This book is the only comprehensive analysis of contemporary prison labor in the United States. In it, the author makes the provocative claim that prison labor is best understood as a form of slavery, in which the labor-power of each inmate (though not their person) is owned by the Department of Corrections, and this enslavement is used to extract surplus labor from the inmates, for which no compensation is provided. Other authors have claimed that prison labor is slavery, but no previous study has made a rigorous argument based on a systematic analysis of the flows of surplus labor which take place in the various ways prison slavery is organized in the US prison system, nor has another study systematically examined 'prison household' production, in which inmates produce the goods and services necessary to run the prison, nor does another work discuss state welfare in prisons, and how this affects prison labor. The study is based on empirical findings gathered by the author's direct observation of prison factories in 28 prisons across the country. This book offers new insights into the practice of prison labor, and should be read by all serious students of American society.

What happens inside our prisons? What's Prison For? examines the "incarceration" part of "mass incarceration." What happens inside prisons and jails, where nearly two million Americans are held? Bill Keller, one of America's most accomplished journalists, has spent years immersed in the subject. He argues that the most important role of prisons is preparing incarcerated people to be good neighbors and good citizens when they return to society, as the overwhelming majority will. Keller takes us inside the walls of our prisons, where we meet men and women who have found purpose while in state custody; American corrections officials who have set out to learn from Europe's state-of-the-art prison campuses; a rehab unit within a Pennsylvania prison, dubbed Little Scandinavia, where lifers serve as mentors; a college behind bars in San Quentin; a women's prison that helps imprisoned mothers bond with their children; and Keller's own classroom at Sing Sing. Surprising in its optimism, What's Prison For? is an indispensable guide on how to improve our prison system, and a powerful argument that the status quo is a shameful waste of human potential.

It is imperative that educators, parents, and potential victims be aware of sexual predators, the danger they pose in our society, and the resources available to help prevent this growing epidemic. Written from a police perspective, Sexual Predators Amongst Us examines the problem of sexual predation, how the Internet has contributed to its growth, and how we can protect children and the general public from these offenders.

The book begins by identifying traits and characteristics associated with sexual predation and explaining how the predator "grooms" his victims by gaining their trust. Chapters cover a range of topics related to sexual predation, including child abuse, incest, pedophilia in the clergy, sex trafficking, female sex offenders, and child pornography. The author explains how the Internet through social networking sites provides ample opportunities for sexual predators to entice their victims. He examines rehabilitation issues, describes legislation that has been passed in response to various tragic cases, and discusses sex offender registration.

Maintaining a user-friendly style, the book follows a consistent format, with each chapter containing:

• Quotes from actual victims and predators
• Key words associated with the chapter material and their definitions
• In My Opinion segments, where experts in the fields of health, psychology, law, government, criminal justice, and academia voice their honest and objective opinions regarding sexual predators
• Profiles of male and female sex offenders to help readers identify common traits

The book concludes with recommendations to parents for keeping children safe from online predators. Thought-provoking and direct, it is suitable as a university text as well as a reference for police academies, parents, and schools conducting awareness training courses.

Escape Routes: Contemporary Perspectives on Life After Punishment addresses the reasons why people stop offending, and the processes by which they are rehabilitated or resettled back into the community. Engaging with, and building upon, renewed criminological interest in this area, Escape Routes nevertheless broadens and enlivens the current debate. First, its scope goes beyond a narrowly-defined notion of crime and includes, for example, essays on religious redemption, the lives of ex-war criminals, and the relationship between ethnicity and desistance from crime. Second, contributors to this volume draw upon a number of areas of contemporary research, including urban studies, philosophy, history, religious studies, and ethics, as well as criminology. Examining new theoretical work in the study of desistance and exploring the experiences of a number of groups whose experiences of life after punishment do not usually attract much attention, Escape Routes provides new insights about the processes associated with reform, resettlement and forgiveness. Intended to drive our understanding of life after punishment forward, its rich array of theoretical and substantive papers will be of considerable interest to criminologists, lawyers, and sociologists.

