Prison

About: Prison is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 25120 publications have been published within this topic receiving 470474 citations. The topic is also known as: jail & gaol.

"back-end sentencing" and reimprisonment: individual, organizational, and community predictors of parole sanctioning decisions*

Abstract: An understudied contributor to the massive growth of American incarceration is an increase in the practice of reimprisoning parolees through parole board revocations—now referred to as “back-end sentencing.” To conduct the analyses outlined in this article, we use data from the California Parole Study to analyze the effects of three clusters of factors (parolees' characteristics, organizational pressures, and community conditions) on these sentences. Our analyses are informed by theories that have been used to explain “front-end” (court) sentences, which center on the focal concerns of social-control agents, labeling, and racial threat. Our results indicate that status characteristics—race/ethnicity and gender—affect the likelihood that criminal parole violators are reimprisoned. Moreover, certain “pivotal categories” of parolees—registered sex offenders and those who have committed “serious” or “violent” offenses—are much more likely to be returned to prison than others. Organizational pressure (prison crowding) also affects the likelihood of reimprisonment. Communities' political punitiveness affects the likelihood that technical violators are reimprisoned and that serious or violent offenders are reimprisoned for criminal violations. In this article, we use these findings to consider ways that mass incarceration is driven by both top-down policies as well as bottom-up organizational and community forces.

A Comparative Recidivism Analysis of Releasees from Private and Public Prisons

Abstract: This research compared the recidivism rates of groups of releasees from privately and publicly operated prisons. The study consisted of 198 male releasees from two private facilities in Florida who were precision matched with releasees from public prisons. Recidivism over one year was measured in alternative ways. The private prison group had lower rates of recidivism. Those released from private prisons who reoffended committed less serious subsequent offenses than did their public prison counterparts. The two groups were similar in how long it took for rearrest or for the first recidivism event to occur.

RACIAL INEQUALITIES IN CONNECTEDNESS TO IMPRISONED INDIVIDUALS IN THE United States

Abstract: In just the last forty years, imprisonment has been transformed from an event experienced by only the most marginalized to a common stage in the life course of American men—especially Black men with low levels of educational attainment. Although much research considers the causes of the prison boom and how the massive uptick in imprisonment has shaped crime rates and the life course of the men who experience imprisonment, in recent years, researchers have gained a keen interest in the spillover effects of mass imprisonment on families, children, and neighborhoods. Unfortunately, although this new wave of research documents the generally harmful effects of having a family member or loved one incarcerated, it remains unclear how much the prison boom shapes social inequality through these spillover effects because we lack precise estimates of the racial inequality in connectedness—through friends, family, and neighbors—to prisoners. Using the 2006 General Social Survey, we fill this pressing research gap by providing national estimates of connectedness to prisoners—defined in this article as knowing someone who is currently imprisoned, having a family member who is currently imprisoned, having someone you trust who is currently imprisoned, or having someone you know from your neighborhood who is currently imprisoned—for Black and White men and women. Most provocatively, we show that 44% of Black women (and 32% of Black men) but only 12% of White women (and 6% of White men) have a family member imprisoned. This means that about one in four women in the United States currently has a family member in prison. Given these high rates of connectedness to prisoners and the vast racial inequality in them, it is likely that mass imprisonment has fundamentally reshaped inequality not only for the adult men for whom imprisonment has become common, but also for their friends and families.

Tortured Confessions: Prisons and Public Recantations in Modern Iran

Abstract: The role of torture in recent Iranian politics is the subject of Ervand Abrahamian's important and disturbing book. Although Iran officially banned torture in the early twentieth century, Abrahamian provides documentation of its use under the Shahs and of the widespread utilization of torture and public confession under the Islamic Republican governments. His study is based on an extensive body of material, including Amnesty International reports, prison literature, and victims' accounts that together give the book a chilling immediacy. According to human rights organizations, Iran has been at the forefront of countries using systematic physical torture in recent years, especially for political prisoners. Is the government's goal to ensure social discipline? To obtain information? Neither seem likely, because torture is kept secret and victims are brutalized until something other than information is obtained: a public confession and ideological recantation. For the victim, whose honor, reputation, and self-respect are destroyed, the act is a form of suicide. In Iran a subject's 'voluntary confession' reaches a huge audience via television. The accessibility of television and use of videotape have made such confessions a primary propaganda tool, says Abrahamian, and because torture is hidden from the public, the victim's confession appears to be self-motivated, increasing its value to the authorities. Abrahamian compares Iran's public recantations to campaigns in Maoist China, Stalinist Russia, and the religious inquisitions of early modern Europe, citing the eerie resemblance in format, language, and imagery. Designed to win the hearts and minds of the masses, such public confessions - now enhanced by technology - continue as a means to legitimize those in power and to demonize 'the enemy'.