Showing papers on "Prison published in 1994"

NOT JUST (ANY) BODY CAN BE A CITIZEN: The Politics of Law, Sexuality and Postcoloniality in Trinidad and Tobago and the Bahamas

Abstract: I am an outlaw in my country of birth: a national; but not a citizen. Born in Trinidad and Tobago on the cusp of anti-colonial nationalist movements there, I was taught that once we pledged our lives to the new nation, 'every creed and race [had] an equal place.' I was taught to believe 'Massa Day Done', that there would be an imminent end to foreign domination. Subsequent governments have not only eclipsed these promises, they have revised the very texms of citizenship to exclude me. No longer equal, I can be brought up on charges of 'serious indecency' under the Sexual Offences Act of 1986, and if convicted, serve a prison term of five years. In the Bahamas, I can be found guilty of the crime of lesbianism and imprisoned for twenty years. In the United States of North America where I now live, I must constantly keep in my possession the immigrant (green) card given me by the American state, marking me 'legal' resident alien; non-national; non-citizen. If I traverse any of the borders of twenty-two states even with green card in hand, I may be conucted of crimes variously defined as 'lewd unnatural; lascinous conduct; deviate sexual intercourse; gross indecency; buggery or crimes against nature' (Robson, 1992: 58). Why has the state marked these sexual inscriptions on my body? Why has the state focused such a repressive and regressive gaze on me and people like me? These are some of the questions I seek to understand in this paper. I wish to use this moment to look back at the state, to reverse, subvert and ultimately demystify that gaze by taking apart these racialized legislative gestures that have naturalized heterosexuality by criminalizing lesbian and other forms of non-procreative sex. It is crucial for us as feminists to understand the ways in which the state deploys power in this domain and the kinds of symbolic boundaries

Prison population growth and crime reduction

Abstract: The impact of state prison populations on crime is typically estimated by applying the lambda, the individual crime rate, of prisoners or arrestees. We outline the problems with this approach, attempt to reanalyze the widely divergent lambdas derived in past research, and make adjustments necessary to use lambdas for estimating the incapacitation impact. The result is an uncertain estimate of 16 to 25 index crimes averted per year per each additional prisoner. We argue that regression analysis can provide a better estimate of the impact of prison population growth. Applying the Granger test to pooled state data over 19 years, we found that prison population growth leads to lower crime rates but that crime rate changes have little or no short-term impact on prison population growth. Next we regressed crime rates on prison population and conclude that, on average, at least 17 index crimes are averted per additional prisoner. The impact is limited mainly to property crime.

The effect of criminal conviction on income and the trust `reposed in the workmen'

Abstract: Using panel data on federal offenders we examine the effects of conviction on offenders' employment and income. First-time conviction reduces employment probabilities by 5 percentage points and has a significantly depressing effect on income (as much as -30 percent), especially for offenders whose pre-conviction jobs apparently require trust or who are sent to prison. Significant conviction effects on income are large compared with state-imposed penalties.

Bentham's prison : a study of the panopticon penitentiary

Abstract: Jeremy Bentham and the origins of the panopticon "A View of the Hard Labour Bill" and the Penitentiary Act of 1779 John Howard and the origins of the panopticon the first phase 1786-1793 proposal and contract I proposal and contract II the Panopticon Bill of 1794 Hanging Wood and Tothill Fields a picture of a treasury the final failure plans, visions and utopia. Appendix: History of the War Between Jeremy Bentham and George III by One of the Belligerents".

Outbreak of Multi-Drug-resistant Tuberculosis in a New York State Prison, 1991

Abstract: In the summer of 1991, four inmates from prison A in Upstate New York died of multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis. To determine the extent of resistant tuberculosis at prison A and transmission patterns, the authors interviewed staff and reviewed medical records and inmate movement histories. Contact investigation results were examined to determine tuberculin skin test conversions and to estimate risk of infection and disease for inmates who were seropositive for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Eight HIV-positive inmates and one HIV-negative guard, who was immunocompromised with cancer, had multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis. Eight died, a median of 28 days after the first culture-positive specimen was collected. All isolates had identical seven-drug resistance and DNA fingerprint patterns. Of exposed inmates, 92 out of 306 (30%) had skin test conversions. HIV infection was not associated with becoming infected with drug-resistant tuberculosis (active disease or skin test conversion), but once infected, HIV-positive inmates were significantly more likely to develop disease than were HIV-negative inmates (p < 0.001). The source case transferred to prison A in February 1991, was ill with undiagnosed multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis, refused medical care, and lived in the general prison population, where he transmitted the disease to other inmates. Lapses in infection control and laboratory delays contributed to this outbreak. Prisons should fully implement infection control guidelines to prevent tuberculosis transmission.