Scholars from several countries discuss alternatives to traditional juvenile justice, detailing theory and practice in methods such as non-intervention, reintegrative shaming, and victim-offender mediation, and looking at criminological, ethical, and legal aspects of such alternatives. Of interest t

This book tells a story of successful prison reform that brought the recidivism rate of prisoners down from 44% to 24%. In the process of this reform, the entire Prison Service was transformed from a custody focused mindset to a rehabilitation centred culture. This change was wrought despite the lack of enthusiasm of the then political leadership.The author describes his personal role in the reform effort, the methodology used to engender change in organizational culture and the struggles for the soul of the prison service and the hearts and minds of all those involved. These include organizations involved in the aftercare of ex-offenders, volunteers who came forward to assist in the efforts and the families and employers of offenders and ex-offenders. The journey ends with the Yellow Ribbon Project that now embodies the rehabilitative efforts for ex-offenders.The Making of Captains of Lives is a personal account of a public sector leader who has helped built a highly efficient prison system in Singapore, providing a strong case study for successful change management and public sector leadership. It will encourage the hearts of all those civil servants who believe in serving their nations and societies by devoting themselves to a worthy cause in their day-to-day work.

First published in 1998. This is Volume VI of the twelve in the Sociology of Youth and Adolescence series and focuses on delinquent subcultures and theories around masculine identification, adolescence and lower-class culture, alienation and illegitimate means. This study is an attempt to explore two questions: (l) Why do delinquent norms, or rules of conduct, develop? (2) What are the conditions which account for the distinctive content of various systems of delinquent norms such as those prescribing violence or theft or drug-use?

Little of what we know about prison comes from the mouths of prisoners, and very few academic accounts of prison life manage to convey some of its most profound and important features: its daily pressures and frustrations, the culture of the wings and landings, and the relationships which shape the everyday experience of being imprisoned. The Prisoner aims to redress this by foregrounding prisoners' own accounts of prison life in what is an original and penetrating edited collection. Each of its chapters explores a particular prisoner sub-group or an important aspect of prisoners' lives, and each is divided into two sections: extended extracts from interviews with prisoners, followed by academic commentary and analysis written by a leading scholar or practitioner. This structure allows prisoners' voices to speak for themselves, while situating what they say in a wider discussion of research, policy and practice. The result is a rich and evocative portrayal of the lived reality of imprisonment and a poignant insight into prisoners' lives. The book aims to bring to life key penological issues and to provide an accessible text for anyone interested in prisons, including students, practitioners and a general audience. It seeks to represent and humanize a group which is often silent in discussions of imprisonment, and to shine a light on a world which is generally hidden from view.

This book seeks to track the origins of sex offender registers, their purpose and the law and policy that underpins them in various parts of the world.

Sex offender registers are not really registers at all but a set of legal requirements that fall automatically on a person convicted or cautioned for a designated sexual offence; the term register is a form of shorthand for these requirements, designed to be a contribution to greater public protection and community safety.

This book provides the first serious and detailed narrative of the conception and implementation of the sex offender registers. It seeks to do so in a clear and easy-to-follow text that will be both informed and critical and will also serve as a resource book for those wanting to make further study of the process of registration and monitoring.

It looks in detail at the practice of implementing registers and considers questions about their effectiveness in monitoring sex offenders and the implications of someone being on a sex offender register. The book examines the legal challenges to registers and monitoring and the position of registrants in the context of human rights and seeks to place registers and monitoring in the wider context of what is being called the surveillance society.

The Registration and Monitoring of Sex Offenders will be key reading for students of criminology and criminal justice, surveillance and human rights and practitioners in criminal justice fields of policing, probation, social work, children 's services, the judiciary, prison work and others.

This book seeks to track the origins of sex offender registers, their purpose and the law and policy that underpins them in various parts of the world.

Sex offender registers are not really registers at all but a set of legal requirements that fall automatically on a person convicted or cautioned for a designated sexual offence; the term register is a form of shorthand for these requirements, designed to be a contribution to greater public protection and community safety.

