Controversial Issues in Prisons is a textbook designed to explore eight of the most controversial aspects of imprisonment in England and Wales today. It is primarily a book about the people who are sent to prison and what happens to them when inside. Each chapter examines a different dimension of the prison population and draws upon the sociological imagination to make connections between the personal troubles and vulnerabilities of those incarcerated with wider structural divisions which plague the society we live in. The book investigates controversies surrounding the incarceration of people with mental health problems, women, children, foreign nationals, offenders’ with suicidal ideation, sex offenders, drug takers and the collateral consequences of incarceration on prisoners' families. Each chapter on these eight substantive topics shares a common structure and answers the following key questions: How have people conceptualised this penal controversy? What does the official data tell us and what are its limitations? What is its historical context? What are the contemporary policies of the Prison Service? Are they legitimate and, if not, what are the alternatives? Ultimately the authors argue that in combination these controversial issues raise fundamental concerns about the legitimacy of the confinement project and the kind of society in which it is deemed essential. The book concludes with a discussion of why it remains important to make penal controversies visible, challenge penological illiteracy and provide alternative means of responding to human wrongdoing rooted in the principles of human rights and social justice.

Under what circumstances should juveniles be tried as adults? When is police force a warranted plan of action? How often is racial bias a factor in judging a suspect's culpability? How do officers assess an inmate's potential for rehabilitation? These are some of the most hotly debated questions in the field of corrections, often sparking discomfort and anger among those who wish to know more about these issues. Controversial Issues in Corrections attempts to provide factual information and a much-needed forum for discussion, utilizing a unique debate format to discuss controversial issues in the field of corrections. Topics addressed in this book were chosen with a conscious effort to include those that are the most controversial. Issues debated include the effect of shaming as an approach to punishment, the incarceration of pregnant women, the controversy of co-ed prisons, the increase of inmate lawsuits, and the execution of youthful murderers. The contributing authors, each solicited because of their expertise, come from a variety of backgrounds, academic disciplines and perspectives. Law enforcement officers, corrections officers, educators, students of law enforcement, and anyone interested in issues of criminal justice and the correctional process.

Over the past four decades, the rate of incarceration in the United States has skyrocketed to unprecedented heights, both historically and in comparison to that of other developed nations. At far higher rates than the general population, those in or entering U.S. jails and prisons are prone to many health problems. This is a problem not just for them, but also for the communities from which they come and to which, in nearly all cases, they will return. Health and Incarceration is the summary of a workshop jointly sponsored by the National Academy of Sciences(NAS) Committee on Law and Justice and the Institute of Medicine(IOM) Board on Health and Select Populations in December 2012. Academics, practitioners, state officials, and nongovernmental organization representatives from the fields of healthcare, prisoner advocacy, and corrections reviewed what is known about these health issues and what appear to be the best opportunities to improve healthcare for those who are now or will be incarcerated. The workshop was designed as a roundtable with brief presentations from 16 experts and time for group discussion. Health and Incarceration reviews what is known about the health of incarcerated individuals, the healthcare they receive, and effects of incarceration on public health. This report identifies opportunities to improve healthcare for these populations and provides a platform for visions of how the world of incarceration health can be a better place.

This edited collection brings together leading international academics and researchers to provide a comprehensive body of literature that informs the future of prison and wider corrective services training, education, research, policy and practice. This volume addresses a range of 21st century issues faced by modern corrective services including, prison overcrowding, young and ageing offenders, mental health, sexual assault in corrective facilities, trans communities in corrective services and radicalisation of offenders within corrective services. Taking a multi-disciplinary approach and drawing together theoretical and practice debates, the book comprehensively considers current challenges and future trajectories for corrective systems, the people within them and service delivery. This volume will also be a welcomed resource for academics and researchers who have an interest in prisons, corrective services practice and broader criminal justice issues. It will also be of interest to those who want to join corrective services, those who are currently training to become personnel in corrective services and related allied professions, and those who are currently working in the field.

The United States imprisons more of its citizens than any other nation in the world. To be sentenced to prison is to face systematic violence, humiliation, and, perhaps worst of all, separation from family and community. It is, to borrow Orlando Patterson’s term for the utter isolation of slavery, to suffer “social death.” In Prison and Social Death, Joshua Price exposes the unexamined cost that prisoners pay while incarcerated and after release, drawing upon hundreds of often harrowing interviews conducted with people in prison, parolees, and their families. Price argues that the prison separates prisoners from desperately needed communities of support from parents, spouses, and children. Moreover, this isolation of people in prison renders them highly vulnerable to other forms of violence, including sexual violence. Price stresses that the violence they face goes beyond physical abuse by prison guards and it involves institutionalized forms of mistreatment, ranging from abysmally poor health care to routine practices that are arguably abusive, such as pat-downs, cavity searches, and the shackling of pregnant women. And social death does not end with prison. The condition is permanent, following people after they are released from prison. Finding housing, employment, receiving social welfare benefits, and regaining voting rights are all hindered by various legal and other hurdles. The mechanisms of social death, Price shows, are also informal and cultural. Ex-prisoners face numerous forms of distrust and are permanently stigmatized by other citizens around them. A compelling blend of solidarity, civil rights activism, and social research, Prison and Social Death offers a unique look at the American prison and the excessive and unnecessary damage it inflicts on prisoners and parolees.

