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Prison News | Federal

Recent events, organized by category (below) or region/state (right), concerning the corrections industry in Federal. Comments, suggestions and contributions (below) appreciated.

Contents

Education & Rehabilitation

  • What will happen to the Drug Clemency Program when Holder leaves?
    “Under criteria announced in April 2014, Deputy Attorney General James Cole, the Justice Department will consider for early release inmates who have served at least 10 years in prison, are low-level offenders, would have received a substantially lower prison term if sentenced under laws today, don’t have a significant criminal history, and have no history of violence before or since their incarceration.”...[more]

  • We can’t afford to ignore drug addiction in prison
    Many states have shortened prison time for drug crimes, and the federal system is inching toward doing the same, with new guidelines that will be effective Nov. 1 and retroactive releases starting a year later....[more]

  • Justice Department's new rules would offer clemency to inmates with no violent history
    WASHINGTON — The Justice Department announced new rules on Wednesday that potentially would make thousands of federal inmates eligible for presidential grants of clemency, including a requirement that candidates must have served at least 10 years of their sentences and have no history of violence....[more]

  • 3 in 4 Former Prisoners in 30 States Arrested Within 5 Years of Release
    An estimated two-thirds (68 percent) of 405,000 prisoners released in 30 states in 2005 were arrested for a new crime within three years of release from prison, and three-quarters (77 percent) were arrested within five years, the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) announced today....[more]

  • Halfway Back to Society
    In 2013, about 30,000 federal prison inmates were released to more than 200 halfway houses around the country. These facilities — where an inmate can serve up to the last year of his or her sentence — are meant to ease the transition back into society by way of employment and housing assistance, drug treatment, and other programs that make it less likely an inmate will end up reoffending and returning to prison....[more]

  • In New Step to Fight Recidivism, Attorney General Holder Announces Justice Department to Require Federal Halfway Houses to Boost Treatment Services for Inmates Prior to Release
    WASHINGTON—In a new step to further the Justice Department’s efforts towards enhancing reentry among formerly incarcerated individuals, Attorney General Eric Holder announced Monday that the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) will impose new requirements on federal halfway houses that help inmates transition back into society. Under the proposed new requirements, these halfway houses will have to provide a specialized form of treatment to prisoners, including those with mental health and substance abuse issues. For the first time, halfway houses will also have to provide greater assistance to inmates who are pursuing job opportunities, such as permittin...[more]

  • Recognising International Women's Day in prison
    This Saturday, as part of International Women’s Day, Corrections is celebrating the work it does with women in prison, to assist them in turning their backs on crime....[more]

  • What if faith-based prison programs just attract better prisoners?
    This continues yesterday’s post about the effectiveness of faith-based prisons, based on my recent Alabama Law Review article, Do Faith-Based Prisons Work? (Douglas Berman’s Sentencing Law and Policy Blog called this a “must read”; see also this discussion on Dru Stevenson’s Privatization Blog. This article is a companion article to Prison Vouchers and The Constitutional Possibilities of Prison Vouchers, though the ideas here are entirely independent of the vouchers idea.)...[more]

  • Los Angeles Intervention Program Provides Model for Other Nations
    Section: General News - Los Angeles police say Los Angeles is the "gang capital" of the United States, with hundreds of active criminal gangs. The city is also home to a gang and re-entry program called Homeboy Industries which has helped ......[more]

  • Thinking Outside the Cell: Alternatives to Incarceration for Youth with Mental Illness
    This report ...[more]

  • Final Report Outcome and Process Evaluation of Juvenile Drug Courts
    This study adds to the existing juvenile drug court literature by providing a national multi-site outcome and process evaluation of nine juvenile drug courts from across the U.S. This study assesses the relative effect of each court, as well as their combined effectiveness in reaching the overall goal of reducing recidivism and improving youths' social functioning. It also identifies, where possible, the characteristics of youth and programs associated with successful outcomes...[more]

  • Measuring Success: A Guide to Becoming an Evidence-Based Practice
    This is a great introduction to the process by which an organization can evaluate whether a program is evidence-based is explained. ...[more]

  • Designing More Effective Correctional Programs Using Evidence-Based Practices
    Are you looking for a research-based primer on evidence-based practices. Then this article is the place to start. ...[more]

  • Challenging the
    Psychopathy has long been framed as a special challenge in criminal justice contexts, in part due to the supposedly untreatable nature of psychopathic offenders. Indeed, previous failed attempts to ...[more]

  • The Chromis programme: from conception to evaluation
    Offenders with high levels of psychopathic traits present particular challenges to the criminal justice system. These offenders are at high risk of re-offending and have a range of complex issues impacting on their response to treatment. This paper outlines the development, structure and implementation of the Chromis programme: a programme designed specifically to reduce the risk of violence in offenders with high levels of psychopathic traits. It outlines the context in which the programme currently runs and the challenges faced in evaluating its impact. Initial findings and plans for evaluation are discussed....[more]

  • Solitary Confinement: Is Long-Term Isolation of Prisoners Inhuman?
    ANNOTATION: This report takes an in-depth look at whether long-term solitary confinement constitutes torture, and whether separating the worst of the worst from other prisoners is beneficial. Sections of this publication include: the issues; backgroundrepentance in isolation, supreme displeasure, institutionalizing solitary, and constitutional issues; chronology; current situationfight over supermax, and new litigation; at issuetwo opposing views of solitarys use; and outlooksolitary losing favor. ...[more]

  • A Structured Evidence Review to Identify Treatment Needs of Justice-Involved Veterans and Associated Psychological Interventions
    The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) recently released A Structured Evidence Review to Identify Treatment Needs of Justice-Involved Veterans and Associated Psychological Interventions, a report on the behavioral health needs of veterans involved in the criminal justice system. The topic areas addressed in the report include treatment needs of justice-involved veterans, assessment tools to identify treatment needs and recidivism risk, and evidence-based practices. The report particularly focuses on history of trauma, post-traumatic stress disorder, the needs of female veterans, the needs of veterans ages 55 and older, and the incidence...[more]

  • The Mark of an Ex-Prisoner: Perceived Discrimination and Self-Stigma of Young Men after Prison in Hong Kong
    The stigma of being an ex-prisoner can lead to self-stigmatizing beliefs and hinder reintegration. For young ex-prisoners, this is particularly challenging as they need not only to transition from prison to society but from adolescence to adulthood. This study explores the experiences of discrimination and self-stigma of 16 young men recently released from Hong Kong prisons. Drawing on qualitative in-depth interviews, it reveals that participants perceived themselves as facing discrimination, mainly from prospective employers. Self-stigma was more salient with regard to lower self-worth and shame and embarrassment. Most adopted a ...[more]

  • Why do sexual offenders refuse treatment?
    Theories of offender motivation for treatment have proposed that external factors may be as important as internal factors in creating a state of readiness for treatment. This paper reports an exploratory study of the barriers to treatment for incarcerated sexual offenders. Qualitative and quantitative analysis of interview and questionnaire data from treatment refusers and accepters suggested that refusers were less aware of the effectiveness of treatment, reported seeing negative side effects of treatment in others and felt they had a higher social status in prison which could be damaged by attending treatment. While this study does not demo...[more]

  • Boundary-Spanners: the New Heroes of Prisoner Reentry?
    A common buzzword attracting a bit of a mixed response in corrections these days is the concept of prisoner reentry, characterizing a kind of love-hate relationship where citizens willingly support rehabilitation, but are unwilling to dirty their hands in the process......[more]

Executions, Death Row & the Death Penalty

No recent news for Federal in this category.

Gangs in Prison

  • Convicted priest says El Salvador backed gang work
    MADRID (AP) — Those who love Antonio Rodriguez know him affectionately as "Father Tony," the Roman Catholic priest who spent 15 years working in El Salvador's roughest neighborhoods to get vulnerable young men out of a gang lifestyle that often ends in death....[more]

  • Obama/ Democrats Importing MS-13 Gang Members
    Known for their identifying tattoos and violent mottos like “Mata, roba, viola, controla” (“Kill, steal, rape, control”), members of MS-13 are known for executing their victims with machetes and blunt objects like baseball bats. (AP File Photo)...[more]

  • In violent Honduras, soccer offers the young an escape from gangs, drugs and early death
    TEGUCIGALPA, Honduras (AP) — From where he sits on a dusty soccer pitch between the fetid Choluteca River and four-lane Armed Forces Boulevard, 11-year-old Maynor Ayala can see only two ways out of the gang-controlled slums of the capital: on a professional soccer team, or in a cheap coffin....[more]

  • Number of cell phones smuggled into prison soars as gang members intimidate witnesses and run drug deals from behind bars
    Cellphones smuggled into prisons by corrupt guards, concealed in food containers or hurled over security fences are an increasing worry for law enforcement as prisoners use them to intimidate witnesses, direct drug deals and plan escapes....[more]

  • NFLPA probing WR DeSean Jackson's release Union looking at possibility of leaked comments
    NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith told ESPN radio's "Mike & Mike Show on Friday that the union is investigating the Philadelphia Eagles' release of wide receiver DeSean Jackson. ...[more]

  • Busting 'El Chapo' accomplishes zilch: Column
    On Saturday, the world's most wanted drug lord, Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán Loera, was captured in a high-profile arrest in the Mexican city of Mazatlán, ending a 13-year search since he last escaped from prison, in a laundry basket. Of course, credit must be given to the Mexican and U.S. forces involved in this capture. Strengthening rule of law and bringing the leader of the most powerful drug cartel to justice is undoubtedly significant....[more]

  • Drug kingpin should face justice in US, not Mexico
    AT THE height of their power in the 1980s, Colombian drug lords had a saying: Better to be in a grave in Colombia than in a prison cell in the United States. This is an adage that Mexican officials should keep in mind now that Mexican drug kingpin Joaquín Guzmán Loera — also known as El Chapo — was captured late last week....[more]