This book provides the first serious and detailed narrative of the conception and implementation of the sex offender registers. It seeks to do so in a clear and easy-to-follow text that will be both informed and critical and will also serve as a resource book for those wanting to make further study of the process of registration and monitoring.

It looks in detail at the practice of implementing registers and considers questions about their effectiveness in monitoring sex offenders and the implications of someone being on a sex offender register. The book examines the legal challenges to registers and monitoring and the position of registrants in the context of human rights and seeks to place registers and monitoring in the wider context of what is being called the surveillance society.

The Registration and Monitoring of Sex Offenders will be key reading for students of criminology and criminal justice, surveillance and human rights and practitioners in criminal justice fields of policing, probation, social work, children s services, the judiciary, prison work and others.

From boot camps to truancy, the Encyclopedia of Juvenile Justice provides more than 200 up-to-date, concise, and readable entries in a single, authoritative volume. The editors, noted authors of several criminal justice books and editors of the award-winning Encyclopedia of Prisons (Garland, 1997), cover historical and contemporary theories, concepts, and real-world practices of juvenile justice in the United States.

The entries address a broad range of issues and topics, such as alcohol and drug abuse, arson, the death penalty for juveniles, computer and Internet crime, gun violence, gangs, missing children, school violence, teen pregnancy, and delinquency theories. In addition, topics cover society?s response to the problems of juvenile justice, punishments meted out to America?s juvenile offenders, juvenile rehabilitation programs, and well-known researchers and professionals in the field.

• More than 200 articles, written by a stellar collection of academic theorists and real-world practitioners
• Complete review of the complicated juvenile legal and court system, juvenile punishment, rehabilitation efforts, and legislation
• Extensive entries on child and adolescent crimes, pathologies, and problems
• Coverage of psychological, biological, and sociological theories of delinquency, as well as historic "body type" theories
• Addresses such historical topics as the deinstitutionalization movement, the Chicago Area Project, and the Provo Experiment
• Profiles historic theorists and policymakers in juvenile justice
• Includes a special appendix on print and electronic resources on juvenile justice
• Comprehensive index, including a reader?s guide that facilitates browsing and offers easy access to information

Public, academic, school, law/legal, special, and private/corporate

Francesca Biagi-Chai 's book - a translation from the French of Le Cas Landru - tackles the issue of criminal responsibility in the case of serial killers, and other 'mad' people who are nonetheless deemed to be answerable before the law. The author, a Lacanian psychoanalyst and senior psychiatrist in France, with extensive experience working in institutional settings, analyses the logic informing the crimes of famous serial killers. Addressing the Landru case (which was the inspiration for Chaplin's Monsieur Verdoux), as well as those of Pierre Rivi re and Donato Bilancia, Biagi-Chai casts light on the confusion that pervades forensic psychiatry and criminal law as to the distinction between mental illness and madness . She then elaborates the consequences of her argument in a sustained critique of the insanity defence. The book includes a Foreword by the renowned psychoanalyst, Jacques-Alain Miller, and an introduction by the translators on the question of insanity before the law in the US and in the UK, which considers the pertinence of Biagi-Chai 's argument for forensic psychiatry, for criminal law, and for the increasing contemporary focus on the assessment of dangerousness and risk-management strategies in crime control practices.

Prisoners' Rights: Principles and Practice considers prisoners' rights from socio-legal and philosophical perspectives, and assesses the advantages and problems of a rights-based approach to imprisonment. At a time of record levels of imprisonment and projected future expansion of the prison population, this work is timely. The discussion in this book is not confined to a formal legal analysis, although it does include discussion of the developing jurisprudence on prisoners' rights. It offers a socio-legal rather than a purely black letter approach, and focuses on the experience of imprisonment. It draws on perspectives from a range of disciplines to illuminate how prisoners' rights operate in practice. The text also contributes to debates on imprisonment and citizenship, the treatment of women prisoners, and social exclusion. This book will be of interest to both undergraduate and postgraduate students of penology and criminal justice, as well as professionals working within the penal system.