Psychiatric disorder in women serving a prison sentence

Abstract: The paper describes a case-note and interview study of a cross-sectional sample comprising 25% of all women serving a prison sentence in England and Wales. A 5% sample of the male sentenced prison population was used for comparison. Diagnoses were assigned on clinical grounds and an assessment was made of the treatment needs of all 'cases'. The prevalence of psychosis, around 2%, was similar in the two groups but women had higher rates of mental handicap (6% v. 2%), personality disorder (18% v. 10%), neurosis (18% v. 10%) and substance abuse (26% v. 12%). There is a need for closer links between the NHS and prison health services. Women's prisons lack a therapeutic community of the Grendon type, which may be of benefit to a substantial minority of inmates.

Perceptions of punishment : inmates and staff rank the severity of prison versus intermediate sanctions

Abstract: Proponents of the newer intermediate sanctions argue that there are “equivalencies” of punishment between community-based and prison sentences and that, at some level of intensity, community-based programs have roughly the same punitive “bite.” There is little research, however, on the relative severity of intensive supervision in comparison to other sanctions. This study was designed to examine how offenders and staff in Minnesota rank the severity of various criminal sanctions and which particular sanctions they judge equivalent in punitiveness. In addition, we explored how both groups rank the difficulty of commonly imposed probation conditions and which offender background characteristics are associated with perceptions of sanction severity. Our results suggest that there are intermediate sanctions that equate, in terms of punitiveness, with prison. For example, inmates viewed 1 year in prison as “equivalent” in severity to 3 years of intensive probation supervision or 1 year in jail, and they viewed ...

Reframing Gerontological Thought and Practice: The Case of Grandmothers With Daughters in Prison

Abstract: Attention to the lives of some of the nation's neediest older persons, grandmothers with daughters in prison, requires serious reconsideration of certain gerontological foci and assumptions. With data from such grandmothers, this article illustrates the need to transcend "either-or" arguments around age as a master status; to highlight the absence of the middle generation in a growing number of families; and to question the anti-family premises of the generational equity debate. It concludes with recommendations for how researchers and advocates could enhance their commitment to the neediest among the older population by revising the models that underlie policies and programs and reframing service orientations accordingly.

A Large-Scale Multidimensional Test of the Effect of Prison Education Programs on Offenders' Behavior:

Abstract: This study examined the prison behavior and postrelease recidivism of more than 14,000 inmates released from Texas prisons in 1991 and 1992. Comparisons were made between participants and nonpartic...

HIV prevention in prisons and jails: obstacles and opportunities.

Abstract: High rates of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) infection among jail and prison inmates suggest that HIV prevention efforts should focus on incarcerated populations. Overcrowding, the high prevalence of injection drug use, and other high-risk behaviors among inmates create a prime opportunity for public health officials to affect the course of the HIV epidemic if they can remedy these problems. Yet, along with the opportunity, there are certain obstacles that correctional institutions present to public health efforts. The various jurisdictions have differing approaches to HIV prevention and control. Whether testing should be mandatory or voluntary, whether housing should be integrated or segregated by HIV serostatus, and whether condoms, bleach, or clean needles should be made available to the prisoners, are questions hotly debated by public health and correctional officials. Even accurate assessment of risk-taking within the institutions leads to controversy, as asking questions could imply acceptance of the very behaviors correctional officials are trying to prevent. Education and risk-reduction counseling are the least controversial and most widely employed modes of prevention, but the effectiveness of current prevention efforts in reducing HIV transmission in this high-risk population is largely undetermined.

