This poignant play, written by current and formerly incarcerated authors, uses gripping truths and soulful dialogue to reveal the human cost of America's for-profit justice system. The story follows Omar, pulled back into the prison system after trying to lift his family out of poverty, who struggles to maintain a sense of humanity while fighting to keep his loved ones close. According to NJ.com, "From institutionalized racism to addiction to the prison-industrial complex, this is a play about a great many large, pressing social challenges, but at its core it is a play about one family and its struggles to remain united as their world steadily crumbles. Impactful, warm, and unrelenting, this play that began as an experiment turns out to be an excellent examination of the human cost of a harsh and inhospitable world." All profits from the book will go to a prison re-entry fund run by The Second Presbyterian Church of Elizabeth, New Jersey to help the playwrights secure housing and continue their schooling upon release.

The first biography of the prison reformer Alexander Paterson (1884-1947). Sir Alexander Paterson (1884-1947) is best remembered for his role as Commissioner of Prisons and as the individual responsible for some of the greatest British innovations in the field of penal practice. All major prison reforms of his day can be associated with his name. One of the key characteristics of Paterson's reform drive was that he brought a much more 'scientific' approach to penology, encouraging psychiatrists and psychologists to work in prison. He was the prime mover behind the rapid expansion and transformation of the Borstal System and the introduction of open prisons, gaining Britain an international reputation for being at the forefront of penal reform. Harry Potter's account is the first biography of Alexander Paterson and it is based on unpublished material from government and family archives. Besides his achievements as prison reformer, Paterson's life encapsulated many trends in English society in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: from the influence of Liberalism and Unitarianism in the industrial heartland of his youth, the Idealist philosophy of Thomas Hill Green at Oxford, to the impact of school and university 'missions' in the dark reaches of London. At Oxford he became friends with Clement Atlee. He also knew the radical Winston Churchill and it was Churchill who in 1910 first appointed him to a leading role in the aftercare of prisoners. Paterson's most formative years were undoubtedly spent living in a slum dwelling in South London when he devoted his time and energy to the Oxford and Bermondsey Medical Mission, one of the university settlements so common at the time - Attlee famously spent years in Hailesbury boys' club and Toynbee Hall in the East End. Paterson went on to publish a best-selling book - Across the Bridges - on his experiences in the South London slums. After a distinguished service in the Great War, Paterson devoted the rest of his life to the prison service at home and to penal reform abroad. Given current debates about prison reform and the general challenges the penal system is facing, revisiting Paterson's life and work will be a timely endeavour. Harry Potter - criminal barrister, historian and former prison chaplain - is ideally suited to write this biography.

San Pedro is Bolivia's most notorious prison. Small-time drug smuggler Thomas McFadden found himself on the inside. Marching Powder is the story of how he navigated this dark world of gangs, drugs and corruption to come out on top. Thomas found himself in a bizarre world, the prison reflecting all that is wrong with South American society. Prisoners have to pay an entrance fee and buy their own cells (the alternative is to sleep outside and die of exposure), prisoners' wives and children often live inside too, high quality cocaine is manufactured and sold from the prison. Thomas ended up making a living by giving backpackers tours of the prison - he became a fixture on the backpacking circuit and was named in the Lonely Planet guide to Bolivia. When he was told that for a bribe of $5000 his sentence could be overturned, it was the many backpackers who'd passed through who sent him the money. Written by lawyer Rusty Young, Marching Powder - sometimes shocking, sometimes funny - is a riveting story of survival.

Texas prosecutors are powerful: in cases where they seek capital punishment, the defendant is sentenced to death over ninety percent of the time. When management professor Hans Hansen joined Texas's newly formed death penalty defense team to rethink their approach, they faced almost insurmountable odds. Yet while Hansen was working with the office, they won seventy of seventy-one cases by changing the narrative for death penalty defense. To date, they have succeeded in preventing well over one hundred executions-demonstrating the importance of changing the narrative to change our world. In this book, Hansen offers readers a powerful model for creating significant organizational, social, and institutional change. He unpacks the lessons of the fight to change capital punishment in Texas-juxtaposing life-and-death decisions with the efforts to achieve a cultural shift at Uber. Hansen reveals how narratives shape our everyday lives and how we can construct new narratives to enact positive change. This narrative change model can be used to transform corporate cultures, improve public services, encourage innovation, craft a brand, or even develop your own leadership. Narrative Change provides an unparalleled window into an innovative model of change while telling powerful stories of a fight against injustice. It reminds us that what matters most for any organization, community, or person is the story we tell about ourselves-and the most effective way to shake things up is by changing the story.