  • Making crime pay – the development role of gangsters
    NEW YORK, 25 October 2013 (IRIN) - A precarious gang truce brokered in 2011 in El Salvador has many crime experts wondering whether “talking to criminals” in other places could reduce criminal violence and help gangsters - and the communities who depend on them - find other ways to earn a living. ...[more]

  • Brazil's top prison gang runs $60 million crime trade
    Brazil's powerful PCC prison gang runs a nationwide criminal business worth $60 million a year with operations extending into neighboring Bolivia and Paraguay, according to an official report disclosed Friday....[more]

  • Making a Deal With Murderers
    The gangs grew more sophisticated over the years. Government inaction allowed gang members to secure control of several prisons and turn them into operational headquarters from which they ordered — and continue to order — homicides and extortion. And today they once again have cells — branch offices — in the United States. What the United States spat out ricocheted back with even greater force....[more]

  • Arsonist killed in Dubai prison after being stabbed 37 times by rival gang
    DUBAI // A prison gang boss known as “Rida the burned” was killed after being stabbed 37 times in his face, neck and chest in a revenge attack by a rival gang, a court heard yesterday....[more]

  • Federal agents arrest hundreds in MS-13 gang sweep
    Among those charged are 158 members and associates of MS-13, with 105 others allegedly belonging to other gangs. Authorities arrested 84 non-gang members wanted on criminal charges and 14 people on immigration violations as part of the same sweep, according to the federal agency....[more]

  • Three Members and One Associate of Violent North Carolina Latin Kings Gang Sentenced to Prison
    Three members and one associate of the North Carolina Almighty Latin King/Queen Nation (ALKQN) have been sentenced this week in federal court in the Middle District of North Carolina.

    The announcement was made today by Acting Assistant Attorney General Mythili Raman of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division; U.S. Attorney Ripley Rand of the Middle District of North Carolina; Special Agent in Charge John A. Strong of the FBI’s Charlotte Division; Chief of the Greensboro, N.C., Police Department Ken Miller; and B.J. Barnes, Sheriff of Guilford County, N.C....[more]


  • Ex-cartel chief released in Mexico: prison source
    A former top Mexican drug cartel boss, Rafael Caro Quintero, was released Friday after serving 28 years for the murder of a US agent, a prison source said....[more]

  • Ruthless Mexican drug cartel recruiting Americans ; Los Zetas looks to prisons, gangs
    A Mexican drug cartel known for kidnapping random civilians and beheading its rivals has expanded its operations into the U.S. The gang known as Los Zetas is recruiting U.S. prison and street gangs, and non-Mexicans, for its drug ......[more]

  • The Top 5 Facts About Women in Our Criminal Justice System
    The top five facts about women incarcerated in the United States are discussed. These are: the number of women in correctional facilities has increased 800% over the last 30 years; a majority of these women have experienced emotional, physical, and sexual abuse; many incarcerated girls have also experienced such abuse; pregnant mothers are often shackled during labor and delivery; and following release, ex-offenders face a lot of barriers to successful reentry......[more]

  • Thinking Outside the Cell: Alternatives to Incarceration for Youth with Mental Illness
    This report ...[more]

  • The Impact of Prison Conditions on Staff Well-Being
    The impacts of the work environment on staff well-being and staffs...[more]

  • BJS: Indian Country Jail Inmate Population Rises About 6% for Second Consecutive Year
    Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) announced that at midyear 2012, a total of 2,364 inmates were confined in Indian country jails, a 5.6 percent increase from the 2,239 inmates confined at midyear 2011......[more]

  • Robben Island: A view into Mandela's prison life
    US President Barack Obama has visited Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for 18 years. DW...[more]

  • Visitors get a taste of the prison lifestyle
    Eastern State Penitentiary, opened in 1829, has experienced much decay over the years......[more]

  • Prison Will Either Make Ya or Break Ya: Punishment, Deterrence, and the Criminal Lifestyle
    Although a prison sentence is often considered to be among the worst punishments that the state can provide, previous research indicates that offenders do not necessarily share this view. Some inmates, for example, adjust to prison life with relative ease, do not view their time in prison as severe punishment, and may even prefer prison to alternative sanctions such as boot camp or probation. To help explain such views, we point to the utility of a criminal lifestyle perspective. We argue that offenders who are committed to the values of the criminal subculture tend to view prison in a unique way. For various reasons, such offenders are less ...[more]

  • Accounting for Violations of the Convict Code
    Research over the past several decades shows that those who act in ways inconsistent with desired identities often account for (i.e., excuse or justify) their actions to save face and maintain social identities. While the bulk of research on the use of accounts examines how people make sense of behaviors that go against conventional values, recent research suggests that those who do not adhere to subcultural norms engage in similar talk. The current study builds on the sociology of accounts by exploring whether inmates articulate a convict code; whether they provide accounts for code violations that are comparable to those given by active off...[more]

  • Final Report Outcome and Process Evaluation of Juvenile Drug Courts
    This study adds to the existing juvenile drug court literature by providing a national multi-site outcome and process evaluation of nine juvenile drug courts from across the U.S. This study assesses the relative effect of each court, as well as their combined effectiveness in reaching the overall goal of reducing recidivism and improving youths' social functioning. It also identifies, where possible, the characteristics of youth and programs associated with successful outcomes...[more]

  • Measuring the disparity of categorical risk among various sex offender risk assessment measures
    The focus on reducing sexual offending has led to the development of risk assessment measures and schemes to predict reoffending, prioritize the allocation of treatment and supervision resources, and ensure public safety. However, different risk assessment approaches may not always have high agreement on the same individual. In light of the research indicating that ordinal risk rankings are most commonly used and reported in various risk communications, this study compares four risk assessment approaches, namely the Static-99R, Static-2002R, Sex Offender Risk Appraisal Guide, and SVR-20, in order to evaluate the disparities among the risk cat...[more]

  • Measuring Success: A Guide to Becoming an Evidence-Based Practice
    This is a great introduction to the process by which an organization can evaluate whether a program is evidence-based is explained. ...[more]

  • Designing More Effective Correctional Programs Using Evidence-Based Practices
    Are you looking for a research-based primer on evidence-based practices. Then this article is the place to start. ...[more]

  • Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole Delivers Remarks at the Children of Incarcerated Parents Initiative
    Thank you Tonya [Robinson] for that introduction and for your work on this issue and this event. And congratulations again to all of the Champions of Change being honored today. Your work is exemplary as you have dedicated your time and energy to speak up for a unique and vulnerable group: our nation...[more]

  • Sexual Victimization In Juvenile Facilities Reported By Youth, 2012
    Highlights: An estimated 9.5% of adjudicated youth in state juvenile facilities and state contract facilities (representing 1,720 youth nationwide) reported experiencing one or more incidents of sexual victimization by another youth or staff in the past 12 months or since admission, if less than 12 months. About 2.5% of youth (450 nationwide) reported an incident involving another youth, and 7.7% (1,390) reported an incident involving facility staff. An estimated 3.5% of youth reported having sex or other sexual contact with facility staff as a result of force or other forms of coercion, while 4.7% of youth reported sexual contact with staff...[more]

  • Challenging the
    Psychopathy has long been framed as a special challenge in criminal justice contexts, in part due to the supposedly untreatable nature of psychopathic offenders. Indeed, previous failed attempts to ...[more]

  • The Chromis programme: from conception to evaluation
    Offenders with high levels of psychopathic traits present particular challenges to the criminal justice system. These offenders are at high risk of re-offending and have a range of complex issues impacting on their response to treatment. This paper outlines the development, structure and implementation of the Chromis programme: a programme designed specifically to reduce the risk of violence in offenders with high levels of psychopathic traits. It outlines the context in which the programme currently runs and the challenges faced in evaluating its impact. Initial findings and plans for evaluation are discussed....[more]

  • Sexual Abuse in Custody: A Case Law Survey
    Under certain circumstances correctional officers and their supervisors can be subject to civil liability for sexual abuse of inmates and detainees under their care. Liability for sexual abuse can attach whether the abuse was perpetrated by a correctional officer, facility employee or volunteer, or by a fellow inmate or detainee. This document provides an overview of sexual abuse cases in both state and federal courts, focusing on what types of conduct most often result in individual and supervisory liability. It does not address other issues that may arise in sexual abuse litigation, such as exhaustion requirements under the Prison Litigatio...[more]

  • The predictive validity of the HCR-20 following clinical implementation: does it work in practice?
    This prospective study describes the predictive validity of the Historical Clinical Risk Management-20 Scale (HCR-20) when applied to clinical practice among 109 male mentally disordered offenders in a high secure forensic hospital. Data on violent incidents including reconvictions were collected from multiple sources. The results imply that the implemented HCR-20s did not predict future violence regardless of setting (community vs inpatient) nor time (short vs long term) except for serious incidents. This may indicate that the implemented HCR-20s informed risk management through systematic tailoring of care and treatment plans. Evidence supp...[more]

  • Justice Department Finds Unconstitutional Conditions of Confinement at Escambia County, Fla. Jail
    Today, the Justice Departments Civil Rights Division issued a letter detailing the findings of its investigation into conditions of confinement at Escambia County Jail, a jail located in northwest Florida, housing roughly 1,300 prisoners. The department found that, although the jail under the leadership of Sheriff David Morgan has recently implemented a series of meaningful reforms, conditions at the jail still routinely violate the constitutional rights of prisoners. Specifically, the department concluded that known systemic deficiencies at the facility, stemming mainly from staffing shortages, continue to subject prisoners to excessive r...[more]

