienced a profound increase in their populations, which was followed by a period of deinstitutionalization. Initially, the reasons given for deinstitutionalization are humane treatment, but eventually the most persuasive arguments center on cost and efficiency in state systems and the availability of plausible alternatives. In the United States, practice shifted from poorhouses to outdoor relief, charity movements, and social work; from orphanages to child welfare systems, foster care, and juvenile justice systems; from asylums to community mental health; and now from prisons to community corrections. With the emergence of community corrections and the eventual downsizing of prisons and jails, many people with mental illness once incarcerated in conventional facilities will more often be involved in various forms of community corrections. Our colleague who is incarcerated in a community correctional facility (the first author met this person at a meeting outside of any prison or jail) would be counted as incarcerated by the local Department of Corrections (DOC). This person is free to pursue work in the daytime and does not receive health care through the DOC, unlike incarcerated persons in other kinds of facilities. Correctional health care policy focused on large prisons and jails has not caught up with the impact of deinstitutionalization in the provision of psychiatric care to vulnerable populations. As a result, a growing number of individuals with serious psychiatric disorders are left without reliable access to effective psychiatric treatment. This commentary seeks to refocus attention away from efforts to establish a standard for rates of incarcerated persons withmental illness in conventional facilities with the aim of informing mental health interventions. The action is not there. The place for action in innovation, change, and planning is in community settings. Our goal should be to document variations across place and time in how the differences and changes in corrections practices interrupt effective care and to develop creative ways to recognize as a reality in the justice system the ongoing changes in corrections environments and the broad variation in incarcerated populations.

Lost in Translation: Looking for Transgender Identity in Women’s Prisons and Locating Aggressors in Prisoner Culture

The incarceration of transgender prisoners in men’s prisons is a burgeoning topic of legal challenge, policy development, and social science inquiry. The conspicuous absence of comparable attention to women’s facilities may facilitate a tacit assumption that what is known about transgender prisoners in men’s prisons translates seamlessly to women’s facilities. This paper interrogates this assumption by examining current understandings of what it means to be transgender in a women’s prison. Findings from focus groups with prisoners and staff reveal that gender is understood as both reflected by and constituted through social interaction. Specifically, in attempting to explain the concept of “transgender” in women’s prisons, this work instead reveals a different prevailing concept in prisoner culture: “aggressor.” Unlike transgender, aggressor does not denote gender identity; rather, it implies presentation and performance as reflective of gendered ways of navigating relationships within the context of a sex-segregated setting. These findings simultaneously affirm the extant literature on gender and sexuality in women’s prisons and complicate the translation of the identity-based concept “transgender” from men’s prisons to a women’s prison.

Risk Behaviors and Risk Factors for HIV Infection among Participants in the Bangkok Tenofovir Study, an HIV Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis Trial among People Who Inject Drugs

IntroductionHIV spread rapidly among people who inject drugs in Bangkok in the late 1980s. In recent years, changes in drug use and HIV-associated risk behaviors have been reported. We examined data from the Bangkok Tenofovir Study, an HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis trial conducted among people who inject drugs, to assess participant risk behavior and drug use, and to identify risk factors for HIV infection.MethodsThe Bangkok Tenofovir Study was a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. HIV status was assessed monthly and risk behavior every 3 months. We used generalized estimating equations logistic regression to model trends of injecting, needle sharing, drugs injected, incarceration, and sexual activity reported at follow-up visits; and proportional hazards models to evaluate demographic characteristics, sexual activities, incarceration, drug injection practices, and drugs injected during follow-up as predictors of HIV infection.ResultsThe proportion of participants injecting drugs, sharing needles, and reporting sex with more than one partner declined during follow-up (p<0.001). Among participants who reported injecting at enrollment, 801 (53.2%) injected methamphetamine, 559 (37.1%) midazolam, and 527 (35.0%) heroin. In multivariable analysis, young age (i.e., 20–29 years) (p = 0.02), sharing needles (p<0.001), and incarceration in prison (p = 0.002) were associated with incident HIV infection. Participants reporting sex with an opposite sex partner, live-in partner, casual partner, or men reporting sex with male partners were not at a significantly higher risk of HIV infection compared to those who did not report these behaviors.ConclusionReports of HIV-associated risk behavior declined significantly during the trial. Young age, needle sharing, and incarceration were independently associated with HIV infection. Sexual activity was not associated with HIV infection, suggesting that the reduction in HIV incidence among participants taking daily oral tenofovir compared to those taking placebo was due to a decrease in parenteral HIV transmission.

Nazi Kirchenpolitik and Polish Catholicism in the Reichsgau Wartheland, 1939–1941

With the invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, National Socialist Germany aimed to destroy the Polish nation and Polish national consciousness. The Nazi regime attempted to accomplish this in a variety of ways, including the destruction of Polish cultural institutions, forced resettlement, forced labor, incarceration in prisons and camps, random and systematic roundups of prisoners, and mass murder. To the German authorities in occupied Poland and to many Poles, it was obvious that the occupation would target the Polish Catholic Church with vigor and brutality. Catholicism was the religion of approximately 65 percent of interwar Poland's population: it dominated religious life, held tremendous wealth and political power, and its clergy were widely respected as members of the intelligentsia. More importantly for the Germans, the Catholic Church was a locus and symbol of Polish national identity.