Available Open Access under CC-BY-NC licence Effective participation in court and tribunal hearings is regarded as essential to justice, yet many barriers limit the capacity of defendants, parties and witnesses to participate. Featuring policy analysis, courtroom observations and practitioners' voices, this significant study reveals how participation is supported in the courts and tribunals of England and Wales. Including reflections on changes to the justice system as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, it also details the socio-structural, environmental, procedural, cultural and personal factors which constrain participation. This is an invaluable resource that makes a compelling case for a principled, explicit commitment to supporting participation across the justice system of England and Wales and beyond.

How prisons became economic development strategies for rural Appalachian communities As the United States began the project of mass incarceration, rural communities turned to building prisons as a strategy for economic development. More than 350 prisons have been built in the U.S. since 1980, with certain regions of the country accounting for large shares of this dramatic growth. Central Appalachia is one such region; there are eight prisons alone in Eastern Kentucky. If Kentucky were its own country, it would have the seventh highest incarceration rate in the world. In Coal, Cages, Crisis, Judah Schept takes a closer look at this stunning phenomenon, providing insight into prison growth, jail expansion and rising incarceration rates in America's hinterlands. Drawing on interviews, site visits, and archival research, Schept traces recent prison growth in the region to the rapid decline of its coal industry. He takes us inside this startling transformation occurring in the coalfields, where prisons are often built on top of old coalmines, including mountaintop removal sites, and built into community planning approaches to crises of unemployment, population loss, and declining revenues. By linking prison growth to other sites in this landscape-coal mines, coal waste, landfills, and incinerators-Schept shows that the prison boom has less to do with crime and punishment and much more with the overall extraction, depletion, and waste disposal processes that characterize dominant development strategies for the region. Schept argues that the future of this area now hangs in the balance, detailing recent efforts to oppose its carceral growth. Coal, Cages, Crisis offers invaluable insight into the complex dynamics of mass incarceration that continue to shape Appalachia and the broader United States.

Many people think prisons are all the same-rows of cells filled with violent men who officials rule with an iron fist. Yet, life behind bars varies in incredible ways. In some facilities, prison officials govern with care and attention to prisoners' needs. In others, officials have remarkably little influence on the everyday life of prisoners, sometimes not even providing necessities like food and clean water. Why does prison social order around the world look so remarkably different? In The Puzzle of Prison Order, David Skarbek develops a theory of why prisons and prison life vary so much. He finds that how they're governed-sometimes by the state, and sometimes by the prisoners-matters the most. He investigates life in a wide array of prisons-in Brazil, Bolivia, Norway, a prisoner of war camp, England and Wales, women's prisons in California, and a gay and transgender housing unit in the Los Angeles County Jail-to understand the hierarchy of life on the inside. Drawing on economics and a vast empirical literature on legal systems, Skarbek offers a framework to not only understand why life on the inside varies in such fascinating and novel ways, but also how social order evolves and takes root behind bars.

Using close-up studies of eight prison riots, Resolution of Prison Riots gives readers an inside view of what these events are like. The riots examined include those that grabbed national attention - one in which over 100 hostages were taken and held for 11 days - as well as lesser-known disturbances whose details are equally gripping. The book explores the conditions that precipitate disturbances, the course of events during the disturbances, and the aftermath and recovery on the part of the corrections agencies. At its heart, the book seeks to explain why and how these events occurred. Along the way, the authors explore issues related to conflict management, negotiations, the use of force, and strategies of administrative organization. The analysis offers practical and timely advice for those responsible for preventing and resolving large-scale disorders.

