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Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Crime & criminology > Penology & punishment
This edited volume presents research about life in prison for women, discussing both incarcerated women and those working in prisons. It addresses women's paths through the criminal justice system from sentencing through post-incarceration and reintegration into society, highlighting the differences in women's experience of prison compared to their male counterparts and noting both the positive and negative changes implemented for women behind bars. Covering research on stigma, pop culture, motherhood, sexuality and gender, access to healthcare, vocational training, and educational opportunities, this text takes both a local and international view. Women and Prison is a comprehensive volume suitable for criminal justice researchers, mental health professionals, students of criminology, women's studies, sociology and those seeking a career in corrections.
This book illustrates the importance of conflicting narratives in understanding and dealing with crime, based on a variety of cutting-edge research. Offenders tell stories about crime and punishment, as do policemen, judges and defence lawyers, but so do politicians and the media. Each tells them very differently and only some stories are believed, while others are rejected as implausible leading to conflict. This book explores how these conflicts are carried out and what relationships exist between (often unquestioned) master narratives and (sometimes loud, sometimes silent) counter-narratives? These are questions of central importance for criminology which have thus far received little attention. This edited collection is international and interdisciplinary in scope, providing empirical insights from such diverse contexts as (social) media, newspapers, comics, police interrogations, social and criminal justice settings, and museum exhibitions. By including contributions from a wide spectrum of academic disciplines and using different methodological approaches, it is of particular interest to students and researchers in criminology and sociology, as well as to scholars of socio-legal studies.
This book examines the extraordinary nature of the power of preventive detention, which permits executive dispensation of the personal liberty of an individual on the mere apprehension that, if free and unfettered, he may commit acts prejudicial to national security or public order. In light of the extraordinary scope of this power, it, therefore, contends that the scope of the power should be confined to genuine emergencies threatening the life of the nation. Against the above background, this book sheds light on the fact that Article 149 of the Federal Constitution of Malaysia empowers the Parliament to enact preventive detention laws authorizing the executive branch of government to preventively detain individuals without the precondition of an emergency. Furthermore, the Constitution does not stipulate adequate safeguards for mitigating the harshness of preventive detention laws. This book makes it manifestly evident that the weaknesses of the constitutional provisions concerning preventive detention have enabled succeeding generations of executives in Malaysia to not only enact a series of preventive detention statues for arrogating to themselves wide powers concerning preventive detention but also to rely on them for arbitrarily detaining their political adversaries. Consequently, on the basis of this analysis, this book puts forward concrete recommendations for insertion in the Constitution detailed norms providing for legal limits on the wide power of the executive concerning preventive detention. The insertion of such norms would ensure the maintenance of a delicate balance between protecting national interests and, simultaneously, observing respect for an individual's right to protection from arbitrary deprivation of liberty.This book is useful for academics and students of comparative constitutional law, human rights and Asian law. The extensive law reform analysis undertaken in this book also greatly benefits the policy makers in Malaysia and the policy makers of constitutional polities facing similar problems with the issue of circumscribing the scope of the powers concerning preventive detention.
During a period dominated by the biological determinism of Cesare Lombroso, Italy constructed a new prison system that sought to reconcile criminology with nation building and new definitions of citizenship. Italian Prisons in the Age of Positivism, 1861-1914 examines this "second wave" of global prison reform between Italian Unification and World War I, providing fascinating insights into the relationship between changing modes of punishment and the development of the modern Italian state. Mary Gibson focuses on the correlation between the birth of the prison and the establishment of a liberal government, showing how rehabilitation through work in humanitarian conditions played a key role in the development of a new secular national identity. She also highlights the importance of age and gender for constructing a nuanced chronology of the birth of the prison, demonstrating that whilst imprisonment emerged first as a punishment for women and children, they were often denied "negative" rights, such as equality in penal law and the right to a secular form of punishment. Employing a wealth of hitherto neglected primary sources, such as yearly prison statistics, this cutting-edge study also provides glimpses into the everyday life of inmates in both the new capital of Rome and the nation as a whole. Italian Prisons in the Age of Positivism, 1861-1914 is a vital study for understanding the birth of the prison in modern Italy and beyond.