  • Financial Incentives for Using Electronic Health Records in Corrections
    The 2009 Recovery Act included the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act. The HITECH Act incentivizes hospitals and other health care providers to use electronic health records for Medicaid and Medicare patients. In the Medicaid program, an eligible health care provider (i.e., Medical Doctor, Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine, Nurse Practitioner, Certified Nurse, Midwife, Dentist, or Physician Assistant), whose patient volume consists of at least 30 percent Medicaid patients AND who uses a certified electronic health record is eligible for Electronic Health Record (EHR) incentive payments. EHR payments can a...[more]

  • Using Administrative Data to Prioritize Jail Reentry Services: Findings from the Comprehensive Transition Planning Project
    ANNOTATION: 'This research brief describes part of the Comprehensive Transition Planning Project'a collaborative project between the Substance Use and Mental Health Program at the Vera Institute of Justice and the New York City Department of Correction (DOC) ' [which is] to develop a reliable, low-cost, and easy-to-implement tool jail officials could use to identify people in jail who would benefit most from access to the system's limited discharge planning resources' (p. 1). The tool is called the Service Priority Indicator (SPI) and utilizes administrative data to target reentry services. Sections following an executive summary include: int...[more]

  • Sexual Victimization in Prisons and Jails Reported by Inmates, 201112
    ANNOTATION: This report present statistics regarding the sexual victimization of prison and jail inmates by other inmates or staff. Sections of this publication cover: highlights; National Inmate Survey; incidents of sexual victimizations; facility-level rates; demographic and other characteristics; special inmate populationsinmates ages 16 to 17; special inmate populationsinmates with mental health problems; and special inmate populationsinmates with a non-heterosexual sexual orientation. Some of the key findings include: 4% of prison inmates and 3.2% of jail inmates reported being sexually victimized; 1.8% of juveniles ages 16 to 17 reporte...[more]

  • Risk Assessment in Juvenile Justice: A Guidebook for Implementation
    ANNOTATION: The primary purpose of this Guide is to provide a structure for jurisdictions, juvenile probation or centralized statewide agencies striving to implement risk assessment or to improve their current risk assessment practices. Risk assessment in this Guide refers to the practice of using a structured tool that combines information about youth to classify them as being low, moderate or high risk for reoffending or continued delinquent activity, as well as identifying factors that might reduce that risk on an individual basis. The purpose of such risk assessment tools is to help in making decisions about youths placement and supervisi...[more]

  • A Primer on Body-Worn Cameras for Law Enforcement
    ANNOTATION: The field deployment of body-worn camera systems (BWCs) by law enforcement practitioners (e.g., patrol, corrections, SWAT and other tactical responders) offers significant advantages in keeping officers safe, enabling situational awareness and providing evidence for trial To mitigate the lack of procedural or technical standards, the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) Sensor, Surveillance, and Biometric Technologies (SSBT) Center of Excellence (CoE) has prepared a primer to aid in the use of BWCs in law enforcement. This report provides an introduction to BWCs and highlights issues and factors that law enforcement organizations ...[more]

  • Manual for the Guidance of Inmates: 2012 Edition
    This is a very good example of an inmate handbook that your agency can find ideas from for creating or revamping your own. Sections cover: getting startedquarantine, classification, and restitution; settling incounts, inmate appearance, opportunities, living areas, communication with staff, problem solving steps, personal and state property, procedures and rules (guidelines), disciplinary days (good contact time), and Investigations Bureau; services and privileges; available programsprogressive empowerment, educational, vocational training, recreation, sexual offender treatment, and the Family Connections Center; and parolescheduling, waiver,...[more]

  • Attorney General Eric Holder Announces Improvements to the Public Safety Officers Benefits Program
    Attorney General Eric Holder and Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Justice Programs Mary Lou Leary announced several improvements to the Public Safety Officers Benefits (PSOB) Program following the completion of a comprehensive review of the program ordered by the Attorney General in May 2012. In the coming months, the PSOB office will move to an entirely paperless electronic case management system that will allow claimants to file and monitor the progress of their claims online, in order to improve efficiency, increase timeliness and reduce duplication in its claims administration process. The PSOB claims process will al...[more]

  • Take This Job and Shove It: An Exploratory Study of Turnover Intent among Jail Staff
    ANNOTATION: This article provides valuable information on why jail staff quit their jobs. It looks at the many factors that can influence high employee turnover in jails. Sections following an abstract include: introduction; literature review; methodology; findings; and discussion and conclusion. 'Based on a multivariate analysis, the most powerful predictors of jail staff turnover intent were job attitudes (i.e., job involvement, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment). The findings suggested that administrators should concentrate on improving the work environment to boost employee job involvement, job satisfaction, and organization...[more]

  • Solitary Confinement: Is Long-Term Isolation of Prisoners Inhuman?
    ANNOTATION: This report takes an in-depth look at whether long-term solitary confinement constitutes torture, and whether separating the worst of the worst from other prisoners is beneficial. Sections of this publication include: the issues; backgroundrepentance in isolation, supreme displeasure, institutionalizing solitary, and constitutional issues; chronology; current situationfight over supermax, and new litigation; at issuetwo opposing views of solitarys use; and outlooksolitary losing favor. ...[more]

  • A Structured Evidence Review to Identify Treatment Needs of Justice-Involved Veterans and Associated Psychological Interventions
    The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) recently released A Structured Evidence Review to Identify Treatment Needs of Justice-Involved Veterans and Associated Psychological Interventions, a report on the behavioral health needs of veterans involved in the criminal justice system. The topic areas addressed in the report include treatment needs of justice-involved veterans, assessment tools to identify treatment needs and recidivism risk, and evidence-based practices. The report particularly focuses on history of trauma, post-traumatic stress disorder, the needs of female veterans, the needs of veterans ages 55 and older, and the incidence...[more]

  • Psychopathic characteristics are related to high basal urinary oxytocin levels in male forensic patients
    Cerebral levels of oxytocin, elevated by intranasal administration, can increase trust, empathy and altruism, and decrease fear. We hypothesised that low levels of these characteristics (found in some personality-disordered forensic patients), would be associated with reduced oxytocin levels. Aims: To assess whether patients, with psychopathic characteristics associated with selfishness, callousness and the remorseless use of others, plus a chronically unstable, antisocial and socially deviant lifestyle, would show depressed levels of oxytocin. Method: Basal urinary oxytocin levels (an indicator of cerebral oxytocin) were assessed in 47 foren...[more]

  • Using the MMPI-A in identifying trauma symptoms among juvenile offenders
    A significant number of youths involved in the juvenile justice system have experienced childhood maltreatment and/or grief and loss. The mental health consequences of such events may have contributed to the development of the mental health and behavioral problems that resulted in juvenile court involvement. As such, the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-Adolescent (MMPI-A), the most commonly used assessment measure among forensic psychologists working with this population, should be evaluated for its utility in identifying youths whose mental health and behavioral problems may be related to such traumatic events. This study aimed t...[more]

  • The Mark of an Ex-Prisoner: Perceived Discrimination and Self-Stigma of Young Men after Prison in Hong Kong
    The stigma of being an ex-prisoner can lead to self-stigmatizing beliefs and hinder reintegration. For young ex-prisoners, this is particularly challenging as they need not only to transition from prison to society but from adolescence to adulthood. This study explores the experiences of discrimination and self-stigma of 16 young men recently released from Hong Kong prisons. Drawing on qualitative in-depth interviews, it reveals that participants perceived themselves as facing discrimination, mainly from prospective employers. Self-stigma was more salient with regard to lower self-worth and shame and embarrassment. Most adopted a ...[more]

  • Criminal history in schizophrenia: associations with substance use and disorganized symptoms
    Many with schizophrenia tend to experience problems with the legal system. Yet little is still known about the correlates of the history of incarceration, as well as frequency of misdemeanor and felony convictions within community samples. To explore this question, we gathered legal and substance abuse histories, and assessments of symptoms and neurocognitive function from 96 adults in a nonacute phase of schizophrenia. ANOVA revealed history of incarceration to be linked with more severe drug and alcohol abuse histories, and greater positive symptoms. Greater numbers of misdemeanor convictions were linked to more severe drug and alcohol abus...[more]

  • Violence and Security Threat Group Participation in Ohio Prisons
    The formulation of correctional policies that address prison violence are complicated by the challenge of successfully managing gang-related misconduct. Unfortunately, research findings on the relationship between gang affiliation and prison misbehavior are limited and still somewhat inconclusive....[more]

  • Why do sexual offenders refuse treatment?
    Theories of offender motivation for treatment have proposed that external factors may be as important as internal factors in creating a state of readiness for treatment. This paper reports an exploratory study of the barriers to treatment for incarcerated sexual offenders. Qualitative and quantitative analysis of interview and questionnaire data from treatment refusers and accepters suggested that refusers were less aware of the effectiveness of treatment, reported seeing negative side effects of treatment in others and felt they had a higher social status in prison which could be damaged by attending treatment. While this study does not demo...[more]

  • Developmental and offence-related characteristics of different types of adolescent sex offender: A community sample
    Offence-related and developmental characteristics were compared in subgroups of a sample (n=184) of male sex offenders aged between 10 and 21 [mean=16.07; standard deviation (SD)=2.09] referred to a specialist community facility. Important differences were observed on key developmental and offence-related variables between adolescents who targeted peers/adults and those who targeted children. These differences support the validity of the distinction between these two groups. Much smaller subgroups with mixed (i.e. peer and child) victims, internet child pornography and indecent exposure offences are also described. The sample was followed-up ...[more]

  • Locked Down: Gangs in the Supermax
    Twenty years ago, a new kind of prison was taking America by storm. The supermax prison was designed to incapacitate dangerous criminals by locking them down in stark isolation, sometimes for years on end....[more]

  • The International Prisoner Transfer Program
    Although the International Prisoner Transfer Program has been in existence since 1976, it remains a program about which most federal prosecutors have scant knowledge or understanding...[more]