A Comparison of Programming for Women and Men in U.S. Prisons in the 1980s

Abstract: This article examines programming for women in U.S. prisons in the 1980s, a decade marked by an increased number of incarcerated women and by court pressure to correct biases in programming. Data from a census of facilities and a sample of inmates reveal that regardless of gender, the prison experience does little to overcome marginalization from the workforce and leaves many who have history of drug abuse, or who are parents, untouched by relevant programming. Moreover, gender stereotypes shape the nature of the work and vocational training, and women disproportionately receive psychotropic drugs for mental health treatment.

Can Prisons be Legitimate?: Penal Politics, Privatization and the Timeliness of an Old Idea

Abstract: This paper seeks to follow some of the twists and turns of recent penal discourse, especially those official rhetorics which support the marketization of the system as a principal means of addressing its problems I contend that there is a deeply vexed, but generally unarticulated, problem that haunts most discussions of prisons, prison disorders, and other aspects of penal politics, whether these spring from 'official' or 'radical' perspectives This is what has long been known to sociologists and political theorists as the problem of legitimacy It is a problem whose practical, theoretical, and normative dimensions need to be much more carefully and patiently examined than is currently usual in penal debates I want to suggest that in pausing to consider the problem of legitimacy directly, rather than obliquely and implicitly as is more often done, we may be able to organize and attain a critical point of purchase upon a number of otherwise confusing and apparently discrete recent developments Indeed, just as some commentators propose that legitimacy can rightly be seen as the central problem of political theory (see Beetham 1991: 41, revising Weber (1991) and Habermas (1976)), so I hope to show that it can provide an organizing idea in penal politics, in terms of which both the coherence and justifiability of particular practices and the adequacy of critical and reforming stances upon them can be considered In particular I want to try to assess the claim embedded in the rhetorics favouring privatization (or contracting out, or proprietary prisons, as the various locutions have it) to have answered many of the key legitimation problems of modern penal systems I will argue that in fact such concerns are more often evaded or suppressed than answered, and that the arguments over the justification of any practice of imprisonment (private or otherwise) need to be more strenuously pursued than contemporary rhetorics allow

The Training of Pets as Therapy Dogs in a Women's Prison: A Pilot Study

Abstract: A Pets as Therapy [PAT] program was initiated in a women's prison to train companion dogs for the elderly and individuals with disabilities. The effect on the trainers was studied using an established depression scale and a self-esteem inventory. Results showed significant group changes in both these areas.

Measuring prison disciplinary problems: A multiple indicators approach to understanding prison adjustment

Abstract: This article examines the validity of alternative indicators of prison adjustment. The analysis compares four types of adjustment measures (e.g., official disciplinary citations, staff assessments, inmate survey measures, and inmate interview measures), which provide multiple measures of 1) aggressive behaviors, 2) insubordination, 3) drug and alcohol use, and 4) victimizations. Data were collected in a low-maximum security federal penitentiary for males. The multiple indicators analysis revealed agreement among measures of insubordination. For other measures, staff data tended to agree with official data, and self-report survey measures tended to agree with the interview measures. Bivariate and multivariate analysis showed that the effects of psychological, demographic, and criminal record variables on prison adjustment varied substantially across criterion measures.

Sentencing and unwarranted disparity: an empirical assessment of the long‐term impact of sentencing guidelines in minnesota*

Abstract: Using an interrupted time-series design, this research note analyzes the long-term effect of Minnesota's sentencing guidelines on reducing unwarranted disparity in sentencing outcomes that fall within their scope of authority. Unwarranted disparity is defined as residual variation not attributable to legally mandated sentencing factors. Findings suggest that although the sentencing guidelines initially reduced disparity for the no prison/prison sentencing decision, inequality began to revert to preguideline levels as time passed. Further analysis revealed that the guidelines had a permanent impact on reducing disparities in decisions on the length of prison sentence. Overall we observed an 18% decline in disparity for the no prison/prison outcome and a 60% reduction in inequality for the judicial decision as to length of prison sentence. Two explanations for the reversionary trend in the no prison/prison series are highlighted.

How frequently do false confessions occur? an empirical study among prison inmates

Abstract: In this study all offenders admitted to Icelandic prisons over a one year period were approached and 229 (95%) agreed to co-operate with the study. Twenty-seven (12%) of the 229 subjects claimed to...