This book offers a sociological exploration of street children in India and what pulls and pushes them into delinquency, at a time when the government of India is contemplating strengthening its juvenile justice system. It draws on in-depth, qualitative research carried out by an NGO which included unstructured and structured interviews with over 600 children as well as stakeholders. Through the stories of Indian children, this book examines the major factors which together play a crucial role in their engagement in deviant behaviour as they grow up. However, the authors argue that they should not be viewed not as a dangerous threat but as the country's most valuable resource. The authors conclude that a punitive strategy may not be the best option, advocating instead for a focus on restorative justice which has been found to be effective and beneficial alongside other strategies which help strengthen families and enhance parenting skills.
The probation service has committed itself to anti-racist initiatives and those promoting equal opportunities for some time. However, the experiences of black people, whether as workers or 'clients' indicates that the realities of day-to-day practice are far removed from this. Moreover, the picture is just as bleak if not even more so in other parts of the criminal justice system including the judiciary and the prison service. Anti-Racist Probation Practice addresses this conundrum and drawing on the experiences of black people makes practical proposals for moving forward in non-tokenistic ways. These include core areas of practice, for example court reports monitoring systems; resource allocation; and working relations. Arguing that process, procedures and outcomes in the work done must be taken together if individual, institutional and cultural racism are to be eradicated, the book shows that anti-racist probation practice must be taken seriously by both black and white people if it is to materialise.
This edited collection brings together leading international academics and researchers to provide a comprehensive body of literature that informs the future of prison and wider corrective services training, education, research, policy and practice. This volume addresses a range of 21st century issues faced by modern corrective services including, prison overcrowding, young and ageing offenders, mental health, sexual assault in corrective facilities, trans communities in corrective services and radicalisation of offenders within corrective services. Taking a multi-disciplinary approach and drawing together theoretical and practice debates, the book comprehensively considers current challenges and future trajectories for corrective systems, the people within them and service delivery. This volume will also be a welcomed resource for academics and researchers who have an interest in prisons, corrective services practice and broader criminal justice issues. It will also be of interest to those who want to join corrective services, those who are currently training to become personnel in corrective services and related allied professions, and those who are currently working in the field.
Accounts of female offenders' journeys into the criminal justice system are often silenced or marginalized. Featuring a Foreword from Pat Carlen and inspired by her seminal book 'Criminal Women', this collection uses participatory, inclusive and narrative methodologies to highlight the lived experiences of women involved with the criminal justice system. It presents studies focused on drug use and supply, sex work, sexual exploitation and experiences of imprisonment. Bringing together cutting-edge feminist research, this book exposes the intersecting oppressions and social control often central to women's experiences of the justice system and offers invaluable insights for developing penal policies that account for the needs of women.
A darkly funny, harrowing and heartbreaking look at the reality of prison life, with first-hand accounts from men who found themselves on the wrong side of the cell doors. Neil 'Sam' Samworth spent eleven years as a prison officer at HMP Manchester, better known as Strangeways. He has seen it all: from notorious criminals, dangerous gangsters and repeat offenders to those who simply made the wrong decisions. In this shocking page-turner, he tracks down former prisoners and staff, and uncovers the inside story of what life is really like in one of the UK's most infamous high-security prisons. We'll see a prisoner whose unwanted feud with an inmate ends in a fight and the loss of his eye, another who is convicted for theft but leaves addicted to spice, and many who become victims of the IPP system where they find themselves serving indefinite sentences for petty crimes. We'll see the dark underworld of the prison system, where riots can occur at any time, where the worlds of gangbangers suddenly collide, where class A drugs and contrabands roam. On the other side, we'll see staff grappling with a failing prison system, while dealing with an inmate who records the highest ever psychopath rating and caring fully for men with mental health issues. In brutally raw and gripping detail, Strangeways Unlocked gives voice to the people behind the bars and exposes a prison system that is failing them, providing an unforgettable account of a life that many can only imagine.
Crime and Employment crystallizes the issue of work as a rehabilitative instrument in the modern correctional environment. It explores the effect of employment on crime and recidivism, with its implications for correctional programs and operations as well as for ex-offender reintegration into the community. The professionals contributing to this volume evaluate the effectiveness of employment in enabling offenders to desist from crime; the roles of prison versus community correctional services; the success of work programs for older versus younger offenders; the effect of industrial employment on reducing prison misconduct and post-release recidivism; the relevance of prior employment, substance abuse histories, poverty, and family contexts on subsequent inmate work programs; and the availability of quality employment, lawful lifestyles, and community vocational programs in sustaining economic rehabilitation of offenders. This book will be of great value to practitioners and policymakers alike in the areas of corrections, criminal justice, criminology, social problems, labor policy, social welfare, deviance and social control.
