This special issue of the Journal of Prisoners on Prisons, titled "Dialogue on Canada's Federal Penitentiary System and the Need for Change", features dozens of contributions written by criminalized men and women currently incarcerated in Correctional Service Canada (CSC) institutions. The writings document the counterproductive changes to federal imprisonment made by the previous federal government. These incarcerated writers seek to contribute to the reflections of Justice Canada as it conducts a review of the penal system and to the Standing Senate Committee on Human Rights as it engages in a study about the treatment of prisoners in CSC penitentiaries. Individual prisoners and Inmate Committees from CSC institutions in the Atlantic, Quebec, Ontario, Prairie and Pacific regions who participated in this dialogue collectively express hope that the Government of Canada will move away from the punitive laws, policies, and practices. To this end, the issue includes several recommendations to be enacted in the short-term to improve the lives of those who are imprisoned and who work in federal penitentiaries while also benefitting Canadian society by contributing to public safety.

Drawing on autobiographical writings, oral histories, interrogation protocols, and cell spy reports, If the Walls Could Speak focuses on the lives of women in prison in postwar communist Poland. Some were jailed for their alleged collaboration with the Nazis during the war, some for postwar activities in various civil as well as quasi-military groups, still others for allegedly dubious activities on the basis of their relationships with those already imprisoned. In some cases, there was some evidence of their anti-state activities; in many others, the accusations were absurd and based on cumbersome definitions of "anti-state." Anna Muller shows how these women struggled to resist identifying themselves as "prisoners" and regain their voices through a dialogue between the "self," a hostile prison world, and the world outside, which, as time passed, became increasingly menacing. The prison system in postwar Poland functioned as a tool to subjugate society and silence or destroy enemies-anti-communists, but also committed communists. Arrests, trials, and prison sentences directly and indirectly affected tens of thousands of people. Imprisonment stigmatized both prisoners and their families, inspiring fear and insecurity. Out of fear, worry for their loved ones, or a need to act, women prisoners took on different roles and personalities to protect themselves and create a semblance of normality, despite abuses and prison confinement. They used words to (re)create themselves during an interrogation; they used their senses to orient themselves in the spatial organization of the prison and to create a feeling of security; they used their physicality as a confirmation of their gender identity and a means of exerting pressure on the authorities; and they attempted to build a communal cultural, social, religious, and educational life by drawing on patterns they had acquired in their lives outside of prison. Following the trajectory of women's life stories-from the moment of interrogation, through the attempt to create themselves in a cell, to the post-prison reordering of their old lives-this book reveals how the prison cell in postwar Poland became a laboratory of human heterogeneity, of reconstruction, and reinvention of the self, and how life in a Stalinist prison adds to our understanding of coercion and resistance under totalitarian regimes.

Mass incarceration is one of the greatest social problems facing the United States today. America incarcerates a greater percentage of its population than any other country and is one of only two countries that requires arrested individuals to pay bail to be released from jail while awaiting trial. After arrest, the bail decision is the single most important cause of mass incarceration, yet this decision is often neglected since it is made in less than two minutes. Shima Baradaran Baughman draws on constitutional rights and new empirical research to show how we can reform bail in America. Tracing the history of bail, she demonstrates how it has become an oppressive tool of the courts that disadvantages minority and poor defendants and shows how we can reform bail to alleviate mass incarceration. By implementing these reforms, she argues, we can restore constitutional rights and release more defendants, while lowering crime rates.

Contributors explore how educating oneself behind bars, particularly through peer and independent learning, has liberatory and transformative potential.

Restorative Justice: Critical Issues brings together key international writings that trace the development of restorative justice from its diverse beginnings to current global policies and practices.The collection is constructed around the following themes:the theoretical origins of restorative justice; the key principles and substantive practices associated with restorative justice; controversial issues and debates; and future directions and possibilities. A substantial editorial introduction will provide readers with an authorative guide to the critical issues facing restorative justice at the beginning of the 21st century.