Dreaming of Never Land

This essay focuses on the author’s journey to and three years incarceration in Maskoubiya prison, situating the experience in the broader context of Palestinian life under Israeli Occupation.

The Role of Sentencing Commissions in the Imposition and Enforcement of Release Conditions

Nationally, a substantial proportion of prison admissions are due to revocations of probation or post-prison release, rather than new convictions and sentences. Sentence revocations have helped fuel U.S. prison growth despite a significant decline in crime across the nation. The process for deciding who is revoked and who is not is a discretionary one that in most jurisdictions is wholly unguided by law or policy. As a result, decisions are often made haphazardly, and without regard to risk the offender poses to the community. Although many states now realize that the legal and policy problems surrounding sentence revocations are urgent and require new thinking and new solutions, there are few successful innovations upon which to build. Three changes could dramatically reduce prison admissions and incarceration rates: substituting short jail terms and day fines for probationary supervision; avoiding release conditions that aren't essential to public safety; and reducing the length of time offenders are subject to conditional release (and thus, to revocation). State sentencing commissions are well-positioned to promote these reforms, and to offer judges and correctional decision makers more guidance on the principles that should govern their revocation decisions. Doing so would conserve community supervision resources for the rehabilitation and reintegration of offenders, lessen the need for costly and often counter-productive revocation sanctions, and improve the quality of decision making at the time of sentencing and throughout the execution of the sentence.

Medical Officers, Bodies, Gender and Weight Fluctuation in Irish Convict Prisons, 1877–95

This article focuses on the function of the convict prison infirmary and views it as a site of arbitration, resistance and 'contested power'. In accordance with the rules and regulations periods of incarceration in convict prisons began and ended with an obligatory medical examination. While the primary function of the initial test was to measure the convict body in order ascertain physical ability to conduct hard labour it also provided a thorough bio-metrical description for future identification purposes. The final examination was not as comprehensively undertaken but also concerned itself with anthropometrical observations. It would be reasonable to assume that the balance of power was weighted in the authority's favour but this research has found evidence to the contrary. For instance, that there was a fair degree of physiological knowledge within the convict population and that some convicts used the infirmary for dietary gains and reprieve from hard labour. Using body mass index (BMI) as an instrument to measure physical wellbeing this article views the doctor-convict interface as a crucial component of the penal experience. It analyses 251 convict medical records to show that the balance of diet and work led to what might be considered a counterintuitive outcome - a preponderance of weight gain, particularly for males in Irish prisons.

Do drug courts reduce the use of incarceration?: A meta-analysis

PurposeThe objective of this research was to synthesize the empirical evidence on the effectiveness of adult drug courts to serve as an alternative to incarceration, and to investigate which features of drug courts predict successful diversion. MethodsWe performed a series of meta-analyses of different incarceration outcomes, and performed meta-regression analyses investigating which features of drug courts predict successful diversion. ResultsDrug courts significantly reduced the incidence of incarceration on the precipitating offense, corresponding to a reduction in confinement from 50% to 42% for jail and 38% for prison incarceration. However, drug courts did not significantly reduce the average amount of time offenders spent behind bars, suggesting that any benefits realized from a lower incarceration rate are offset by the long sentences imposed on participants when they fail the program. Meta-regression results indicated that certain drug courts features (i.e., program intensity, in-program sanctions, risk profile of participants) are related to incarceration outcomes. ConclusionsThe evidence concerning drug courts impact on incarceration is mixed. Drug courts eliminate the experience of incarceration for many drug-involved offenders, but they also do not appear to reduce the aggregate, near-term burden placed upon correctional resources. More research is required to confirm these findings.

How to improve testing when trying to predict inmate suicidal behavior

ObjectiveTo measure the predictive power of the Suicide Probability Scale (SPS) in a male inmate population (federal penitentiary) with the added contribution of actuarial data. MethodSPS scores and data from the files of 518 inmates were analyzed in relation to their suicidal behaviors over the following 10years. ResultsDuring this period, 12 inmates committed suicide (2.32%), 43 engaged in non-lethal self-harm (8.3%) and 15 expressed serious suicidal intention (2.9%), for a total of 70 (13.51%) who manifested at least one form of suicidal behavior. The records of the 518 inmates allowed identifying seven actuarial variables (out of 24 documented) that distinguished the group that acted out. These variables were tested in combination with the SPS score to determine the best predictive models of suicidal behavior. Depending on type of suicidal behavior and on observation period, the following seven variables could prove useful in improving the predictive capacity of the SPS: age, prior suicidal behavior, borderline personality disorder, length of sentence, number of sentences, prior incarceration in a provincial prison, and juvenile priors. However, analyses did not allow developing a better predictive model for the specific subgroup of suicide completers. ConclusionsSPS is improved when adding actuarial data.