  • Gauging the Gangs
    A respected writer spent five years studying the Mexican Mafia. What he discovered will shock even the most seasoned cop....[more]

  • Study: Leaving prison can kill
    Prison life can be dangerous, but getting out can be deadly, too. Newly released inmates were almost 13 times more likely ...[more]

  • Risk of death high for new ex-cons
    Prison life may be dangerous, but getting out can be deadly, too. ...[more]

  • America's Prisons: Breeding Grounds for Muslim Converts
    While there is much talk about the infiltration of terrorists into our country through our nation...[more]

  • Nobody wants to talk about prison rape. Not even the victims
    Tony, an armed robber serving 20 years to life, knew what could happen to snitches, but ...[more]

  • 19 arrested on drugs, weapons charges in roundup of reputed Bloods members
    ...[more]

  • Sides dispute facts of prison beating
    To hear prosecutors tell it, the five city corrections officers on trial...[more]

  • Public Protest at "Easy Life" Inside Wymott Prison
    Pictures taken of convicted paedophile Toby Studabaker, depicting the former US Marine playing computer games in his cell and allegedly "enjoying himself," have outraged public spokespersons in Leyland. The 34 year-old, who began serving a four-and-a-half year prison sentence in 2004 for forcing a 12-year-old girl to perform sexual acts, reportedly has his own Playstation....[more]

  • What do Wardens Think of Prison Sex?
    A recent study in the Prison Journal found that wardens and correctional administrators did not believe that there was a significant prevalence of either consensual or coerced sexual......[more]

  • "Make-Believe" Family Relationships exist among Female Texas Prisoners
    A recent study in the Prison Journal found that 28% of a correctional sample of female inmates in two Texas prisons for women developed "Familial-like"......[more]

  • Trial begins for 11 Hells Angels bikers over deadly brawl
    ...[more]

  • Boundary-Spanners: the New Heroes of Prisoner Reentry?
    A common buzzword attracting a bit of a mixed response in corrections these days is the concept of prisoner reentry, characterizing a kind of love-hate relationship where citizens willingly support rehabilitation, but are unwilling to dirty their hands in the process......[more]

  • Prison escapee hid in billiard table
    Inmate Lazaro Bringas Nuntildeez, a convicted kidnapper and murderer, escaped from a prison in Ciudad Cuauhtemoc on April 23rd, hiding in a... ...[more]

Health & Medical Treatment


  • Private Manning’s Missing Medical Care
    As a matter of constitutional rights and basic decency, prisoners — including military prisoners — are entitled to proper care for their serious medical conditions. Yet, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel and other officials continue to deny medically necessary care to Chelsea Manning, the military prisoner formerly known as Pfc. Bradley Manning, who was convicted in August 2013 of leaking a vast cache of classified government documents....[more]

  • Telemedicine Can Reduce Prison Healthcare Costs: Reaching Out to the Underserved
    COLD SPRING, NY--(Marketwired - Oct 21, 2014) - Across the U.S., many rural jails and prisons either have no mental health services for affected patients or they rely on the limited community mental health agencies for treatment of imprisoned patients with mental illnesses or addiction. CloudVisit Telemedicine offers telepsychiatry solutions to introduce telemedicine in prison that are specially designed to help practitioners safely and securely address those patients' needs, while saving money....[more]

  • Jailed, some mentally ill inmates land in lockdown
    Day or night, the lights inside cell 135C of central New Mexico's Valencia County Detention Center were always on.

    Locked inside, alone, for months, Jan Green — a 52-year-old computer technician with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder — rocked on a bench for hours, confiding in an imaginary companion.

    "I would talk and hold conversations just in my little crazy world, I guess you would say, just to keep me company," Green says....[more]


  • Thousands of prisoners treated for mental illness
    Nearly 10% of the 216,000 inmates are receiving medications designed to treat an array of illnesses, from depression and bipolar disorder to acute schizophrenia. The BOP's disclosure comes as government officials have raised questions about the costs of confining such large populations, while advocates for the mentally ill argue that prisons and jails have become the new repository for people with mental illness....[more]

  • Mental illness cases swamp criminal justice system -- ON AMERICA'S STREETS, POLICE ENCOUNTERS WITH PEOPLE WITH MENTAL ILLNESSES INCREASINGLY DIRECT RESOURCES AWAY FROM TRADITIONAL PUBLIC SAFETY ROLES.
    NEWPORT, R.I. — Inside a cluttered downtown apartment that she shares with a cat, the 57-year-old woman is in the midst of a near-meltdown.

    "There's three of them,'' she tells two police officers, referring to "these predators who won't leave me alone. Those sons of bitches won't let me go. ''...[more]


  • Mental Illness Soars In Prisons, Jails While Inmates Suffer
    Armando Cruz tied a noose around his neck and hanged himself from the ceiling of his prison cell. He left a note that ended in two chilling words....[more]

  • Special report: Violence rekindles debate over treatment for severely mentally ill
    Each new act of mass violence rekindles the debate over how to prevent another.

    And when the perpetrators suffer from severe mental illness, the question is how to help before they act — even if they resist treatment....[more]


  • To curb hepatitis C, test and treat inmates
    PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — Problematic as it is for society, the high incarceration rate in the United States presents an important public health opportunity, according to a new "Perspective" article in the New England Journal of Medicine. It could make staving off the worst of the oncoming hepatitis C epidemic considerably easier.

    Nearly 4 million Americans may be infected with the hepatitis C virus (HCV). Many of them don't know they carry HCV, which can take decades to make them ill with cirrhosis, cancer, or liver failure....[more]


  • The New Asylums: Jails Swell With Mentally Ill
    CHICAGO—The sound of clanging steel doors and agitated voices in the Cook County Jail bullpen was deafening. Amid the din, Robert Miller, who would turn 19 the next day, wept quietly. Anger and sullenness were common here. Uncontrolled crying was a sign of a bigger problem....[more]

  • Mental Health; Prisoners doing yoga may see psychological benefits
    The Oxford University researchers found that prisoners after a 10-week yoga course reported improved mood, reduced stress and were better at a task related to behaviour control than those who continued in their normal prison routine....[more]

  • Window on Correctional Practice: Inmate Well-Being Assessments
    Have you ever spent the night in jail? Well, I have. Several times. Fortunately, it was while helping folks to practice operating their new jail before the official opening: checking out the building, systems, operating procedures, and staff behavior. As a normal adult, you have some interesting reactions when you are locked in a small room. One of the primary ones: “Is anybody checking on me and making sure I am all right?” You can assume offenders have the same initial reaction. Think about what kinds of inmate behaviors might result if they feel nobody is checking on them – both attention getting behavior and, of course, perhaps some ina...[more]

  • Lack of Expertise, Inadequate Funding Plaguing Mental Health Delivery to Nation’s Juvenile Justice System
    A 2010 Columbia University study involving approximately 10,000 young people in the nation’s juvenile justice system found almost 52 percent of the population studied met criteria for at least one mental health disorder, with about 64 percent of young people who were committed to secured facilities likely having at least one disorder. ...[more]

  • Aging prisoner costs put pressure on prison systems nationwide
    For decades, the Louisiana State Penitentiary has taken great pride in its vast farming operations, as well as its reputation as one of the toughest lockups in America....[more]

  • Financial Incentives for Using Electronic Health Records in Corrections
    The 2009 Recovery Act included the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (HITECH) Act. The HITECH Act incentivizes hospitals and other health care providers to use electronic health records for Medicaid and Medicare patients. In the Medicaid program, an eligible health care provider (i.e., Medical Doctor, Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine, Nurse Practitioner, Certified Nurse, Midwife, Dentist, or Physician Assistant), whose patient volume consists of at least 30 percent Medicaid patients AND who uses a certified electronic health record is eligible for Electronic Health Record (EHR) incentive payments. EHR payments can a...[more]

  • Psychopathic characteristics are related to high basal urinary oxytocin levels in male forensic patients
    Cerebral levels of oxytocin, elevated by intranasal administration, can increase trust, empathy and altruism, and decrease fear. We hypothesised that low levels of these characteristics (found in some personality-disordered forensic patients), would be associated with reduced oxytocin levels. Aims: To assess whether patients, with psychopathic characteristics associated with selfishness, callousness and the remorseless use of others, plus a chronically unstable, antisocial and socially deviant lifestyle, would show depressed levels of oxytocin. Method: Basal urinary oxytocin levels (an indicator of cerebral oxytocin) were assessed in 47 foren...[more]

  • Criminal history in schizophrenia: associations with substance use and disorganized symptoms
    Many with schizophrenia tend to experience problems with the legal system. Yet little is still known about the correlates of the history of incarceration, as well as frequency of misdemeanor and felony convictions within community samples. To explore this question, we gathered legal and substance abuse histories, and assessments of symptoms and neurocognitive function from 96 adults in a nonacute phase of schizophrenia. ANOVA revealed history of incarceration to be linked with more severe drug and alcohol abuse histories, and greater positive symptoms. Greater numbers of misdemeanor convictions were linked to more severe drug and alcohol abus...[more]

  • Study: Leaving prison can kill
    Prison life can be dangerous, but getting out can be deadly, too. Newly released inmates were almost 13 times more likely ...[more]

  • Risk of death high for new ex-cons
    Prison life may be dangerous, but getting out can be deadly, too. ...[more]

Prison Classification, Placement, & Release

  • You May Have Missed It, but There Was an Election Debate on Criminal Justice Reform
    It is no secret that the United States prison population surpasses that of any other nation, that the country has very harsh sentencing laws for minor offenses, and that, as many argue, the inherent racial bias in the system is powerful and detrimental to society....[more]

  • OBAMA ADMINISTRATION CAUGHT LYING ABOUT RELEASE OF CRIMINAL ILLEGAL ALIENS
    In this case, it’s about illegal immigrants, a subject upon which it is extremely difficult to find a single instance of the Administration telling the truth. Citizenship is being stolen from you, my fellow Americans, and the thieves’ contempt for you is so complete that they don’t feel obliged to give straight answers to any questions… not even when the truth is printed on documents that are bound to come to light eventually, not even when their actions put our lives at risk....[more]

  • Local jails refusing to hold illegal immigrant offenders, forcing feds to track them down
    Local police agencies across the country are frustrating efforts at the federal level to detain and deport criminal illegal immigrants, leaving immigration officials scrambling to track them down.