An eye-opening look at how incarcerated people, health professionals, and others behind and beyond bars came together to problem-solve incarceration. Raising the Living Dead is a history of Puerto Rico's carceral rehabilitation system that brings to life the interactions of incarcerated people, their wider social networks, and health care professionals. Alberto Ortiz Diaz describes the ways that multiple communities of care came together both inside and outside of prisons to imagine and enact solution-oriented cultures of rehabilitation from the 1930s to the 1960s. Scientific and humanistic approaches to well-being were deliberately fused to raise the "living dead," an expression that reemerged in the modern Caribbean to refer to prisoners. These reform groups sought to raise incarcerated people physically, mentally, socially, spiritually, and civically. The book is based on deep, original archival research into the Oso Blanco (White Bear) penitentiary in Puerto Rico, yet it situates its study within Puerto Rico's broader carceral archipelago and other Caribbean prisons. The agents of this history include not only physical health professionals, but also psychologists and psychiatrists, social workers, spiritual and religious practitioners, and, of course, the prisoners and their families. By following all these groups and emphasizing the interpersonal exercise of power, Ortiz Diaz tells a story that goes beyond debates about structural and social control. The book addresses key issues in the history of prisons and the histories of medicine and belief, including how prisoners' different racial, class, and cultural identities shaped their incarceration and how professionals living in a colonial society dealt with the challenge of rehabilitating prisoners for citizenship. Raising the Living Dead is not just about convicts, their immediate interlocutors, and their contexts, however, but about how together these open a window into the history of social uplift projects within the (neo)colonial societies of the Caribbean. There is no book like this in Caribbean historiography; few examine these themes in the larger literature on the history of prisons.

The purpose of American Penology is to provide a story of punishment's past, present, and likely future. The story begins in the 1600s, in the setting of colonial America, and ends in the present. As the story evolves through various historical and contemporary settings, America's efforts to understand and control crime unfold. The context, ideas, practices, and consequences of various reforms in the ways crime is punished are described and examined.

Though the book's broader scope and purpose can be distinguished from prior efforts, it necessarily incorporates many contributions from this rich literature. While this enlarged second edition incorporates select descriptions and contingencies in relation to particular eras and punishment ideas and practices, it does not limit itself to individual "histories" of these eras. Instead, it uses history to frame and help explain particular punishment ideas and practices in relation to the period and context from which they evolved. The authors focus upon selected demographic, economic, political, religious, and intellectual contingencies that are associated with historical and contemporary eras to show how these contingencies shaped America's punishment ideals and practices.

In offering a new understanding of received notions of crime control in this edition, Blomberg and Lucken not only provide insights into the future of punishment, but also show how the larger culture of control extends beyond the field of criminology to have an impact on declining levels of democracy, freedom, and privacy.

One of the most important problems faced by the United States is addressing its broken criminal justice system. This collection of essays offers a thorough examination of incarceration as a form of punishment. In addition to focusing on the philosophical aspects related to punishment, the volume's diverse group of contributors provides additional background in criminology, economics, law, and sociology to help contextualize the philosophical issues. The first group of essays addresses whether or not our current institutions connected with punishment and incarceration are justified in a liberal society. The next set of chapters explores the negative effects of incarceration as a form of punishment, including its impact on children and families. The volume then describes how we arrived at our current situation in the United States, focusing on questions related to how we view prisons and prisoners, policing for profit, and the motivations of prosecutors in trying to secure convictions. Finally, Rethinking Punishment in the Era of Mass Incarceration examines specific policy alternatives that might offer solutions to our current approach to punishment and incarceration.