Suicide amongst women prisoners

Abstract: The rate of suicide amongst women prisoners is seriously underestimated. The relatively small numbers of women in prison often leads to the neglect of their specific needs and concern. Their suicide rate in prison has been increasing. Women prisoners talk about family and child-care concern more often than male prisoners do. There may also be other reasons for their greater vulnerability in prison. It may be that the fact of imprisonment has a different and more specific impact on women than upon men. The subjective, qualitative aspects of the prison experience are rarely investigated. As a result, the pains of imprisonment are tragically underestimated.

Gender Theory and Prison Sociology: Using Theories of Masculinities to Interpret the Sociology of Prisons for Men

Abstract: This article attempts to show that theories of masculinities bring a useful framework to the study of men in prison. Two main aspects of classic prison sociology are explored in terms of theories of masculinities. It is first suggested that the concept of solidarity and an unwritten code between prison inmates is similar to the male bonding described in other forms of fratriarchies, such as shopfloor cultures. It is then suggested that the hierarchies among men in prison described by prison sociologists are directly related to, and perhaps a function of, the power relations of hegemonic masculinity. This paper is not intended to offer a complete analysis of the application of theories of masculinities to prison sociology; rather, the intention is to suggest the potentials of the former to add to interpretions of the latter.

Aging in Prison: A Case Study of New Elderly Offenders

Abstract: This exploratory study focuses on the experience of aging in prison among those classified as the new elderly offenders. Using a case study approach, in-depth interviews were conducted in the summer of 1992 at a maximum-security reception center in the Southeast. The sample consisted of 25 new elderly offenders, with a mean age of 68 years. Major variables assessed in the study include personal background and family life, criminal activities, physical health, and strategies for coping with prison life. It was found that the new elderly offender's initial reaction to incarceration later in life was often characterized by family conflict, depression, thoughts of suicide, and a fear of dying in prison. Findings from this research present evidence that prison programs should be expanded to accommodate the needs of this older offender subgroup.

Benevolent Repression: Social Control and the American Reformatory-Prison Movement

Abstract: The opening, in 1876, of the Elmira Reformatory marked the birth of the American adult reformatory movement and the introduction of a new approach to crime and the treatment of criminals. Hailed as a reform panacea and the humane solution to America's ongoing crisis of crime and social disorder, Elmira sparked an ideological revolution. Repression and punishment were supposedly out. Academic and vocational education, military drill, indeterminate sentencing and parole--"benevolent reform"--were now considered instrumental to instilling in prisoners a respect for God, law, and capitalism. Not so, says Al Pisciotta, in this highly original, startling, and revealing work. Drawing upon previously unexamined sources from over a half-dozen states and a decade of research, Pisciotta explodes the myth that Elmira and other institutions of "the new penology" represented a significant advance in the treatment of criminals and youthful offenders. The much-touted programs failed to achieve their goals; instead, prisoners, under Superintendent Zebulon Brockway, considered the Father of American Corrections, were whipped with rubber hoses and two-foot leather straps, restricted to bread and water in dark dungeons during months of solitary confinement, and brutally subjected to a wide range of other draconian psychological and physical abuses intended to pound them into submission. Escapes, riots, violence, drugs, suicide, arson, and rape were the order of the day in these prisons, hardly conducive to the transformation of "dangerous criminal classes into Christian gentleman," as was claimed. Reflecting the racism and sexism in the social order in general, the new penology also legitimized the repression of the lower classes. Highlighting the disparity between promise and practice in America's prisons, Pisciotta draws on seven inmate case histories to illustrate convincingly that the "March of Progress" was nothing more than a reversion to the ways of old. In short, the adult reformatory movement promised benevolent reform but delivered benevolent repression--a pattern that continues to this day. A vital contribution to the history of crime, corrections, and criminal justice, this book will also have a major impact on our thinking about contemporary corrections and issues surrounding crime, punishment, and social control.