This book presents a substantial new statement on the character of social life in confinement. Drawing upon extensive fieldwork in two contrasting English maximum security prisons, the authors systematically compare this institutional order, including the differing control strategies deployed in each, as seen by both custodians and captives, controllers and controlled. The authors discuss the implications of their research for the tradition of sociological concern within the 'prison community'. They re-examine the resources of that rich but latterly somewhat dormant field in the light of some of the main currents in contemporary social theory, and thereby provide a new perspective on the 'problem of order' in maximum custody. This book will have significant policy implications, and it will be required reading for scholars and students in criminology and criminal justice, as well as for administrators and reformers in penal system.
This book addresses the problem of justifying the institution of criminal punishment. It examines the "paradox of retribution" the fact that we cannot seem to reject the intuition that punishment is morally required, and yet we cannot (even after two thousand years of philosophical debate) find a morally legitimate basis for inflicting harm on wrongdoers. The book comes at a time when a new "abolitionist" movement has arisen, a movement that argues that we should give up the search for justification and accept that punishment is morally unjustifiable and should be discontinued immediately. This book, however, proposes a new approach to the retributive theory of punishment, arguing that it should be understood in its traditional formulation that has been long forgotten or dismissed: that punishment is essentially a defense of the honor of the victim. Properly understood, this can give us the possibility of a legitimate moral justification for the institution of punishment. "
How do governments and societies use prison to respond to underlying and fundamental social, economic and political issues? Using data on world imprisonment and numerous international examples from his personal experience, Coyle, a prison practitioner, academic and international expert, discusses the failings of prison around the world. Acknowledging the influence of external agencies, such as the Committee for the Prevention of Torture, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and court interventions in the use of solitary confinement, he offers some positive pointers for the future and how there might be a better distribution of resources between criminal justice and social justice by an application of the principles of Justice Reinvestment.
The UN Global Study on Children Deprived of Liberty detailed many children's poor experiences in detention, highlighting the urgent need for reform. Applying a child-centred model of detention that fulfils the rights of the child under the five themes of provision, protection, participation, preparation and partnership, this original book illustrates how reform can happen. Drawing on Ireland's experience of transforming law, policy and practice, and combining theory with real-life experiences, this compelling book demonstrates how children's rights can be implemented in detention. This important case study of reform presents a powerful argument for a progressive, rights-based approach to child detention. Worthy of international application, the book shares practical insights into how theory can be translated into practice.
New York Times Bestseller "Organizing is both science and art. It is thinking through a vision, a strategy, and then figuring out who your targets are, always being concerned about power, always being concerned about how you're going to actually build power in order to be able to push your issues, in order to be able to get the target to actually move in the way that you want to." What if social transformation and liberation isn't about waiting for someone else to come along and save us? What if ordinary people have the power to collectively free ourselves? In this timely collection of essays and interviews, Mariame Kaba reflects on the deep work of abolition and transformative political struggle. With a foreword by Naomi Murakawa and chapters on seeking justice beyond the punishment system, transforming how we deal with harm and accountability, and finding hope in collective struggle for abolition, Kaba's work is deeply rooted in the relentless belief that we can fundamentally change the world. As Kaba writes, "Nothing that we do that is worthwhile is done alone."
A classic memoir of prison breaks and adventure -- a bestselling phenomenon of the 1960s. Condemned for a murder he had not committed, Henri Charriere (nicknamed Papillon) was sent to the penal colony of French Guiana. Forty-two days after his arrival he made his first break, travelling a thousand gruelling miles in an open boat. Recaptured, he went into solitary confinement and was sent eventually to Devil's Island, a hell-hole of disease and brutality. No one had ever escaped from this notorious prison -- no one until Papillon took to the shark-infested sea supported only by a makeshift coconut-sack raft. In thirteen years he made nine daring escapes, living through many fantastic adventures while on the run -- including a sojourn with South American Indians whose women Papillon found welcomely free of European restraints! Papillon is filled with tension, adventure and high excitement. It is also one of the most vivid stories of human endurance ever written. Henri Charriere died in 1973 at the age of 66.