"The text is an incredible composite of the literature that has shaped correctional practice. The authors have a great capacity for making research interesting and accessible. Cullen and Jonson have accomplished their goal of motivating readers to become sophisticated consumers of correctional knowledge." -Betsy Matthews, Eastern Kentucky University The Second Edition of Correctional Theory: Context and Consequences continues to identify and evaluate the major competing theories used to guide the goals, policies, and practices of the correctional system. Authors Francis T. Cullen and Cheryl Lero Jonson demonstrate that changes in theories can legitimize new ways of treating and punishing offenders, and they help readers understand how transformations in the social and political context of U.S. society impact correctional theory and policy. Designed to motivate readers to become sophisticated consumers of correctional information, the book emphasizes the importance of using evidence-based information to guide decisions, rather than relying on nonscientific commonsense or ideology-based beliefs.

In this book Alana Barton explores the social control and disciplining of unruly and 'deviant' women from the early nineteenth century to the present day. Her particular focus is the 'semi penal' institution, a category that includes refuges, reformatories and homes. She suggests that these occupy a unique position within the social control 'continuum', somewhere between the formal regulation of the prison and the informal control of the 'community' or domestic sphere, but at the same time incorporating methods of discipline from both arenas. The book draws on Dr Barton's extensive fieldwork at one such institution, currently a women's bail and probation hostel, which opened as a reformatory in 1823. Barton begins by examining the ideological and social conditions underpinning the creation of this institution, deconstructing the dominant feminising discourses around domesticity, respectability, motherhood, sexuality and pathology that were mobilised to categorise and control its nineteenth-century residents. She goes on to discuss the contemporary experiences of women within the hostel and their strategies for coping with or resisting the disciplinary regimes and discourses imposed upon them. Her analysis reveals that many of the discourses used to characterise and discipline women in reformatories during the nineteenth century continue to be utilised for the same purpose in a probation hostel nearly two hundred years later. She also reveals that the distribution of power in institutions is not fixed, but can be subtly negotiated and redistributed. Concluding with an examination of current developments in community punishments for women, this book will make a significant contribution to the literature around alternatives to custody for female offenders by strongly challenging contemporary debates liberal, critical and feminist around 'appropriate' and relevant penal policy for women.

Throughout much of the western world more and more people are being sent to prison, one of a number of changes inspired by a 'new punitiveness' in penal and political affairs. This book seeks to understand these developments, bringing together leading authorities in the field to provide a wide-ranging analysis of new penal trends, compare the development of differing patterns of punishment across different types of societies, and to provide a range of theoretical analyses and commentaries to help understand their significance. As well as increases in imprisonment this book is also concerned to address a number of other aspects of 'the new punitiveness': firstly, the return of a number of forms of punishment previously thought extinct or inappropriate, such as the return of shaming punishments and chain gangs (in parts of the USA); and secondly, the increasing public involvement in penal affairs and penal development, for example in relation to length of sentences and the California Three Strikes Law, and a growing accreditation of the rights of victims. The book will be essential reading for students seeking to understand trends and theories of punishment on law, criminology, penology and other courses.

What do Russian prisons look like? Who is sent to prison in Russia? How is punishment allocated and administered? This pioneering book aims to answer these and other questions by embarking on a journey that begins by exploring how the prisons have survived the collapse of the USSR, and ends with a discussion of global penal politics. It is the first book to have been written in English on penal practices in the contemporary Russian prison system. Surviving Russian Prisons focuses in particular on the reality of work and labour within Russian prisons, exploring its changing function. From being for much of the twentieth century a major activity as well as an ideological justification for prison regimes, its main function now has been to enable prisoners to survive through participating in a barter economy. In exploring the microworlds of the Russian prison this book at the same time presents new evidence and offers fresh insight into how prisons are governed in societies undergoing turbulent social and political transformation; it explores how current practices in relation to prisoners' work comply with international regulations designed to promote humane containment and positive custody; and debates the nature of knowledge on penal discourse in transitional states.