    In the last nine months, 275 counties have refused to honor requests from Immigration and Customs Enforcement that they be notified before releasing an illegal immigrant from custody....[more]


  • Rand Paul, Racism, and Prison
    Norm Ornstein is one of those Washington "centrist" lifers whom the commentariat loves to deploy against the hard-line partisans allegedly fouling our national discourse. A liberal at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, Ornstein helped craft the speech-squelching Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002, which the Supreme Court, mercifully, has largely overturned. In April 2012, along with fellow centrist think-tanker Thomas Mann, Ornstein wearily declared in a Washington Post op-ed, "Let's just say it: The Republicans are the problem." ...[more]

  • Federal regulators float an aggressive new plan to cut the cost of prison calls
    It was back in 2003 that a Washington, D.C., grandmother named Martha Wright filed a petition to the Federal Communications Commission asking federal regulators to address the high inmate telephone rates that were keeping her from keeping in touch with her grandson, then locked up in an Arizona prison....[more]

  • Federal prison population drops for first time in 3 decades, Justice Dept. says
    The federal prison population has dropped by nearly 5,000 inmates this year, the first decline in decades, according to the Justice Department.

    In a speech Tuesday at New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. highlighted the decline as a breakthrough for criminal-justice reform advocates who have tried to reverse the trend of rising incarceration. He said that in fiscal 2016, the federal prison population is projected to drop by 10,000 inmates, or the equivalent of six federal prisons....[more]


  • Prison Firm CCA Seeks to Reduce Number of Repeat Offenders -- Company Pushes to Reduce Costs Associated with Recidivism
    The nation's largest private prison company is shifting its focus toward helping release more inmates and keep them out—a reaction, company officials say, to changing policies around the country on the severity of criminal punishment....[more]

  • 'Empty' Prisons Dotting the USA
    After reading the recent story about a "correctional officer" intimidating a network news reporter for accidentally filming an empty prison at Wilton, NY, I googled "empty prison."

    As it turns out, there are several around the USA....[more]


  • Packing our prisons isn't making us safer: Robert Mann
    We have the nation's worst murder rate - 10.8 per 100,000, 45 percent higher than runner-up Mississippi - and the nation's highest gun-death rate. Overall, we have the seventh highest crime rate. Just tossing more and more people into prisons (with longer sentences for more crimes) has not made us safer....[more]

  • Justice Department data: More than 3,300 federal inmates have sought clemency since April
    WASHINGTON (AP) — More than 3,300 federal inmates have applied to have their prison sentences cut short in the months since the Justice Department rolled out a new clemency initiative, according to data provided to The Associated Press....[more]

  • Mass Incarceration: 21 Amazing Facts About America’s Obsession With Prison
    Nobody in the world loves locking people behind bars as much as Americans do. We have more people in prison than any other nation on the planet. We also have a higher percentage of our population locked up than anyone else does by a very large margin. But has all of this imprisonment actually made us safer? Well, the last time I checked, crime was still wildly out of control in America and for the most recent year that we have numbers for violent crime was up 15 percent. The number of people that we have locked up has quadrupled since 1980, but this is not solving any of our problems. Clearly, what we are doing is not working....[more]

  • European court says CIA ran secret jail in a Polish forest
    WARSAW, July 24 (Reuters) - The CIA ran a secret jail on Polish soil, the European Court of Human Rights ruled on Thursday, piling pressure on Poland, one of Washington's closest allies, to break its long silence about the global programme for detaining al Qaeda suspects....[more]

  • Sentencing reform slowed by politics
    It’s always been pretty easy to get politicians to pass new laws to create new crimes or to send people to prison for longer periods of time for existing crimes. But, as the New York Times explained in an editorial over the weekend, getting them to rescind laws or ease up on draconian penalties is a much tougher task....[more]

  • Kerry says freed Taliban inmates would target U.S. at 'enormous risk' -CNN
    WASHINGTON, June 8 (Reuters) - If the five Taliban inmates released from Guantanamo Bay prison in exchange for a captive American soldier rejoined the fight against the United States, they would do so at great risk, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Sunday....[more]

  • US prosecutors revisiting nearly 5,000 convictions
    FILE - In this May 6, 2014 file photo, Robert Hill, center, stands with his lawyers Harold Ferguson, left, and Sharon Katz, right, as Justice Neil Firetog declares Hill exonerated in Brooklyn Supreme Court, in the Brooklyn borough of New York. Prosecutors asked to throw out the decades-old convictions of three half-brothers who were investigated by homicide detective Louis Scarcella, whose tactics have come into question. The defendants, Hill, Alvena Jennette and Darryl Austin became the first people connected to the detective to be exonerated. Photo: Bebeto Matthews, AP...[more]

  • Old-guard Republicans just can’t let go of the drug war
    To be fair, much of the current momentum to roll back the excesses of the drug war has been due to the efforts of Republicans such as Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah). Unfortunately, a recent series of stories illustrates how, for a good chunk of the GOP caucus, it will always be 1986. Len Bias will always have just recently died. The culture wars will always be raging. And the wildebeests will always be stampeding....[more]

  • U.S. jails becoming debtors’ prisons
    WASHINGTON – Angela Albers’ troubles began in 2008 when police nabbed her for failure to stop at a stop sign.

    “At the time I was going through a divorce and I forgot to pay the ticket,” she said.

    Unknown to her, a Washington state court suspended her licence. A few months later she was pulled over and charged with driving without a licence....[more]


  • The prison door keeps revolving
    THE UNITED States jails more prisoners than any nation on earth — about 2.3 million, or more than 1 percent of all American adults. Our gigantic penal system is regularly characterized as a national disgrace. I’ve applied the label myself....[more]

  • The meteoric, costly and unprecedented rise of incarceration in America
    Pleas to reform prison policy in the United States have come from numerous interest and advocacy groups over the years, their numbers steadily expanding as the size of the world's largest prison population has, too. They've come from the families of incarcerated offenders, from policymakers who've wearied of the war on drugs, from fiscal conservatives who've watched states devote ever more money to incarceration. Increasingly, the call for prison reform has come from unlikely alliances of the left and right....[more]

  • In the U.S., Punishment Comes Before the Crimes
    Few things are better at conveying what a nation really cares than how it spends its money. On that measure, Americans like to punish....[more]

  • The Obama administration’s clearly constitutional path to clemency
    WHEN PRESIDENT Obama commuted the punishments of eight federal inmates last year, he railed against the excesses of an older criminal sentencing system “now recognized as unjust.” Surely, then, more than eight prisoners deserved a second look. This week, finally, the administration made clear that many more federal prisoners will get one....[more]

  • The Privatization Backlash - For decades, city and state governments have seen contracting as a cost-saving panacea. But past experience has left some of today's policymakers more skeptical.
    A few years ago, Chicago residents accustomed to parking on the street got a rude shock. Parking-meter rates had suddenly gone up as much as fourfold. Some meters jammed and overflowed when they couldn't hold enough change for the new prices. In other areas, new electronic meters had been installed, but many of them didn't give receipts or failed to work entirely. And free parking on Sundays was a thing of the past....[more]

  • POLITICAL DIARY: Prison Break
    The Obama administration continues to put the interests of criminals ahead of victims. What's worse, a few cynical and misguided Republicans support the White House's soft-on-crime policies in the interest of GOP black outreach....[more]

  • Justice Department prepares for clemency requests from thousands of inmates
    The Obama administration is beginning an aggressive new effort to foster equity in criminal sentencing by considering clemency requests from as many as thousands of federal inmates serving time for drug offenses, officials said Monday....[more]

  • Panel Votes to Reduce Sentences for Some Federal Drug Defendants Move Is Aimed at Reducing Number of Inmates
    A sentencing panel voted Thursday to reduce prison sentences for most federal drug defendants, a move that would shave an average of 11 months off the average trafficking sentence and over time reduce the number of inmates....[more]

  • Sentencing reform: The United States needs to cut the cost of prison
    Among the casualties of a failed war on drugs that has spanned more than three decades are bloated prisons that cost the nation nearly $90 billion a year. With only 5 percent of the world’s population, the United States holds 25 percent of its prisoners; more than 2 million people are locked up in this country....[more]

  • Private prisons on Philosophy in Action
    Over the weekend, my friend Diana Hsieh discussed private prisons on her Internet radio show Philosophy in Action. For those who aren’t familiar with Diana or her show, here’s her blurb:

    I’m Dr. Diana Hsieh. I’m a philosopher specializing the application of rational principles to the challenges of real life. ...[more]


  • Panel Says Yemeni Man Should Stay in Detention
    WASHINGTON — A parole-style panel at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, has decided to recommend that the military continue to hold a Yemeni man in indefinite wartime detention without trial, according to a military document. The decision is the first of its kind for the Obama administration’s new Periodic Review Board system....[more]

  • Unlkely Allies Unite to Soften Sentencing Laws
    WASHINGTON — Shortly after Senator Rand Paul filed suit last month against the Obama administration to stop its electronic dragnet of American phone records, he sat down for lunch with Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. in his private dining room at the Justice Department....[more]