The Book Of Acts And Paul In Roman Custody

Abstract: This volume provides a unique opportunity not only to learn about the custodial system of the Graeco-Roman world, but to better view Paul's persona and Christian mission as well. Brian Rapske's outstanding study shows Luke himself to be an ardent helper of Paul the missionary prisoner. "The author has produced an invaluable resource for both Acts and Pauline scholars, having placed the prison narratives of Paul in both their cultural and literary settings. The footnotes alone demonstrate the wealth of socio-cultural knowledge that Rapske brings to his reading of the Acts account as well as his understanding of the Pauline missions via-a-vis his suffering in prison." - Journal for the Study of the New Testament

The Politics of Law and Order

Abstract: We're Number One! Every politician running for office in the November elections recognized that law and order demagoguery was the ticket to success. Though the Republicans proved themselves tougher and nastier than Bill Clinton's New Democrats, as far as criminal justice policies are concerned it made little difference which party triumphed.(1) By 1992, the traditional liberal agenda on crime - prevention, community development, mediation, rehabilitation, and abolition of the death penalty - had, like liberalism itself, disappeared from official political discourse. Meanwhile, given the current rash to retribution, you wouldn't know that people's safety is unrelated to the number of police or severity of punishment; or that most crime is not even reported to the police; or that the overall crime rate has gone down over the last 20 years. The rates for murder and rape are high, but are about the same as they were in the early 1970s; other crimes of violence, such as robbery and assault, have declined and youth violence is a small and decreasing part of serious crime in the United States.(2) Yet a moral panic about crime and lawlessness is in full swing throughout the country, from Puerto Rico, where the National Guard is called upon to police housing projects, to the beaches of southern California, where curfews are imposed to prevent gang violence (Navarro, 1994: 6; Rimer, 1994: 1). Legislators at every level of government are in fierce competition to prove their devotion to criminalization and punishment. Congress recently passed a $30.2 billion crime bill that will fund 100,000 new police and $8.8 billion in prison construction. The new Congress is likely to toughen this essentially right-wing bill by eliminating its token social programs, adding new restrictions on death-row appeals and trying to weaken what remains of constitutional restraints on the police (New York Times, 1994: 10). Variants of "three strikes and you're out," which mandates life imprisonment for prisoners convicted of a third felony, operate now in more than 30 states (Rohter, 1994: 1). California will require at least 20 new prisons to meet the provisions of its three strikes initiative and some 600 other bills that are waiting in line before the legislature's Public Safety Committee (Chavez, 1994: 1). Florida's legislature is also awash in crime bills, including proposals to reduce the age of execution to 14 and to fine welfare mothers for their kids' crimes (Rohter, 1994: 10). To avoid any accusation of being soft on crime, New York and Ohio are reducing and eliminating recreational programs in prison, while Mississippi is the first state to put convicts back in striped uniforms (Nossiter, 1994: 1). At the local level, budget-strapped city councils and boards of supervisors are cutting schools and other public services in order to maintain or expand their police and sheriffs departments. They, too, are hard at work expanding the justice net through legislation that criminalizes "aggressive panhandling" and crams already overcrowded jails with the homeless and chronically unemployed, quite similar in conception and impact to the English Poor Laws that filled workhouses with "sturdy beggars" some 400 years ago. When it comes to biggest and best, you cannot beat the U.S. criminal justice system - 14 million arrests annually; more than 1.7 million employed as police, guards, and other functionaries at a total cost to taxpayers of about $74 billion (or about three times as much as the economic relief allotted to 4.5 million families on AFDC); 1.5 million incarcerated, including 3,000 prisoners stacked up in a waiting pattern on death row. By 1993, almost five million people in this country were under some kind of correctional supervision (jail, prison, probation, and parole) and there are no signs indmcating that the trend is abating. On the contrary, about the only debate you can hear in the corridors of power these days is whether the victims of execution should be electrocuted, gassed, drugged, or shot to death (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1994; Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1993: 2, 23, 422; Butterfield, 1992: E4; Rothman, 1994: 34-38). …

Prison Crowding Research Reexamined

Abstract: This article reviews prison crowding research. In the first section, the legal, political, and social context of prison crowding is evaluated. The second section explores the relationship between crowding and violence. It is argued that most prison crowding studies do not investigate intervening mechanisms that may account for a relationship between crowding and violence, if and when a relationship is found. Furthermore, it is suggested that one reason for the inconsistency in the results of such studies is that researchers have failed to examine the proximal causes of violence as well as the formal mechanisms prison administrators use to control or limit violence. In the third section, I reexamine the evidence on the most consistent finding in the crowding and health area, that dormitories are associated with higher illness reporting rates than are other types of housing. I conclude that this finding is probably an artifact of selection bias. Furthermore, illness reporting is the result of a complex set ...