America seems presently fascinated by prison culture and the inner workings of what happens behind clinked doors. With TV shows creating binge-watchers of us all, and celebrities piquing public interest as they end up behind bars, Americans seem to enjoy a good gawk at prison life. Each year, more than 1.3 million visitors still trek out to Alcatraz Island, one of the most famous prisons in the world. And why shouldn't they be curious about prison? We as a nation currently incarcerate more people per capita than any other country, and our prisons are notoriously rough, violent, and overcrowded. At the same time, we love our food, take pictures of it, post it socially, and discuss our foodie favorites. Rarely do we consider the food experiences of those for whom sustenance is more difficult to obtain, particularly those incarcerated, where choice and access is severely limited. Prison food is often everything to prisoners. It is the only marker of time throughout the day. Food becomes commerce in the microeconomies behind prison walls. It is often the only source of pleasure in a monotonous routine. It creates sites of community when prisoners ban together to create recipes, but also becomes a site of discord when issues surrounding fairness and equity arise in the chow hall. Prison Food in America offers a high-level snapshot of the fare offered behind bars, its general guidelines and regulations, fascinating stories about prisoners and food, and the remarkable and varied ways food plays a role in the fabric of prison culture.

Although service outsourcing has spread throughout Canada's prisons and jails, into its police, courts, and national security institutions, and along the border in recent decades, the expanding scope and pace of corporate involvement in criminal justice functions has not yet been closely investigated. Changing of the Guards provides a detailed assessment of privatization and private influence across the twenty-first-century Canadian criminal justice system. It illuminates the many consequences of public-private arrangements for law and policy, transparency, accountability, the administration of justice, equity, and the public. This trenchant analysis raises issues that are relevant in Canada and abroad.

Easy-to-read, broad, evidenced-based approach to correctional intervention that introduces students to the challenges faced by counselors. Provides conceptual examples of what rehabilitation should look like and a clear and comprehensive picture of current approaches for treating and rehabilitating correctional clients. The most comprehensive and up-to-date text on the market.

Providing a new look at the intense public debate surrounding the death penalty in the United States, this book explores the various trends in public opinion that influence crime prevention efforts, create public policy, and reform criminal law. It discusses three core issues: the role of free will and determination; the search for the root cause or causes of crime; and, the effects of studying crimes versus studying criminals. It provides a brief history of capital punishment in the United States from the earliest known execution at the Jamestown Colony in 1608 to executions occurring as recently as 2008. Additional topics include the regionalization of capital punishment sentences, the spiritual and scriptural debate over the death penalty, the role of DNA evidence in modern execution sentences, and the ongoing effects of Furman v. Georgia, McClesky v. Kemp, Baze v. Rees, and other related court rulings.

A crucial indictment of widely embraced "alternatives to incarceration" that exposes how many of these new approaches actually widen the net of punishment and surveillance "But what does it mean-really-to celebrate reforms that convert your home into your prison?" -Michelle Alexander, from the foreword Electronic monitoring. Locked-down drug treatment centers. House arrest. Mandated psychiatric treatment. Data-driven surveillance. Extended probation. These are some of the key alternatives held up as cost-effective substitutes for jails and prisons. But many of these so-called reforms actually widen the net, weaving in new strands of punishment and control, and bringing new populations, who would not otherwise have been subject to imprisonment, under physical control by the state. As mainstream public opinion has begun to turn against mass incarceration, political figures on both sides of the spectrum are pushing for reform. But-though they're promoted as steps to confront high rates of imprisonment-many of these measures are transforming our homes and communities into prisons instead. In Prison by Any Other Name, activist journalists Maya Schenwar and Victoria Law reveal the way the kinder, gentler narrative of reform can obscure agendas of social control and challenge us to question the ways we replicate the status quo when pursuing change. A foreword by Michelle Alexander situates the book in the context of criminal justice reform conversations. Finally, the book offers a bolder vision for truly alternative justice practices.

Pollock's introductory text intends to present corrections in a new way for instructors who desire to prepare students in a problem-based, data-driven, media-savvy approach to achieve competency as correctional professionals or knowledgeable consumers of corrections' news. Each chapter will utilize current news and governmental reports along with academic studies, and have a discussion of race/ethnicity when appropriate.