Dangerousness, Risk and the Governance of Serious Sexual and Violent Offenders is a fully up-to-date, comprehensive and user-friendly guide on those offenders who are often assessed as being dangerous. Outlining, evaluating and commenting on specific methods, regimes and strategies for dealing with dangerous offenders throughout each chapter, this book begins by considering what a dangerous offender is and providing a brief historical account of how the label has been used for different types of offender over the last three or four centuries. The book examines sentencing policy in addition to early and current dangerousness legislation, evaluating the available sentences specifically designed for dangerous offenders and assessing their use and appropriateness. The role of risk and risk assessment tools is discussed, considering what risk assessment is, the way in which it works and how over recent times it has become more reliable and valid. It looks at the practical realities of how serious sexual and violent offenders are dealt with by the penal system in England and Wales. Finally, specific offender groups are considered, including female offenders, children and young people and mentally disordered offenders. Each chapter considers whether there are any differences in terms of policy, assessment and management strategies when sentencing and managing each distinct group; and if not whether any such modifications are required. This book will be key reading for students of law, criminology, social policy, psychology and sociology and of interest to criminal justice professionals including the police, prison officers, probation officers, psychologists, lawyers and judges.

At the dawn of the twenty-first century, panic about girls' offending in Britain reached fever pitch. No longer sugar and spice, a 'new breed' of girl, the hedonistic, violent, binge-drinking 'ladette', was reported to have emerged. At the same time, the number of young women entering the youth justice system, including youth custody, increased dramatically. Offending Girls challenges simplistic and demonising popular representations of 'bad' girls and examines what exactly is new about the 'new' offending girl. In the light of enormous social and cultural changes affecting girls' lives, and expectations of them, since previous British research in this area, the book investigates whether popular stereotypes problematising female youthful behaviour resonate with the accounts of criminalised young women themselves, and to what extent they have infiltrated professional youth justice discourse. Through the lens of original detailed qualitative research in two Youth Offending Teams and a Secure Training Centre - the first study of its kind since the 'modernisation' of the youth justice system over a decade ago - Offending Girls questions whether the 'new' youth justice system is delivering justice for girls and young women. It also contends that the panic about an 'unprecedented crime wave' amongst girls is not supported by robust evidence, but that the interventionist thrust which characterises contemporary youth justice has had a particularly pernicious impact on girls. It will be key reading for students and academics working in the areas of criminology, criminal and youth justice, education, gender studies, youth studies, social work, sociology and social policy, as well as youth and criminal justice practitioners and policy-makers.

The Personality of a Child Molester argues two main points. The first is that dreams, without free associations or amplification or knowledge of the dreamer, can shed considerable light upon the essential character structure, psychodynamics, and psychosexual development of such individuals. The second is that the frequency of occurrence of a dream element or theme is a direct measure of the preoccupation with that topic in waking life.

Bell and Hall gather their evidence from a wide assortment of data. Such evidence helps increase our understanding of such people, whose life and self-revelations on first appearance seem to merit this special attention. Interestingly, their study involved little collaboration on the part of the authors. In fact, the authors only met each other two years after the project got underway. At that time they reached an understanding as to how the material would be presented.

They decided to demonstrate child molesters' dream content from a theoretical perspective. The theoretical base provided by Freudian theory was used in this particular study because it seemed to provide the kinds of constructs that could be useful in describing the dreamer's personality. The authors attempt to explain why the dreamer who is a child molester is the sort of person he is, and his dreams are the source of evidence for the explanation presented. This study presented here has been used by behavioral researchers for years in trying to understand the personality of a child molester. It remains as relevant today as when it was initially published.

- explores education in a prison setting from the perspective of the learners themselves. - examines how prisoners conceive their experiences in their own words. - adds further weight to existing 'beyond employability' discourse, which looks at 'other' or 'soft' outcomes of educational experiences in the prison setting.

