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.

Gender, Race, and Sentencing

Abstract: Race and gender pose empirical and policy problems that are both similar and different for the U S criminal justice system They are similar in that blacks and women occupy subordinate social and economic positions in American life, and their interests are less likely to be represented in the justice system than are those of white men They are different in that blacks are overrepresented in arrest statistics and jail and prison populations while women are underrepresented If over- (or under-) representation is assumed to result from similar effects of bias and subordination, the two patterns are hard to explain The empirical literature on criminal courts reveals policy dilemmas in achieving "just" sentencing practices Blacks (and especially black men) may be more likely than white men or women to benefit from tightly limited discretion and limited individualization of sentencing whereas women (both black and white) may be more likely to benefit from broader discretion and greater individualization

Rates of sexual victimization in prison for inmates with and without mental disorders.

Abstract: Objective: This study estimated the rates of sexual victimization among prison inmates with and without a mental disorder. Methods: The study sampled inmates aged 18 or older in 13 prisons within a single mid-Atlantic state prison system (12 facilities for men and one for women). A total of 7,528 inmates completed the survey instrument, which was administered by audio-computer-assisted technology. Of the 6,964 male respondents, 58.5% were African American, 16.2% were non-Hispanic white, 19.8% were Hispanic, and 5.5% were of another race or ethnicity. Of the 564 female respondents, 48.4% were African American, 30.9% were non-Hispanic white, 14.4% were Hispanic, and 7.3% were of another race or ethnicity. Mental disorder was based on self-reported previous mental health treatment for particular mental disorders. Sexual victimization was measured by using questions adapted from the National Violence Against Women and Men surveys. Results: Approximately one in 12 male inmates with a mental disorder reported at least one incident of sexual victimization by another inmate over a six-month period, compared with one in 33 male inmates without a mental disorder. Among those with a mental disorder, sexual victimization was three times as high among female inmates (23.4%) as among male inmates (8.3%). African-American and Hispanic inmates with a mental disorder, independent of gender, reported higher rates of sexual victimization than their non-Hispanic white counterparts. Conclusions: Prisons are hazardous places. Steps must be taken to protect inmates from predators inside prison, to screen them for posttraumatic stress disorder, to provide trauma-related treatment, and to keep them safe. (Psychiatric Services 58:1087–1094, 2007)

The Transformation of America’s Penal Order: A Historicized Political Sociology of Punishment1

Abstract: Comparative historical methods are used to explain the transformation of the US penal order in the second half of the 20th century The analysis of multiple state-level case studies and national-level narratives suggests that this transformation has three distinct, but interconnected, historical periods and reveals that the complex interaction between national and state-level politics and policy helps explain the growth in imprisonment between 1970 and 2001 Specifically, over time, national political competition, federal crime control policy, and federal court decisions helped create new state-level political innovation and special interest groups that compelled lawmakers to increasingly define the crime problem as a lack of punishment and to respond by putting more people in prison for longer periods of time In turn, state-level developments facilitated increasingly radical crime control politics and policies at the national level that reflected historical traditions found in Sun Belt states

The Politics of Punishment: Evaluating Political Explanations of Incarceration Rates

Abstract: Why have incarceration rates dramatically increased even as crime rates have remained stable or even declined? This is a question of considerable policy and theoretical relevance that currently has no satisfactory answer. I attempt to address this question by examining the key political explanations of prison populations and the unit of analysis and data limitation obstacles that make it difficult to conduct a comprehensive empirical analysis of these frameworks. I address these issues and undertake such an analysis using a pooled state-level analysis covering the years 1980–1995. Results suggest that the growth in prison populations has little to do with changes in crime rates or government response to citizen attitudes. Instead it is the most basic elements of the political environment (partisanship and elections) and the continuing legacy of racial social cleavages that explain why incarceration rates have increased.