Contributors address a range of themes including prisoner interactions, gender and patriarchal domination in women's prisons, as well as health care and mental health behind bars.

Captives combines a thrilling narrative account of Rikers Island's descent into infamy with a dramatic retelling of the last seventy years of New York and American politics from the vantage point of its jails. It is a story of a crowded field of contending powers-city bureaucrats and unions, black power activists and correction offices, crooked cops and elected leaders- struggle for the right to run our cities, a story that culminates in the triumph of of the twin figures we today call neoliberalism and mass incarceration. It is the history of how the Rikers Island of today-and the social order it represents-came to be. With a sweeping vision and an often cinematic touch, Captives records how the tempo of history was set by the metronome of bloody and bruising clashes between corrections officers and prisoners, and between police officers and virtually everyone else. Written by a one-time inmate, Captives draws on extensive archival research, decades of journalism, interviews, prisoner testimonials, and firsthand experience to deliver an urgent intervention into our nationwide conversation about the future of mass incarceration.

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.

Ngugi wa Thiong'o's powerful prison memoir begins half an hour before his release on 12 December 1978. A year earlier, he recalls, armed police arrived at his home and took him to Kenya's Kamiti Maximum Security Prison. There, Ngugi lives in a block alongside other political prisoners, but he refuses to give in to the humiliation. He decides to write a novel in secret, on toilet paper - it is a book that will become his classic, Devil on the Cross. Wrestling with the Devil is Ngugi's unforgettable account of the drama and challenges of living under twenty-four-hour surveillance. He captures not only the pain caused by his isolation from his family, but also the spirit of defiance and the imaginative endeavours that allowed him to survive.

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.

'Imaginative, illuminating and innovative' The New York Times Book Review The grisly spectacle of public executions and torture of centuries ago has been replaced by the penal system in western society - but has anything really changed? In his revolutionary work on control and power relations in our public institutions, Michel Foucault argues that the development of prisons, police organizations and legal hierarchies has merely changed the focus of domination from our bodies to our souls. Even schools, factories, barracks and hospitals, in which an individual's time is controlled hour by hour, are part of a disciplinary society. 'Foucault's genius is called forth into the eloquent clarity of his passions ... his best book' Washington Post

American conservatism rose hand-in-hand with the growth of mass incarceration. For decades, conservatives deployed "tough on crime" rhetoric to attack liberals as out-of-touch elitists who coddled criminals while the nation spiraled toward disorder. As a result, conservatives have been the motive force in building our vast prison system. Indeed, expanding the number of Americans under lock and key was long a point of pride for politicians on the right - even as the U.S. prison population eclipsed international records. Over the last few years, conservatives in Washington, D.C. and in bright-red states like Georgia and Texas, have reversed course, and are now leading the charge to curb prison growth. In Prison Break, David Dagan and Steve Teles explain how this striking turn of events occurred, how it will affect mass incarceration, and what it teaches us about achieving policy breakthroughs in our polarized age. Combining insights from law, sociology, and political science, Teles and Dagan will offer the first comprehensive account of this major political shift. In a challenge to the conventional wisdom, they argue that the fiscal pressures brought on by recession are only a small part of the explanation for the conservatives' shift, over-shadowed by Republicans' increasing anti-statism, the waning efficacy of "tough on crime" politics and the increasing engagement of evangelicals. These forces set the stage for a small cadre of conservative leaders to reframe criminal justice in terms of redeeming wayward souls and rolling back government. These developments have created the potential to significantly reduce mass incarceration, but only if reformers on both the right and the left play their cards right. As Dagan and Teles stress, there is also a broader lesson in this story about the conditions for cross-party cooperation in our polarized age. Partisan identity, they argue, generally precedes position-taking, and policy breakthroughs are unlikely to come by "reaching across the aisle," promoting "compromise," or appealing to "expert opinion." Instead, change happens when political movements redefine their own orthodoxies for their own reasons. As Dagan and Teles show, outsiders can assist in this process - and they played a crucial role in the case of criminal justice - but they cannot manufacture it. This book will not only reshape our understanding of conservatism and American penal policy, but also force us to reconsider the drivers of policy innovation in the context of American politics.