  • Would prison performance measures lead to undesirable strategic behavior?
    This is the fifth post in a series about my new article, Prison Accountability and Performance Measures, which is in the current issue of the Emory Law Journal. In Monday’s post, I introduced the issue and advocated greater use of performance measures, which I’ll come back to later this week. In Tuesday’s post, I discussed why we don’t know much about the comparative cost or quality of public vs. private prisons. In Wednesday’s post, I talked about why introducing performance measures would be a good idea. In Thursday’s post, I discussed some of the normative issues involved in what measures to choose and started on some potential concerns ab...[more]

  • Solitary Confinement Costs $78K Per Inmate And Should Be Curbed, Critics Say
    Former prisoners spoke about the effects of solitary confinement Tuesday, in a congressional hearing aimed at banning the treatment for some inmates. The federal push to reduce solitary confinement is being led by Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., who calls it "a human rights issue we can't ignore."...[more]

  • Why not measure prison performance?
    Today I’m going to start blogging about my new article, Prison Accountability and Performance Measures, which is in the current issue of the Emory Law Journal. Here’s the abstract:

    A few decades of comparative studies of public vs. private prison performance have failed to give a strong edge to either sector in terms of quality......[more]


  • Kim Jong-un’s ex executed over porn
    The former lover of North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un has been executed by machine gun amid claims that she had been appearing in pornographic videos....[more]

  • Screening for Risk of Sexual Victimization and for Abusiveness: Guidelines for Administering Screening Instruments and Using the Information to Inform Housing Decisions (2013)
    These guidelines were developed “to screen for risk of sexual victimization and for abusiveness, including questions to be asked of inmates, residents, and detainees, and the best use of the information from the screening to inform housing decisions … While specifics will vary by type of facility, including the age and gender of the individuals, these general principles will hold true in a wide range of contexts” (p. 2). Sections of this publication address: what the purpose of screening is and what are its limitations; what the key elements of a screening instrument are; requirements for different facility types such as prisons and jails, lo...[more]

  • Pretrial Release Eligibility
    State constitutions and statutes specify which defendants may be detained before trial … However, denial of release is not absolute. A court must make certain determinations before ordering detention … While state laws broadly provide for presumption of release, they also define who is and is not eligible for pretrial release, and under what conditions.” A chart showing pretrial release eligibility by state is available at this website. The chart shows the state and its governing statute, presumption of pretrial release (whether stated in the state constitution and/or in the statue), and when pretrial release may be denied (whether stated in ...[more]

  • As Prisons Prepare for PREA, Impact on Youthful Inmates May Be Major
    In 2003, the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) — a federal legislative proposal that sought to curb incidents of sexual assault in both adult prisons and juvenile detention facilities — was signed into law by President George W. Bush....[more]

  • ‘Smart on Crime’ Calls for Leniency for Youth Offenders
    In a bid to decongest the nation’s overpopulated prisons, the Obama administration has proposed leniency for certain drug cases, a move with uncertain consequences for juvenile inmates....[more]

  • U.S. attorney general's drug offender plan praised: Experts hope message to cut number of nonviolent inmates trickles down
    Criminal justice experts on Monday applauded plans by U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to reduce the number of nonviolent drug offenders in prison, while at the same time acknowledging that the vast majority of the 2.2 million people ......[more]

  • DURBIN, BUSTOS MEET WITH FEDERAL BUREAU OF PRISONS DIRECTOR TO DISCUSS ACTIVATION OF THOMSON PRISON
    [WASHINGTON, D.C.] – U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) and U.S. Representative Cheri Bustos (IL-17) today met with the Director of the Department of Justice’s Bureau of Prisons, Charles Samuels, to discuss the activation of Thomson Correctional Center. On July 18, Durbin and Bustos announced that the Senate Appropriations Committee, of which Durbin is a member, had approved funding for the activation of Thomson at the level that was requested by President Obama in his fiscal year 2014 budget proposal....[more]

  • Incarceration in the U.S.: Dissecting the world's largest prison population [Infographic]
    Auburn University; Auburn, AL - ara By The United States has the largest prison population in the world. No nation incarcerates more of its citizens than America, with a full 1 percent of the population behind bars at any given time and more ......[more]

  • More Efforts Needed to Ensure the Internal Revenue Service Prisoner File Is Accurate and Complete
    Refund fraud committed by prisoners remains a significant problem for tax administration. The number of fraudulent tax returns filed by prisoners and identified by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has increased from more than 18,000 tax returns in Calendar Year 2004 to more than 91,000 tax returns in Calendar Year 2010. The refunds claimed on these tax returns increased from $68 million to $757 million … To combat this growing problem, the IRS compiles a list of prisoners (Prisoner File) from the Federal Bureau of Prisons and State Departments of Corrections. Various IRS offices and functions use the Prisoner File to prevent and detect frau...[more]

  • US prison population down to 1.57 million in 2012 with California leading the way
    WASHINGTON (AP) - The government says the U.S. prison population dropped for the third straight year in 2012. The Bureau of Justice Statistics says there were more than 1.5 million prison inmates last year. That's a drop of 1.7 percent from ......[more]

  • Chairman Reichert Seeks to End Cash for Cons - Introduces Bill to Prevent Unemployment Payments to Prisoners
    U.S. House of Representatives Documents Washington, D.C. - As a former sheriff and now Chairman of the Human Resources Subcommittee of the Committee on Ways and Means with jurisdiction over the Unemployment Insurance (UI) program, today ......[more]

  • For First Time Since 2009, U.S. Senate Talks About Closing Guantanamo
    WASHINGTON, Jul. 25, 2013 (IPS/GIN) - Momentum appears to be building in the push to close down the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, where 166 inmates, 86 of whom have been cleared for release, remain held without charges....[more]

  • BJS: Indian Country Jail Inmate Population Rises About 6% for Second Consecutive Year
    Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) announced that at midyear 2012, a total of 2,364 inmates were confined in Indian country jails, a 5.6 percent increase from the 2,239 inmates confined at midyear 2011......[more]

  • Measuring the disparity of categorical risk among various sex offender risk assessment measures
    The focus on reducing sexual offending has led to the development of risk assessment measures and schemes to predict reoffending, prioritize the allocation of treatment and supervision resources, and ensure public safety. However, different risk assessment approaches may not always have high agreement on the same individual. In light of the research indicating that ordinal risk rankings are most commonly used and reported in various risk communications, this study compares four risk assessment approaches, namely the Static-99R, Static-2002R, Sex Offender Risk Appraisal Guide, and SVR-20, in order to evaluate the disparities among the risk cat...[more]

  • The predictive validity of the HCR-20 following clinical implementation: does it work in practice?
    This prospective study describes the predictive validity of the Historical Clinical Risk Management-20 Scale (HCR-20) when applied to clinical practice among 109 male mentally disordered offenders in a high secure forensic hospital. Data on violent incidents including reconvictions were collected from multiple sources. The results imply that the implemented HCR-20s did not predict future violence regardless of setting (community vs inpatient) nor time (short vs long term) except for serious incidents. This may indicate that the implemented HCR-20s informed risk management through systematic tailoring of care and treatment plans. Evidence supp...[more]

  • Justice Department Finds Unconstitutional Conditions of Confinement at Escambia County, Fla. Jail
    Today, the Justice Departments Civil Rights Division issued a letter detailing the findings of its investigation into conditions of confinement at Escambia County Jail, a jail located in northwest Florida, housing roughly 1,300 prisoners. The department found that, although the jail under the leadership of Sheriff David Morgan has recently implemented a series of meaningful reforms, conditions at the jail still routinely violate the constitutional rights of prisoners. Specifically, the department concluded that known systemic deficiencies at the facility, stemming mainly from staffing shortages, continue to subject prisoners to excessive r...[more]

  • Using Administrative Data to Prioritize Jail Reentry Services: Findings from the Comprehensive Transition Planning Project
    ANNOTATION: 'This research brief describes part of the Comprehensive Transition Planning Project'a collaborative project between the Substance Use and Mental Health Program at the Vera Institute of Justice and the New York City Department of Correction (DOC) ' [which is] to develop a reliable, low-cost, and easy-to-implement tool jail officials could use to identify people in jail who would benefit most from access to the system's limited discharge planning resources' (p. 1). The tool is called the Service Priority Indicator (SPI) and utilizes administrative data to target reentry services. Sections following an executive summary include: int...[more]

  • Risk Assessment in Juvenile Justice: A Guidebook for Implementation
    ANNOTATION: The primary purpose of this Guide is to provide a structure for jurisdictions, juvenile probation or centralized statewide agencies striving to implement risk assessment or to improve their current risk assessment practices. Risk assessment in this Guide refers to the practice of using a structured tool that combines information about youth to classify them as being low, moderate or high risk for reoffending or continued delinquent activity, as well as identifying factors that might reduce that risk on an individual basis. The purpose of such risk assessment tools is to help in making decisions about youths placement and supervisi...[more]

  • Manual for the Guidance of Inmates: 2012 Edition
    This is a very good example of an inmate handbook that your agency can find ideas from for creating or revamping your own. Sections cover: getting startedquarantine, classification, and restitution; settling incounts, inmate appearance, opportunities, living areas, communication with staff, problem solving steps, personal and state property, procedures and rules (guidelines), disciplinary days (good contact time), and Investigations Bureau; services and privileges; available programsprogressive empowerment, educational, vocational training, recreation, sexual offender treatment, and the Family Connections Center; and parolescheduling, waiver,...[more]

  • Using the MMPI-A in identifying trauma symptoms among juvenile offenders
    A significant number of youths involved in the juvenile justice system have experienced childhood maltreatment and/or grief and loss. The mental health consequences of such events may have contributed to the development of the mental health and behavioral problems that resulted in juvenile court involvement. As such, the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-Adolescent (MMPI-A), the most commonly used assessment measure among forensic psychologists working with this population, should be evaluated for its utility in identifying youths whose mental health and behavioral problems may be related to such traumatic events. This study aimed t...[more]