CROSS-NATIONAL IMPRISONMENT RATESLimitations of Method and Possible Conclusions

Abstract: Prison use is universally held to vary massively across countries (see e.g., Wilkins 1991). Such differences have attracted a range of explanations, from the notion that prison capacity drives prison use (see Blumstein et al. 1983 for a review and critique), to the notion that tolerance of inequality manifests itself in both income distribution and prison use (see Young 1986 for a review). Cross-national comparisons of prison use are common in political debate on penal issues, usually to shame an administration into changed practice. However, the limits and meaning of such variations in use are not well understood. In particular, the rate of imprisonment per head of population has gained the status of the conventionally accepted form of presentation without having received the appropriate analytic attention. As Young (in press) notes, 'Cross national comparisons of prison rates are commonplace not only in the academic literature but also in political and popular debate on penal issues, particularly as a platform for lobbying on penal reform and the development of so-called "alternatives to custody".' Yet the study of comparative prison use is fraught with possibilities for misinterpretation. Those few studies which make national comparisons with an appropriate degree of circumspection yield results which are counter-intuitive. To take one example, the United States is usually characterized as being particularly heavy in its use of imprisonment. However Lynch (1987) makes estimates of'the likelihood that a person arrested for robbery, burglary or theft in the United States, Canada, England, or the Federal Republic of Germany . . . will eventually be sentenced to imprisonment. When these arrest-based imprisonment rates are compared, the difference between the United States and the other countries in the use of imprisonment largely disappears' (p. 1).

Pre-prison writings

Abstract: 1. On Marx 2. The new order 3. Socialism and fascism 4. The construction of the Italian Communist Party.

Disparity in the Discipline of Male and Female Inmates in Texas Prisons

Abstract: This study examines disciplinary practices in the two prisons housing all of Texas' female inmates. These practices are compared to those found in the Texas prison for males where, on relevant demographic and criminal history characteristics, the population most closely matches the female prisoners. Findings: women are more often cited for rule violations than men; most citations received by women are less than serious, but women are punished more severely; and certain rules are scrupulously enforced in women's institutions but ignored in men's. The study reveals two distinct institutional forms of surveillance and control. Differences in disciplinary practices at these institutions are best understood as a function of gender-specific interpretation and application of state-wide correctional policy.

A criminological and psychiatric survey of women serving a prison sentence

Abstract: The re-building of Holloway prison in the 1970s was based on the assumption that women in prison have high rates ofpsychiatric disorder. Criticism of Holloway was often directed at the unwarranted medicalization of women's criminality and contemporary evidence provided only limited support for the notion that women in prison had higher levels of psychiatric disorder than men. Interpretation of research findings was difficult because none of the studies applied the same methods to comparable groups of women and men in prison. This paper describes a case-note and interview study of a representative, cross-sectional sample comprising 25 per cent of all women serving a prison sentence in England and Wales. A 5 per cent sample of the male sentenced prison population was used for comparison purposes. An assessment was made of the treatment needs, if any, of all women given a diagnosis. The prevalence of psychosis was approximately 2 per cent in both groups. Women had a higher prevalence of mental handicap ilearning difficulties (6 per cent compared to 2 per cent in men), personality disorder ( 18per cent v 10 per cent), neurotic disorders ( 18per cent v 10per cent), and substance abuse (26 per cent v 12 per cent). Despite higher percentage rates for some disorders, women are outnumbered by men in all diagnostic categories. Female and male prisoners with psychosis share many characteristics that make alternative placements difficult, including chronicity, non-compliance with treatment, and recidivism. As the number of women requiring transfer to hospital is small, they could be accommodated by the health service without any significant increase in bed numbers but most had a history of rejection by local psychiatric facilities, suggesting that they would require a specialized service. Whilst in custody, women make greater demands on prison health services, mainly because of higher rates of personality disorder, substance abuse, and neurosis. The Criminal Justice Act 1991 may help some of these women by providing a greater range of non-custodial services but there is also a need to increase the availability of treatment services for some groups of prisoners, particularly those with drug or personality problems.