This book critically explores the world of older prisoners to provide a more nuanced understanding of imprisonment at old age. Through an ethnographical study of male and female older prisoners in two Belgian prison settings, one in which older prisoners are integrated and one in which they are segregated, it informs debates and seeks to recognise ageist discourse, attitudes, practices in prison. The Older Prisoner seeks to situate the older prisoner from both a penological and gerontological perspective, organised around the following broad themes: the construction of the older prisoner, the physical prison world, the social prison world, surviving prison and giving meaning. The book allows readers to navigate between contrasting perspectives and voices rather than reinforcing traditional narratives and prevailing discourses on the older prisoner. In doing so, it hopes to open up a broader dialogue on ageing and punishment. It also offers insights into the concept of meaning in life as an analytical tool to study prisoners.

In contrast to the generally dismal results of various approaches to rehabilitation, these consciousness-based strategies have proven effective in preventing crime and rehabilitating offenders! This book will introduce you to a powerful, unique approach to offender rehabilitation and crime prevention. In contrast to the generally dismal results of most rehabilitation approaches, studies covering periods of 1-15 years indicate that this new approachemploying the Maharishi Transcendental Meditation (R) and TM-Sidhi programsreduces recidivism from 35-50%. Transcendental Meditation (R) in Criminal Rehabilitation and Crime Prevention provides the reader with a theoretical overview, new original research findings, and examples of practical implementation. With this book, you will explore what motivates people to commit crimes, with emphasis on stress and restricted self-development. Then you'll examine the results and policy implications of applying these consciousness-based techniques to offender rehabilitation and crime reduction. Most chapters include tables or figures that make the information easy to understand. Transcendental Meditation (R) in Criminal Rehabilitation and Crime Prevention does not merely review the theory behind this innovative approach to rehabilitation and prevention but also emphasizes the practical value of the programs it describes and reports how techniques and strategies based on Transcendental Meditation (R) have been put to use in a variety of settings. This book will familiarize the reader with: a rehabilitation approach so universal in its applicability that any adult or juvenile offender can begin it at the point of sentencing, during incarceration, or at the point of parole the in-depth background on adult growth and higher states of consciousness necessary to understand this consciousness-based, developmental approach the results of empirical studies conducted in prisons around the country, with up to 15 years of follow-up a preview of how cost-effective the rehabilitation program might be implications for public policy and the judicial systemincluding an innovative alternative sentencing program how this approach deals not only with individuals but also with the community as a wholewhen practiced by a small percentage of the population, the TM and TM-Sidhi programs may reduce crime in the larger community how these society-level prevention programs may prove to be effecitive in reducing not only school violence in the community but, if applied on sufficient scale, war deaths and terrorism in the greater society

In contrast to the generally dismal results of various approaches to rehabilitation, these consciousness-based strategies have proven effective in preventing crime and rehabilitating offenders! This book will introduce you to a powerful, unique approach to offender rehabilitation and crime prevention. In contrast to the generally dismal results of most rehabilitation approaches, studies covering periods of 1-15 years indicate that this new approachemploying the Maharishi Transcendental Meditation (R) and TM-Sidhi programsreduces recidivism from 35-50%. Transcendental Meditation (R) in Criminal Rehabilitation and Crime Prevention provides the reader with a theoretical overview, new original research findings, and examples of practical implementation. With this book, you will explore what motivates people to commit crimes, with emphasis on stress and restricted self-development. Then you'll examine the results and policy implications of applying these consciousness-based techniques to offender rehabilitation and crime reduction. Most chapters include tables or figures that make the information easy to understand. Transcendental Meditation (R) in Criminal Rehabilitation and Crime Prevention does not merely review the theory behind this innovative approach to rehabilitation and prevention but also emphasizes the practical value of the programs it describes and reports how techniques and strategies based on Transcendental Meditation (R) have been put to use in a variety of settings. This book will familiarize the reader with: a rehabilitation approach so universal in its applicability that any adult or juvenile offender can begin it at the point of sentencing, during incarceration, or at the point of parole the in-depth background on adult growth and higher states of consciousness necessary to understand this consciousness-based, developmental approach the results of empirical studies conducted in prisons around the country, with up to 15 years of follow-up a preview of how cost-effective the rehabilitation program might be implications for public policy and the judicial systemincluding an innovative alternative sentencing program how this approach deals not only with individuals but also with the community as a wholewhen practiced by a small percentage of the population, the TM and TM-Sidhi programs may reduce crime in the larger community how these society-level prevention programs may prove to be effecitive in reducing not only school violence in the community but, if applied on sufficient scale, war deaths and terrorism in the greater society