The "ethnic cleansing" that has gripped the Balkans for much of this decade is but another chapter in the long history of man's inhumanity to man. Hopeful but unflinching in the face of such realities, Howard Ball's book focuses on international efforts to punish perpetrators of genocide and other war crimes. Combining history, politics, and critical analysis, he revisits the killing fields of Cambodia, documents the three-month Hutu "machete genocide" of about 800,000 Tutsi villagers in Rwanda, and casts recent headlines from Kosovo in the light of these other conflicts. Beginning with the 1899 Geneva Accords and the Armenian genocide of World War I, Ball traces efforts to create an institution to judge, punish, and ultimately deter such atrocities-particularly since World War II, since which there have been fourteen cases of genocide. He shows how international military tribunals in Nuremberg and Tokyo set important precedents for international criminal justice, tells what the international community learned from its failure to stop Pol Pot in Cambodia, and describes the ad hoc tribunals convened to address genocide in the Balkans and Rwanda. He then focuses on the establishment of the International Criminal Court with the Treaty of Rome in 1998 and assesses its probable future. The book also analyzes the reluctance of the United States to sanction the ICC, tracing longstanding U.S. reluctance to grant criminal justice jurisdiction to an international prosecutor. Ball examines questions of national sovereignty versus international law and reminds us that although most Americans consider such horrors to be problems of other countries, these are in fact countries in which many of our own citizens have their roots. With its unique focus on the ICC, "Prosecuting War Crimes and Genocide" is a work of both synthesis and advocacy that combines history and current events to make us more aware of the racist fervor with which these brutalities are carried out, more alert to the euphemisms in which they are cloaked. It forces us to ask not only whether the killing will stop, but whether humanity can prevent future genocides.
This book explores the growing understanding and evidence base for the role of trauma in sexual offending. It represents a paradigm shift, in which trauma is becoming an important risk factor to be considered in the treatment of individuals convicted of sexual crime. The authors consider the theoretical and historical explanations and understandings of sexual offending and its relationship with early trauma, paving the way for a volume which considers client's treatment needs through a new, trauma-informed lens. The experiences and challenges of specific groups are also explored, including young people and women. Readable, yet firmly anchored in a sound evidence base, this book is relevant to psychologists, therapists, criminologists, psychiatrists, mental health nurses, social workers, students, and to practitioners and the general public with an interest in learning more about the topic.
This book charts the historical development of 'forensic objectivity' through an analysis of the ways in which objective knowledge of crimes, crime scenes, crime materials and criminals is achieved. Taking an interdisciplinary approach, with authors drawn from law, history, sociology and science and technology studies, this work shows how forensic objectivity is constructed through detailed crime history case studies, mainly in relation to murder, set in Scotland, England, Germany, Sweden, USA and Ireland. Starting from the mid-nineteenth century and continuing to the present day, the book argues that a number of developments were crucial. These include: the beginning of crime photography, the use of diagrams and models specially constructed for the courtroom so jurors could be 'virtual witnesses', probabilistic models of certainty, the professionalization of medical and scientific expert witnesses and their networks, ways of measuring, recording and developing criminal records and the role of the media, particularly newspapers in reporting on crime, criminals and legal proceedings and their part in the shaping of public opinion on crime. This essential title demonstrates the ways in which forensic objectivity has become a central concept in relation to criminal justice over a period spanning 170 years.
Offering a timely reanalysis of the issue of Japan's capital punishment policy, this cutting edge volume considers the de facto moratorium periods in Japan's death penalty system and proposes an alternative analytical framework to examine the policy. Addressing how the Ministry of Justice in Japan justified capital punishment policy during the de facto moratorium periods from 1989 to 1993, from 2009 to 2010 and from 2010 to 2012, the author debates the misconceptions surrounding the significance of these moratoriums. The book evidences the approach, rationale and evolution of Japan's Ministry of Justice in consistently justifying capital punishment policy during the different execution-free periods and provides a better understanding of the powerful unelected elite who actually drive the capital punishment system in Japan. Based on parliamentary proceedings, public opinion surveys and periodical reports by both international and domestic human rights NGOs as well as interviews of government ministers, NGO staff, pro- and anti-death-penalty advocates, this text is key reading for those interested in Japan, its government, criminal justice system and policies on the death penalty and human rights.