In the past 30 years, the population of prisoners in the United States has expanded almost 5-fold, correctional facilities are increasingly overcrowded, and more of the country's disadvantaged populations—racial minorities, women, people with mental illness, and people with communicable diseases such as HIV/AIDS, hepatitis C, and tuberculosis—are under correctional supervision. Because prisoners face restrictions on liberty and autonomy, have limited privacy, and often receive inadequate health care, they require specific protections when involved in research, particularly in today's correctional settings. Given these issues, the Department of Health and Human Services' Office for Human Research Protections commissioned the Institute of Medicine to review the ethical considerations regarding research involving prisoners. The resulting analysis contained in this book, Ethical Considerations for Research Involving Prisoners, emphasizes five broad actions to provide prisoners involved in research with critically important protections: • expand the definition of "prisoner"; • ensure universally and consistently applied standards of protection; • shift from a category-based to a risk-benefit approach to research review; • update the ethical framework to include collaborative responsibility; and • enhance systematic oversight of research involving prisoners.

After decades of stability from the 1920s to the early 1970s, the rate of imprisonment in the United States has increased fivefold during the last four decades. The U.S. penal population of 2.2 million adults is by far the largest in the world. Just under one-quarter of the world's prisoners are held in American prisons. The U.S. rate of incarceration, with nearly 1 out of every 100 adults in prison or jail, is 5 to 10 times higher than the rates in Western Europe and other democracies. The U.S. prison population is largely drawn from the most disadvantaged part of the nation's population: mostly men under age 40, disproportionately minority, and poorly educated. Prisoners often carry additional deficits of drug and alcohol addictions, mental and physical illnesses, and lack of work preparation or experience. The growth of incarceration in the United States during four decades has prompted numerous critiques and a growing body of scientific knowledge about what prompted the rise and what its consequences have been for the people imprisoned, their families and communities, and for U.S. society. The Growth of Incarceration in the United States examines research and analysis of the dramatic rise of incarceration rates and its affects. This study makes the case that the United States has gone far past the point where the numbers of people in prison can be justified by social benefits and has reached a level where these high rates of incarceration themselves constitute a source of injustice and social harm. The Growth of Incarceration in the United States examines policy changes that created an increasingly punitive political climate and offers specific policy advice in sentencing policy, prison policy, and social policy. The report also identifies important research questions that must be answered to provide a firmer basis for policy. This report is a call for change in the way society views criminals, punishment, and prison. This landmark study assesses the evidence and its implications for public policy to inform an extensive and thoughtful public debate about and reconsideration of policies.

The high rate of incarceration in the United States contributes significantly to the nation's health inequities, extending beyond those who are imprisoned to families, communities, and the entire society. Since the 1970s, there has been a seven-fold increase in incarceration. This increase and the effects of the post-incarceration reentry disproportionately affect low-income families and communities of color. It is critical to examine the criminal justice system through a new lens and explore opportunities for meaningful improvements that will promote health equity in the United States. The National Academies convened a workshop on June 6, 2018 to investigate the connection between incarceration and health inequities to better understand the distributive impact of incarceration on low-income families and communities of color. Topics of discussion focused on the experience of incarceration and reentry, mass incarceration as a public health issue, women's health in jails and prisons, the effects of reentry on the individual and the community, and promising practices and models for reentry. The programs and models that are described in this publication are all Philadelphia-based because Philadelphia has one of the highest rates of incarceration of any major American city. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussions of the workshop.

Drawing on a range of research and media sources to provide an international perspective on the topic of prison violence, this book focuses on the impact of such violence on the individual both while he or she is incarcerated and upon his or her release from prison, as well as on society as a whole. With a special emphasis on comparisons of violence among incarcerated populations in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, Prison Violence: Causes, Consequences and Solutions explores the various systems that exist to combat the problem, whilst also considering public perceptions of offenders and punishment, as influenced by media and coverage of high-profile cases. Providing a comprehensive analysis of prison violence on national and international levels, this book examines the extent of the problem, theoretical understandings of the issue and concrete solutions designed to prevent and handle such violence. As such, it will be of interest to policy makers as well as scholars of sociology, criminology and penology.