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.

Determinate sentencing and abolishing parole: the long‐term impacts on prisons and crime*

Abstract: We estimate the impact of determinate sentencing laws (DSLs) on prison commitments, prison populations, and Uniform Crime Report crime rates. Ten states enacted these laws between 1976 and 1984; all abolished parole and most established presumptive sentences. The research uses a multiple time-series design that, among other benefits, controls for national trends and facilitates the use of control variables. We found that DSLs are clearly associated with prison population growth in only one state, Indiana, and with major reductions in two, Minnesota and Washington. The remaining laws show no evidence of increasing populations and may have reduced them somewhat. The estimated impacts on commitments are similarly varied. There is little or no evidence that DSLs affect crime. Earlier studies evaluating individual DSLs are often criticized for poor research designs, and our findings support the criticisms.

Criminogenic Effects of the Prison Environment on Inmate Behavior: Some Experimental Evidence

Abstract: The current study analyzed a subset of the experimental data collected by Berk, Ladd, Graziano, and Baek (2003) to test whether different intensities of incarceration make inmates more criminal while incarcerated. There were 561 male inmates whose equivalent classification scores indicated they had the same level of risk to commit institutional misconduct at the time they were incarcerated. One half of these inmates were sent to the lowest security-level prisons in California, and the other one half were sent to prisons one step down from the highest security level in California. If prisons are criminogenic, then the probability of misconduct should vary with the security level to which the inmates were assigned. Instead, inmates were equally likely to commit misconduct in prison regardless of whether they were assigned to a Level I (lowest security level) or a Level III prison.

HIV among persons incarcerated in the USA: a review of evolving concepts in testing, treatment, and linkage to community care.

Abstract: Purpose of review—People who are incarcerated have a disproportionately high risk of HIV infection. They also tend to have risk factors associated with under-utilization of antiretroviral therapy such as substance abuse, mental illness, and poor access to care. In this review, we describe how incarceration is a marker of vulnerability for suboptimal HIV care, but also how criminal justice settings may be leveraged as a platform for promoting testing, linkage and retention in HIV care for a high-risk, marginalized population. Recent findings—In both prisons and jails, routine, opt-out HIV testing strategies are more appropriate for screening correctional populations than traditional, risk-based strategies. Rapid HIV testing is feasible and acceptable in busy, urban jail settings. While antiretroviral therapy is successfully administered in many prison settings, release to the community is strongly associated with inconsistent access to medications and other structural factors leading to loss of viral suppression. Summary—Collaborations among HIV clinicians, criminal justice personnel and public health practitioners represent an important strategy for turning the tide on the HIV epidemic. Success will depend upon scaled-up efforts to seek individuals with undiagnosed infection and bring those who are out-of-care into long-term treatment.

The Imprisonment Penalty for Young Black and Hispanic Males: A Crime-Specific Analysis

Abstract: In the United States, there are well-known racial, ethnic, age, and sex differences in incarceration rates. Younger offenders are more likely to be sentenced to prison than are older offenders. Black and Hispanic rates of incarceration are six to eight times that of White offenders and males are 14 times as likely as women to be sentenced to prison. This research explores how the combined effects of race, ethnicity, age, and sex, net of legally relevant factors, influence the decision to incarcerate. We examine these effects across nine offense categories. The analysis is based on Florida felony conviction data for the years 2000 to 2006. We find that legally relevant factors significantly influence the incarceration decision. Young Black males are most disadvantaged at the incarceration decision.