Political instability is nearly always accompanied by fuller prisons, and this was particularly true during the "long" Second World War, when military mobilization, social disorder, wrenching political changes, and shifting national boundaries swelled the ranks of the imprisoned and broadened the carceral reach of the state. This volume brings together theoretically sophisticated, empirically rich studies of key transitional moments that transformed the scope and nature of European prisons during and after the war. It depicts the complex interactions of both penal and administrative institutions with the men and women who experienced internment, imprisonment, and detention at a time when these categories were in perpetual flux.

From a highly accredited criminal law professor at the University of North Carolina, a provocative and timely exploration of how plea bargaining prevents true criminal justice reform and how we can fix it When Americans think of the criminal justice system, the image that pops into their minds is a trial. They envision a standard courtroom scene with a defendant, attorneys, a judge, and most importantly, a jury. It's a fair assumption. The right to a trial by jury is enshrined in both the Constitution (Article III, Section 2) and the Bill of Rights (the Sixth Amendment). It's supposed to be an inalienable right that undergirds our entire justice system. But in Punishment Without Trial: Why Plea Bargaining is a Bad Deal, University of North Carolina law professor Carissa Byrne Hessick illustrates that the popular conception of a jury trial couldn't be further from reality. That bedrock constitutional right has all but disappeared thanks to the inexorable march of plea bargaining, which began to take hold during Prohibition and has skyrocketed since 1971, when it was affirmed as constitutional by the Supreme Court. In 2018, more than 97 percent of defendants pleaded guilty. The consequences are dire. Nearly every aspect of our criminal justice system is designed to encourage defendants-whether they're innocent or guilty-to take a plea deal. Punishment Without Trial showcases how plea bargaining has undermined justice at every turn and across socioeconomic and racial divides. It forces the hand of lawyers, judges, and defendants, turning our legal system into a ruthlessly efficient mass incarceration machine that is clogging our jails and punishing its citizens because it's the path of least resistance.

Handbook of Restorative Justice is a collection of original, cutting-edge essays that offer an insightful and critical assessment of the theory, principles and practices of restorative justice around the globe. This much-awaited volume is a response to the cry of students, scholars and practitioners of restorative justice, for a comprehensive resource about a practice that is radically transforming the way the human community responds to loss, trauma and harm.

Its diverse essays not only explore the various methods of responding nonviolently to harms-done by persons, groups, global corporations and nation-states, but also examine the dimensions of restorative justice in relation to criminology, victimology, traumatology and feminist studies. In addition. They contain prescriptions for how communities might re-structure their family, school and workplace life according to restorative values.

This Handbook is an essential tool for every serious student of criminal, social and restorative justice.

The term "Prisoner's Dilemma" comes from the original anecdote used to illustrate this game of strategy. Two prisoners, held incommunicado, are charged with the same crime. They can be convicted only if either confesses. If both prisoners confess, their payoff is minus one. If neither confesses, it is plus one. If only one confesses, he is set free for having turned state's evidence and is given a reward of plus two to boot. The prisoner who holds out is convicted on the strength of the other's testimony and is given a more severe sentence than if he had confessed. His payoff is minus two. It is in the interest of each to confess no matter what the other does, but it is in their collective interest to hold out. There is no satisfactory solution to the paradox of this game. Its simplicity is misleading. What seems rational from your own point of view, turns out to be detrimental in the end. This book is an account of many experiments in which Prisoner's Dilemma was played. Analyzing the results, one can learn how people are motivated to trust or distrust their partners, to keep faith or to betray, to be guided by joint or selfish interest. The method represents an important step toward building a bridge between psychology which is based on hard data and reproducible experiments and psychology which is concerned with internal conflict.