  • Violence and Security Threat Group Participation in Ohio Prisons
    The formulation of correctional policies that address prison violence are complicated by the challenge of successfully managing gang-related misconduct. Unfortunately, research findings on the relationship between gang affiliation and prison misbehavior are limited and still somewhat inconclusive....[more]

  • Developmental and offence-related characteristics of different types of adolescent sex offender: A community sample
    Offence-related and developmental characteristics were compared in subgroups of a sample (n=184) of male sex offenders aged between 10 and 21 [mean=16.07; standard deviation (SD)=2.09] referred to a specialist community facility. Important differences were observed on key developmental and offence-related variables between adolescents who targeted peers/adults and those who targeted children. These differences support the validity of the distinction between these two groups. Much smaller subgroups with mixed (i.e. peer and child) victims, internet child pornography and indecent exposure offences are also described. The sample was followed-up ...[more]

  • The International Prisoner Transfer Program
    Although the International Prisoner Transfer Program has been in existence since 1976, it remains a program about which most federal prosecutors have scant knowledge or understanding...[more]

  • America's Prisons: Breeding Grounds for Muslim Converts
    While there is much talk about the infiltration of terrorists into our country through our nation...[more]

Prison Conditions & Corruption

  • Photos Of 1960s U.S. Prison System Attempt To Show That Inmates Are Us
    "I was never afraid of the men," photographer Danny Lyon said of his time spent with Texas prisoners. "I liked them. And I had many friends inside the system that would stand up for me, dangerous men. Anyway, in my heart of hearts I felt I was doing something good for the men, and most of them knew it."...[more]

  • More than a decade after release, they all come back -- SILVESTRE SEGOVIA HAD VOWED THAT HE WOULD NEVER RETURN TO SOLITARY CONFINEMENT.
    Languishing in the vast Texas prison system's solitary confinement wings for more than a decade had exacted a heavy emotional toll. And there was so much to discover about a new world that confronted him on a much-anticipated exit that chilly morning, Nov. 15, 2002. A loyal girlfriend waited 255 miles away....[more]

  • In 10 States, Children Can Be Punished With Indefinite Solitary Confinement
    Isolation can permanently change the teenage brain, neuroscientists have found. Animal studies have shown that the pruning of synapses that occurs during adolescence -- a process that allows kids to grow out of behaviors like impulsiveness -- doesn't happen normally in long-term isolation. This means that solitary may, in fact, increase recidivism. When kids are not punished with isolation, they are less likely to act out, some states have found....[more]

  • Rethinking solitary confinement
    EVERY DAY, state and federal prison authorities subject tens of thousands of inmates to solitary confinement, a psychological and physical hell resulting from near-total isolation in often tiny and windowless cells. Those who go in can come out disturbed. Those who go in with preexisting mental illnesses often get worse. The result is hypertension, panic attacks, self-mutilation and suicide, not to mention extreme difficulties reintegrating into the prison population or society at large. Damon Thibodeaux, who spent 15 years alone in a Louisiana state prison before being exonerated, explained to a congressional committee this year that solitar...[more]

  • Private Prisons House More Latinos Than Do Public Ones, Study Finds
    In March, Rina Palta reported for Code Switch on a study that found private prisons were disproportionately filled with inmates of color. A broader recent study of federal data from 2005 has revealed something similar: The proportion of white inmates was significantly smaller in private prisons than in public ones, and the proportion of Latino inmates was larger....[more]

  • U.S. is the only nation that sentences children to die in prison
    The United States is the only country in the world that sentences children to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole....[more]

  • Gitmo Prisoner Files Lawsuit against Guantanamo Prison, Barack Obama
    TEHRAN (FNA)- A Yemeni inmate at Guantanamo Bay filed suit against US President Barack Obama, alleging that the force-feeding he and fellow inmates had endured was "inhumane"....[more]

  • Moz rejects 'sex-for-soap' claims by SA inmates
    Maputo - Mozambican prison authorities on Wednesday dismissed claims that guards were sexually exploiting female South African prisoners in exchange for basics, such as soap....[more]

  • The Archipelago of Pain
    We don’t flog people in our prison system, or put them in thumbscrews or stretch them on the rack. We do, however, lock prisoners away in social isolation for 23 hours a day, often for months, years or decades at a time....[more]

  • Standards To Prevent, Detect, and Respond to Sexual Abuse and Assault in Confinement Facilities - Part 1 of 3
    SUMMARY: The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is issuing regulations setting standards to prevent, detect, and respond to sexual abuse and assault in DHS confinement facilities....[more]

  • Sex in men's prisons: 'The US system cultivates rape. If you treat people like animals, they behave like it'
    The crook of another man's elbow is on my Adam's apple, pressing down, choking me. After just a couple of seconds, I panic and gasp.

    Shaun Attwood, who spent more than five years in some of America's toughest prisons, including Arizona's infamous Maricopa Jail, is showing me how men in prison are raped.

    ...[more]


  • DHS Announces Finalization of Prison Rape Elimination Act Standards
    WASHINGTON — Today, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) finalized Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) regulations to prevent, detect and respond to sexual abuse and assault in DHS confinement facilities, meeting a May 2012 Presidential Directive. PREA was enacted in 2003 with strong bipartisan support.

    Today’s announcement finalizes a rule first proposed last year and follows an extensive public comment period. The rule builds on current DHS detention policies and practices, including

    Performance Based National Detention Standards (PBNDS) and a May 2012 Directive on “Sexual Abuse and Assault Prevention and Int...[more]


  • Close the supermaxes; Keeping prisoners in solitary confinement isn't just cruel, it's ineffective
    Last week, the New York State Department of Corrections announced an agreement to dramatically limit solitary confinement in its prisons. New York’s prison system will now be the largest in the country to stop using solitary as a punishment on prisoners younger than 18.

    ...[more]


  • Women prisoners: Sex in prison is commonplace, the male inmates just hide it more than girls
    As a report warns female inmates are being coerced into sex by staff in return for favours like alcohol and cigarettes, former prison officer Ava Vidal suggests sex behind bars is commonplace in both male and female prisons (both among inmates, and between inmates and staff) but the women are far more open about it....[more]

  • Is It O.K. to Force-Feed Prisoners?
    I believe medical professionals should act ethically. However, I’m not sure it’s unethical to force-feed prisoners on hunger strike. Setting aside the issues associated with incarceration (and Guantánamo Bay in particular), is it ethical to allow a prisoner to die of starvation, even if that is his/her choice? Or is it more ethical to force-feed them? Most suicides are, at least in part, caused by depression or other mental-health issues. I also realize that prisoners choosing starvation may be making a political statement, and it might be unethical to squelch their political speech. What do you think? SHELLEY MARKS, LOS ANGELES...[more]

  • Greenpeace Arctic 30 activist Frank Hewetson reveals how he coped in a Russian prison
    The theme tune from The Great Escape, whistled in a prison yard and repeated by another inmate, a favourite Terry Pratchett novel, and a Russian human rights worker nicknamed Mrs Tiggywinkle helped Greenpeace activist Frank Hewetson through his Russian prison experience....[more]

  • 'Russian prisons are essentially torture chambers'
    Zara Murtazalieva is a Chechen woman who spent more than eight years at a prison colony in Russia on terrorism charges that she says were fabricated. She was released last year from a colony next door to the one where the Pussy Riot activist Nadezhda Tolokonnikova was protesting conditions until a few weeks ago. Murtazalieva spoke with DW from France, where she is currently living....[more]

  • Judge in Sept 11 Attacks Case Orders Look at Secret Records
    A judge presiding over the military commission’s prosecution of five people accused in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks has ordered the government to show him confidential correspondence with the International Committee of the Red Cross about prison conditions at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, a defense lawyer said Wednesday. The judge, Col. James Pohl, also issued an order taking control of the team that reviews correspondence between defense lawyers and the defendants, including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. ...[more]

  • Jail conditions improve for detained Canadians in Egypt Visit by aide to Egyptian interior minister buoys hopes
    In a sign that the Egyptian authorities are moving the case of two detained Canadians up their priority list, lawyer Marwa Farouk said that "an aide to the minister of the interior personally visited them" on Wednesday....[more]

  • Pussy Riot prison protest puts Russia's prisons under harsh scrutiny
    The grim conditions of Russia's "Gulag archipelago" have been brought back to the world's attention by the hunger strike of Pussy Riot member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, reports Roland Oliphant in Mordovia.