Restorative justice has become an increasingly important element in reform and change to criminal justice systems throughout the western world, and there are many reasons for satisfaction with the progress that has been made --from the point of view of victims, offenders, the level and incidence of reoffending, and in terms of public opinion. At the same time there has been cause for concern, not least to do with the confusion on aims that has accompanied the rapid spread of restorative justice practices, an over-estimate of its possibilities, a blurring of concepts and a lack of attention to legal rights and processes. This book, based on papers presented at the 5th international conference held at Leuven, Belgium in 2002, aims to provide an overview of recent experience of restorative justice in the light of these concerns. The central theme is the positioning, or repositioning, of restorative justice in contexts where it can offer hope to communities both fearful of crime and looking for more socially constructive responses to crime. At the same time restorative justice practitioners seek definition in relation to the kinds of crime it is appropriate to apply restorative justice to, how it relates to different forms of punishment, to rehabilitation, and how it fits in with criminal justice systems and the law of different countries --how to reconcile the informal, participatory philosophy of restorative justice with formal legal processes and the need for legal safeguards.

Winner of the 2021 ESC Book Award. Despite its dramatic proliferation and diversification in recent decades, supervisory forms of punishment in the community (like probation, parole and unpaid work) have been largely invisible in scholarly and public discussion of criminal justice and its development in late-modern societies. The long-standing pre-occupation with the prison, and more recent concerns about 'mass incarceration' have allowed the emergence of 'mass supervision' to remain in the shadows. Pervasive Punishment insists that we remedy this neglect and exemplifies how we can do so. Drawing on thirty years of personal, practice and research experiences, it offers a compelling and rich account of the scale and social distribution of mass supervision, of the processes by which it has been legitimated, and of how it is experienced by those subject to it. Its innovative approach invites readers to look at, listen to and imagine punishment beyond the prison, through the use of innovative and creative methods including photography, song-writing and story-telling to explore and to represent 'mass supervision'. By so doing, this book offers new insights into how and why combining social science and creative practice can help develop a different kind of democratic dialogue about contentious social issues like crime and punishment. Though focused on the UK and the USA, the methods used in and analysis developed in this book will be of interest to scholars, students and practitioners elsewhere.

Shame punishment has existed for perhaps as long as people have been punished, and the issue has been revisited in recent years to help improve crime reduction efforts. In this collection, shame punishment is examined from various critical perspectives, including its relation with expressivism, the diversity of shame punishment used today, the link between shame punishment and restorative justice, the relationship between dignity and shame punishment, shame punishment and its use for sex offenders, and critics of shame punishment in its different incarnations. The selected essays are from leading experts and represent the most important contributions to scholarly research in the field.

Restorative justice has become an increasingly important element in reform and change to criminal justice systems throughout the western world, and there are many reasons for satisfaction with the progress that has been made --from the point of view of victims, offenders, the level and incidence of reoffending, and in terms of public opinion. At the same time there has been cause for concern, not least to do with the confusion on aims that has accompanied the rapid spread of restorative justice practices, an over-estimate of its possibilities, a blurring of concepts and a lack of attention to legal rights and processes. This book, based on papers presented at the 5th international conference held at Leuven, Belgium in 2002, aims to provide an overview of recent experience of restorative justice in the light of these concerns. The central theme is the positioning, or repositioning, of restorative justice in contexts where it can offer hope to communities both fearful of crime and looking for more socially constructive responses to crime. At the same time restorative justice practitioners seek definition in relation to the kinds of crime it is appropriate to apply restorative justice to, how it relates to different forms of punishment, to rehabilitation, and how it fits in with criminal justice systems and the law of different countries --how to reconcile the informal, participatory philosophy of restorative justice with formal legal processes and the need for legal safeguards.