Norms of Violence: Violent Socialization Processes and the Spillover Effect for Youth Crime explores the degree to which violent socialization processes, both at the macro- and micro-levels, are associated with youth criminal behavior. Based on a quantitative test of an integrated theory of social control and culture of violence, the author argues that violent socialization is a process involving physical violence, exposure to violence, and pro-violent communications. All three dimensions, in combination with national level indicators of violence, contribute to a norm of violence which, at a national-level, spills over into other dimensions of society, including the family environment. This book seeks to answer if violent socialization processes truly control youth behavior. Various quantitative methods are used to demonstrate how violent socialization tends to be more prevalent in nations with indicators of violence compared to nations without such indicators. The spilling over of violence into socialization processes creates a context of violence normalized as a form of social control, which exacerbates youth criminal behavior within pro-violent nations. This book is unique in propelling a more thorough explanation of international youth crime by focusing on both victimization (violent socialization) and offending, rather than arguing solely that victimization is a correlate of youth crime. It provides a reference point for future comparative research offering theoretical explanations for youth crime across different nations and is essential reading for those engaged in youth and juvenile justice efforts and scholars interested in issues surrounding violence, youth, and justice.

When approached by Plenum to put together a volume of social science research on the topic of "youth and justice," I found the interdisciplinary challenge of such a project intriguing. Having spent 2 years as Director of the Law and Social Science Program at the National Science Foundation, I was well aware of the rich diversity of research that could fit within that topic. I also knew that excellent research on youth and justice was coming from different communities of researchers who often were isolated from each other in their respective disciplines as psychologists, sociologists, criminologists, or policy analysts. I saw this project as an opportunity to break down some of this isolation by introducing these researchers-and their work-to each other and to the broader community of social scientists interested in law and justice. There was another gap, or set of gaps, to be bridged as well. The juvenile justice system and the criminal justice system differ in significant ways, and the civil justice system, which is a major venue for issues of youth and justice, is yet another separate world. Few researchers are likely to know the whole picture. For example, a focus on juvenile justice often ignores the extent to which civil justice proceedings shape the lives of young people through divorce, custody, adoption, family preservation policies, and other actions (and vice versa).

Delinquency Theories: Appraisals and applications provides a fulsome and accessible overview of contemporary theories of juvenile delinquency.

The book opens with a comprehensive description of what a theory is, and explains how theories are created in the social sciences. Following on, each subsequent chapter is dedicated to describing an individual theory, broken down and illustrated within four distinct sections. Initially, each chapter tells the tale of a delinquent youth, and from this example a thorough review of the particular theory and related research can be undertaken to explain the youth 's delinquent behaviour. The third and fourth sections of each chapter critically analyze the theories, and provide a straightforward discussion of policy implications of each, thus encouraging readers to evaluate the usefulness of these theories and also to consider the relationship between theory and policy.

This text is an invaluable resource for both undergraduate and graduate students of subjects such as youth justice, delinquency, social theory, and criminology.

Violence by and against youth continues to be one of the most challenging subjects facing criminologists.a In this comprehensive and integrated analysis of the interrelationships of youth violence, violent victimization, and gang membership, Finn-Aage Esbensen, Dana Peterson, Terrance J. Taylor and Adrienne Freng seek to understand what causes youth violence and what can be done about it. Using the results from an inclusive study they conducted of eighth-graders in eleven American cities, the authors examine how the nature, etiology, and intersections of youth violence are structured by both sex and race/ethnicity. a

a

"Youth Violence "is pertinent to juvenile justice policy considerations. The authors frame their discussion within the public health perspective, focusing on risk factors associated with violent behavior. The" "findings address prevalence and incidence, as well as the demographic correlates and cumulative effects of the risk factors associated with engagement in violence.a Ultimately, the theories and research methodologies here are essential for understanding the dynamics of youth violence.aaa