Long-term prisoners need to be given the space to reflect, and grow. This ground-breaking study found that engaging prisoners in philosophy education enabled them to think about some of the 'big' questions in life and as a result to see themselves and others differently. Using the prisoners' own words, Szifris shows the importance of this type of education for growth and development. She demonstrates how the philosophical dialogue led to a form of community which provided a space for self-reflection, pro-social interaction and communal exploration of ideas, which could have long-term positive consequences.
As an Art Tutor working in Britain's jails, Steven Tafka's job was to teach the supposedly unteachable. The longer he did the job, the more it seemed like it was him that was serving a sentence. Writing this darkly comic book gave him a release and helped him to survive. From the initial job interview, 'The Art of Crime' charts the journey of a rookie prison art tutor from idealism to the depths of the prison underworld. Written in diary form it details the tragi-comic, often absurd daily experiences of trying to help prisoners to achieve a qualification against all the odds. Tafka had to discover the art of teaching watercolours to violent gangsters and introduce murderers to Monet. He finds himself doing swimming pool designs for an armed robber and trying to keep order in a classroom where one of the learners thinks he is Picasso Peppa Pig. And all this is happening as he is having to count the latex gloves in and out (so the prisoners can't smoke them) and watch out for illicit hooch brewing behind the classroom radiators. This book gives a rodents-and-all insight into the dysfunctionality of prison life, the often-abject conditions, but more importantly the power of art to transform lives. There is an undoubted fascination with the art prisoners make, because it has something to tell us about the human condition and this book reveals the characters behind it.
Determinants of the Death Penalty seeks to explain the phenomenon of capital punishment - without recourse to value judgements - by identifying those characteristics common to countries that use the death penalty and those that mark countries which do not. This global study uses statistical analysis to relate the popularity of the death penalty to physical, cultural, social, economical, institutional, actor oriented and historical factors. Separate studies are conducted for democracies and non-democracies and within four regional contexts. The book also contains an in-depth investigation into determinants of the death penalty in the USA.
Police who engage in torture are condemned by human rights activists, the media, and people across the world who shudder at their brutality. Stark revelations about torture by American forces at places like Guantanamo Bay have stoked a fascination with torture and debates about human rights. Yet despite this interest, the public knows little about the officers who actually commit such violence. How do the police understand what they do? How do their beliefs inform their responses to education and activism against torture? Just Violence reveals the moral perspective of perpetrators and how they respond to human rights efforts. Through interviews with law enforcers in India, Rachel Wahl uncovers the beliefs that motivate officers who use and support torture, and how these beliefs shape their responses to international human rights norms. Although on the surface Indian officers' subversion of human rights may seem to be a case of "local culture" resisting global norms, officers see human rights as in keeping with their religious and cultural traditions-and view Western countries as the primary human rights violators. However, the police do not condemn the United States for violations; on the contrary, for Indian police, Guantanamo Bay justifies torture in New Delhi. This book follows the attempts of human rights workers to both persuade and coerce officers into compliance. As Wahl explains, current human rights strategies can undermine each other, leaving the movement with complex dilemmas regarding whether to work with or against perpetrators.
The first collective work devoted exclusively to the ethical and penal theoretical considerations of the use of artificial intelligence at sentencing Is it morally acceptable to use artificial intelligence (AI) in the determination of sentences on those who have broken the law? If so, how should such algorithms be used-and what are the consequences? Jesper Ryberg and Julian V. Roberts bring together leading experts to answer these questions. Sentencing and Artificial Intelligence investigates to what extent, and under which conditions, justice and the social good may be promoted by allocating parts of the most important task of the criminal court-that of determining legal punishment-to computerized sentencing algorithms. The introduction of an AI-based sentencing system could save significant resources and increase consistency across jurisdictions. But it could also reproduce historical biases, decrease transparency in decision-making, and undermine trust in the justice system. Dealing with a wide-range of pertinent issues including the transparency of algorithmic-based decision-making, the fairness and morality of algorithmic sentencing decisions, and potential discrimination as a result of these practices, this volume offers avaluable insight on the future of sentencing. |
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