From the Gospel of Matthew to numerous US Supreme Court justices, many literary and legal sources have observed that how a society metes out punishment reveals core truths about its character. The Punitive Imagination is a collection of essays that engages and contributes to debates about the purposes and meanings of punishment in the United States. The Punitive Imagination examines some of the critical assumptions that frame America's approach to punishment. It explores questions such as: What is the place of concern for human dignity in our prevailing ideologies of punishment? Can we justly punish the socially disadvantaged? What assumptions about persons, social institutions, and the ordering of social space provide the basis for American punitiveness? Who, if anyone, can be held responsible for excessively punitive criminal sentences? How does punishment depend on prevailing views of free will, responsibility, desert, blameworthiness? Where/how are those views subject to challenge in our punitive practices? As Sarat posits in his introduction, the way a society punishes demonstrates its commitment to standards of judgment and justice, its distinctive views of blame and responsibility, its understandings of mercy and forgiveness, and its particular ways of responding to evil. He goes on to discuss the history of punishment in the United States and what it reveals about assumptions made about persons that "undergird" the American system of punishment. The five additional contributors to The Punitive Imagination seek to illuminate what American practices of punishment tell us about who we are as a nation. Synthesizing cultural, sociological, philosophical, and legal perspectives, they offer a distinctive take on the meaning of punishment in America. Contributors: Michelle Brown, Stephen P. Garvey, Leo Katz, Caleb Smith and Carol S. Steiker.

This book examines the coercive and legally sanctioned strategies of exclusion and segregation undertaken over the last two centuries in a wide range of contexts. The political and cultural history of this period raises a number of questions about coercive exclusion. The essays in this collection examine why isolation has been such a persistent strategy in liberal and non-liberal nations, in colonial and post-colonial states and why practices of exclusion proliferated over the modern period, precisely when legal and political concepts of 'freedom' were invented. In addition to offering new perspectives on the continuum of medico-penal sites of isolation from the asylum to the penitentiary, Isolation looks at less well-known sites, from leper villages to refugee camps to Native reserves.


eBook available with sample pages: 0203405226

This book offers a unique examination of how violence is situationally induced and reproduced for those inmates living with HIV in a US State prison system. Imprisonment is the only space where Americans have a constitutional right to healthcare but findings from this research suggest that accessing this care and associated welfare benefits requires some degree of violence. This book documents how HIV-positive inmates went about achieving agency through harm to their bodies and social standing to improve their health and wellbeing, in prison and upon re-entry to the community. It focusses on ethnographic research which was carried out in seven penal facilities in New England and comprises of accounts from inmates, prison staff, healthcare providers, ex-offenders, and community social workers. This book speaks to academics interested in prisons, violence, health, and ethnographic research, and to policy makers.

Over much of Africa, crime and insurgency are a serious problem and one in which the distinction between the two is being eroded.A Left without state protection people have sought to preserve their lives and property through vigilante groups and militias that pay scant attention to the law or human rights.A Likewise, the state security forces, under pressure to cut crime and rebel activity, readily discard lawful procedures.A Torture provides them with vital information, whilst extra-judicial executions save the need to go through the prolonged criminal justice system. After a general overview of the role of the rule of law in a democratic society, Bruce Baker provides five case studies that capture the current complex realities and their impact on the new democracies.A The citizen responses considered are vigilantes in East African pastoral economies, The Bakassi Boys an anti-crime group in Nigeria and private policing initiatives in South Africa.A The state responses are those of the Ugandan Defence Forces towards the Lords Resistance Army, the Senegalese army towards the Casamance secessionists and the Mozambique Police response towards criminals.

Throughout the western world public opinion has played an important role in shaping criminal justice policy. At the same time opinion polls repeatedly demonstrate that the public knows little about crime and justice, and holds negative views of the criminal justice system. This book, consisting of chapters from leading authorities in the field, is concerned to address this problem, and draws upon research in a number of different countries to address the issues arising from this state of affairs. Its main aims are:

• to explore the changing and evolving nature of public attitudes to sentencing
• to examine the factors that influence public opinion and to bring together recent international research which has demonstrated ways in which public attitudes can be changed
• to propose specific strategies to respond to the crisis in public confidence in criminal justice.