Escape Routes: Contemporary Perspectives on Life After Punishment addresses the reasons why people stop offending, and the processes by which they are rehabilitated or resettled back into the community. Engaging with, and building upon, renewed criminological interest in this area, Escape Routes nevertheless broadens and enlivens the current debate. First, its scope goes beyond a narrowly-defined notion of crime and includes, for example, essays on religious redemption, the lives of ex-war criminals, and the relationship between ethnicity and desistance from crime. Second, contributors to this volume draw upon a number of areas of contemporary research, including urban studies, philosophy, history, religious studies, and ethics, as well as criminology. Examining new theoretical work in the study of desistance and exploring the experiences of a number of groups whose experiences of life after punishment do not usually attract much attention, Escape Routes provides new insights about the processes associated with reform, resettlement and forgiveness. Intended to drive our understanding of life after punishment forward, its rich array of theoretical and substantive papers will be of considerable interest to criminologists, lawyers, and sociologists.

This major new book brings together leading researchers in the field in order to describe and analyse internationally significant theoretical and empirical work on offender supervision, and to address the policy and practice implications of this work within and across jurisdictions. Arising out of the work of the international Collaboration of Researchers for the Effective Development of Offender Supervision (CREDOS), this book examines questions and issues that have arisen both within effectiveness research, and from research on desistance from offending. The book draws out the lessons that can be learned not just about what works?, but about how and why particular practices support desistance in specific jurisdictional, cultural and local contexts.

Key themes addressed in this book include:

• New directions in theory and paradigms for practice
• Staff skills and effective offender supervision
• Different issues and challenges in improving offender supervision
• The role of families, significant others and social networks
• Understanding and supporting compliance within supervision
• Exploring the social, political, organisational and historical contexts of offender supervision

Offender Supervision will be essential reading for academics, undergraduate and postgraduate students, policy makers, managers and practitioners interested in offender supervision.

Few issues attract greater concern and censure than those that surround youth 'gangs'. Paradoxically, youth researchers have conventionally been reluctant to even use the term 'gang' but, more recently, such reluctance has receded. Indeed, it is increasingly claimed that - in particular urban 'territories' - youth gangs are commonplace, some young people are deeply immersed in violence and the carrying and use of weapons (particularly knives and firearms) is routine. Comprizing a series of essays from leading national and international researchers, this book subjects such claims to rigorous critical scrutiny. It provides a challenging and authoritative account of complex questions pertaining to urban youth identities, crime and social order. This book: locates the question of 'gangs' in both historical and contemporary contexts engages a spectrum of theoretical perspectives and analytical positions presents and analyzes cutting-edge empirical research addresses a range of previously neglected questions, including those pertaining to girls, young women and 'gangs'. Youth in Crisis? provides a vital resource for researchers, educators, policy-makers and practitioners with an interest in key questions facing criminology, sociology and social policy.

Few issues attract greater concern and censure than those that surround youth 'gangs'. Paradoxically, youth researchers have conventionally been reluctant to even use the term 'gang' but, more recently, such reluctance has receded. Indeed, it is increasingly claimed that - in particular urban 'territories' - youth gangs are commonplace, some young people are deeply immersed in violence and the carrying and use of weapons (particularly knives and firearms) is routine. Furthermore, populist discourse and media reporting even imply that 'crisis' conditions afflict identifiable groups of young people in urban locales. Alongside such concern and censure, contemporary policy formation and practice developments are placing greater emphasis upon strategies and modes of intervention ostensibly designed to 'break the cycle' and, it is claimed, offset young people's progress towards involvement in 'gang' activity and/or serious organised adult crime. Comprising a series of essays from leading national and international researchers, this book subjects such claims to rigorous critical scrutiny. It provides a challenging and authoritative account of complex questions pertaining to urban youth identities, crime and social order. This book locates the question of 'gangs' in both historical and contemporary contexts. It engages a spectrum of theoretical perspectives and analytical positions. It presents and analyses cutting-edge empirical research. It addresses a range of previously neglected questions, including those pertaining to girls, young women and 'gangs'. The volume provides a vital resource for researchers, educators, policy-makers and practitioners with an interest in key questions facing criminology, sociology and social policy.