    Ms Tolokonnikova may have ended her nine-day hunger strike on Tuesday after the chairman of Vladimir Putin’s human rights watchdog negotiated an agreement between her and the federal prison service, but her protest continues....[more]


  • Lawyers of Boston bombing suspect: Lift his harsh prison restrictions
    (CNN) -- Lawyers for Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev accused the government of imposing unduly harsh restrictions on their client in a motion filed Wednesday....[more]

  • Pussy Riot's Nadezhda Tolokonnikova ends nine-day hunger strike
    Pussy Riot's Nadezhda Tolokonnikova has ended her nine-day hunger strike. Although deteriorating health forced Tolokonnikova to halt her protest against prison conditions, her husband has said that she will resume the strike if she is not transferred away from Mordovia's Penal Colony No 14....[more]

  • Westerners’ Smuggled Letters Offer Glimpse of Egyptian Prisons
    CAIRO — The prisoners were stripped and beaten, and their heads were shaved. They slept packed “like sardines” on concrete floors of cells infested with cockroaches. One said that an open wound on his arm was left oozing, that a cellmate suffered a heart attack without getting medical attention, and that another prisoner was 11 years old....[more]

  • Pussy Riot punk on hunger strike over prison 'death threats'
    MOSCOW — Pussy Riot band member Nadezhda Tolokonnikova declared a hunger strike on Monday to protest at death threats and what she described as conditions of slave labour at her Russian prison camp....[more]

  • Venezuela Prison Clash Kills 16 Inmates
    CARACAS—A clash in a prison in northwest Venezuela left 16 inmates dead Tuesday, authorities said, the latest incident in a violent and crowded jailhouse system that regularly grapples with deadly skirmishes....[more]

  • One cell, 50 inmates in Romania; Such conditions spark complaint by jailed S'porean to human rights court, leading to improvements
    Conditions in overcrowded Romanian prisons are improving, after a Singaporean jailed there complained all the way to the European Human Rights Court....[more]

  • UN calls on US to ban prolonged solitary confinements
    New York, Aug 24 : As nearly 200 inmates in California detention centres approach their fifth consecutive week on hunger strike against cruel, inhuman and degrading prison conditions, a United Nations right expert Friday urged the Government of the United States to abolish the use of prolonged or indefinite solitary confinement....[more]

  • Amnesty International concern over Peruvian prisons; Watchdog highlights overcrowding and poor conditions as footage of women shown
    Amnesty International has expressed concern about prison conditions in Peru, where Co Tyrone woman Michaella McCollum Connolly and Melissa Reid, from Scotland, are being held on suspicion of drug trafficking.....[more]

  • Number Of Jail Deaths At Lowest Recorded Level During 2011
    In 2011, 885 inmates died in the custody of local jails, the Justice Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) announced today. This is the lowest number of jail inmate deaths in the 12-year history of the BJS Deaths in Custody Reporting Program (DCRP). The 2011 jail mortality rate was 122 deaths per 100,000 inmates....[more]

  • Prison reform: Seize the moment: Both parties realize that the exploding prison population is unsustainable. Sentencing reform is one step in the right direction.
    The time is right for reform of the badly overcrowded US prison system. The growing cost of incarcerating so many Americans (the United States has 5 percent of the world's population but 25 percent of its prisoners) has pushed even...[more]

  • The inhumanity of solitary confinement
    A hunger strike taking place in the California prison system is an urgent reminder about the horror that is solitary confinement in America. Every day behind prison walls, California and other states are subjecting prisoners to ......[more]

  • TORTURE: REPORT GIVES GRAPHIC DETAILS OF GUANTANAMO FORCE-FEEDING
    WASHINGTON, Jul. 12, 2013 (IPS/GIN) - "Bleeding", "vomiting", "a quarter or even a third" of bodyweight lost, "torture". These are characteristic descriptions from testimony by hunger strikers at the detention centre at Guantanamo Bay of ......[more]

  • Sexual Victimization In Juvenile Facilities Reported By Youth, 2012
    Highlights: An estimated 9.5% of adjudicated youth in state juvenile facilities and state contract facilities (representing 1,720 youth nationwide) reported experiencing one or more incidents of sexual victimization by another youth or staff in the past 12 months or since admission, if less than 12 months. About 2.5% of youth (450 nationwide) reported an incident involving another youth, and 7.7% (1,390) reported an incident involving facility staff. An estimated 3.5% of youth reported having sex or other sexual contact with facility staff as a result of force or other forms of coercion, while 4.7% of youth reported sexual contact with staff...[more]

  • Sexual Abuse in Custody: A Case Law Survey
    Under certain circumstances correctional officers and their supervisors can be subject to civil liability for sexual abuse of inmates and detainees under their care. Liability for sexual abuse can attach whether the abuse was perpetrated by a correctional officer, facility employee or volunteer, or by a fellow inmate or detainee. This document provides an overview of sexual abuse cases in both state and federal courts, focusing on what types of conduct most often result in individual and supervisory liability. It does not address other issues that may arise in sexual abuse litigation, such as exhaustion requirements under the Prison Litigatio...[more]

  • Sexual Victimization in Prisons and Jails Reported by Inmates, 201112
    ANNOTATION: This report present statistics regarding the sexual victimization of prison and jail inmates by other inmates or staff. Sections of this publication cover: highlights; National Inmate Survey; incidents of sexual victimizations; facility-level rates; demographic and other characteristics; special inmate populationsinmates ages 16 to 17; special inmate populationsinmates with mental health problems; and special inmate populationsinmates with a non-heterosexual sexual orientation. Some of the key findings include: 4% of prison inmates and 3.2% of jail inmates reported being sexually victimized; 1.8% of juveniles ages 16 to 17 reporte...[more]

  • Nobody wants to talk about prison rape. Not even the victims
    Tony, an armed robber serving 20 years to life, knew what could happen to snitches, but ...[more]

Prison Life & Culture

Riots, Lockdowns & Escapes

Suicides in Prison

Workplace & Industry News, and Science & Tech News

  • Guest: The havoc of competing for jail contracts
    COMPETITION and the profit motive is the foundation of the American economy, but should it drive the delivery of sensitive government services such as adult detention? For decades, detention policy was pretty simple: Counties operated jails, felons went to county jails, and cities contracted with counties to house their misdemeanants. Some cities operated very small jails but, for the most part, counties provided jail services....[more]

  • Company aims to unlock jail software market with biometric expertise Northern Irish firm breaks into US prison market with new technology for inmates to communicate with family
    Not so long ago, working in the security sector in Northern Ireland could have got you killed, according to Patricia O’Hagan, managing director of Belfast-based Core Systems....[more]

  • Securus Technologies, Inc. and NCIC Inmate Phone Service Strike a Strategic Patent Licensing Agreement
    DALLAS, March 27, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Securus Technologies, Inc., a leading provider of inmate communications services, investigative technologies, corrections/law enforcement/ emergency information technology services, and active global positioning systems (GPS) based offender monitoring devices announced today the execution of a strategic patent licensing agreement with NCIC Inmate Phone Service.

    ...[more]


  • Belfast-designed bio-metric technology is changing the way prisons operate around the world
    Patricia O'Hagan heads up Core Systems which is behind the software which drives security systems in a growing number of jails in the UK and US, and other corners of the world....[more]

  • The Technology Advantage: Using Shoulder-Mounted Cameras Within a Detention Facility
    This article describes how the detention center in Charleston County, South Carolina, came to equip its special operations tactical teams with shoulder-mounted video cameras that record situations as they unfold. Because partner team members each wear a camera, two views are captured of every incident. The recordings have proven to be very helpful in after-action reviews by leadership and for evidentiary purposes....[more]

  • New Research Released on Compact, Low-Cost Body Cavity Screening Device
    Electric field tomography (EFT) was investigated as a method for developing a low-cost, non-invasive body cavity screening device (p. 2). Such a tool will make it easier for correctional agencies to perform cavity searches in a more effective manner. This report describes the successful development of a multi-frequency EFT laboratory prototype system. Sections following an abstract include: executive summary; survey of correctional facilities—contraband items in the corrections environment, the smallest object to be detected, and operational requirements; feasibility study; image reconstruction; multi-frequency image decomposition; prototype ...[more]

  • See-Through-Walls EFT Radar Technology Now Certified for Sale and Operational Use
    “Electric field tomography (EFT) was investigated as a method for developing a low-cost, non-invasive body cavity screening device” (p. 2). Such a tool will make it easier for correctional agencies to perform cavity searches in a more effective manner. This report describes the successful development of a multi-frequency EFT laboratory prototype system. Sections following an abstract include: executive summary; survey of correctional facilities—contraband items in the corrections environment, the smallest object to be detected, and operational requirements; feasibility study; image reconstruction; multi-frequency image decomposition; prototyp...[more]

  • Telmate to Present at FCC Workshop on Reforming Inmate Calling Services Rates
    Telmate, a provider of inmate phone and communications systems, was one of two technology companies invited to present at the Federal Communications Commission hearing on reforming inmate calling services rates....[more]

  • Woman prison officer, 25, 'showed inmate her cleavage and sent him cards and emails during inappropriate relationship'
    Elizabeth Surrey appeared in court accused of misconduct in public office * Charges relate to while she was working at HMP Chelmsford * She allegedly sent cards to prisoner and showed the convict her cleavage...[more]

  • The Impact of Prison Conditions on Staff Well-Being
    The impacts of the work environment on staff well-being and staffs...[more]

  • A Primer on Body-Worn Cameras for Law Enforcement
    ANNOTATION: The field deployment of body-worn camera systems (BWCs) by law enforcement practitioners (e.g., patrol, corrections, SWAT and other tactical responders) offers significant advantages in keeping officers safe, enabling situational awareness and providing evidence for trial To mitigate the lack of procedural or technical standards, the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) Sensor, Surveillance, and Biometric Technologies (SSBT) Center of Excellence (CoE) has prepared a primer to aid in the use of BWCs in law enforcement. This report provides an introduction to BWCs and highlights issues and factors that law enforcement organizations ...[more]

  • Attorney General Eric Holder Announces Improvements to the Public Safety Officers Benefits Program
    Attorney General Eric Holder and Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Justice Programs Mary Lou Leary announced several improvements to the Public Safety Officers Benefits (PSOB) Program following the completion of a comprehensive review of the program ordered by the Attorney General in May 2012. In the coming months, the PSOB office will move to an entirely paperless electronic case management system that will allow claimants to file and monitor the progress of their claims online, in order to improve efficiency, increase timeliness and reduce duplication in its claims administration process. The PSOB claims process will al...[more]

  • Take This Job and Shove It: An Exploratory Study of Turnover Intent among Jail Staff
    ANNOTATION: This article provides valuable information on why jail staff quit their jobs. It looks at the many factors that can influence high employee turnover in jails. Sections following an abstract include: introduction; literature review; methodology; findings; and discussion and conclusion. 'Based on a multivariate analysis, the most powerful predictors of jail staff turnover intent were job attitudes (i.e., job involvement, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment). The findings suggested that administrators should concentrate on improving the work environment to boost employee job involvement, job satisfaction, and organization...[more]


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