The death penalty is one of the country's most controversial issues. The fairness of its application is debated in coffeehouses, classrooms, political arenas, and the media. However, despite its representation in the media, most death penalty cases receive surprisingly little national media attention. In fact, of the 1,000 people executed in the United States since 1977, and the 3,500 inmates currently awaiting execution, only a handful of cases can be recalled by the public. Those that are memorable are so because they are among the few dramatically represented in the media. Why is it that those that receive the most serious penalty are virtually nameless, while the death penalty in general is one of the most discussed aspects of the criminal justice system? What makes some executions more newsworthy than others? What are the implications of media coverage for the public's understanding of this significant issue? This book looks at those death row cases that received the most intensive media coverage from the 1970s through the present, and why. At the same time, it focuses on changes in public opinion about the death penalty and how newspaper coverage and evolving mass sentiment relate to one another. Kudlac covers such celebrated cases as Karla Faye Tucker, Timothy McVeigh, Aileen Wuornos, John Wayne Gacy, and others that captured the attention of the American public and affected public opinion about the death penalty through the help of the media. He considers issues such as religion, politics, race, gender, and class as he reveals the reasons for our attention to certain cases above others. The book concludes with a consideration of where we go from here. With new investigativetechniques that have helped to exonerate some death row inmates, and various other considerations that have come into play in recent cases, the future of the death penalty will continue to be shaped by the media and the public.

This book examines the role of religion and spirituality in desistance from crime and disengagement from gangs. Drawing upon in-depth interviews with male gang members and offenders as well as insights gathered from pastors, chaplains, coaches and personal mentors, the testimonials span three continents, focusing on the USA, Scotland, Denmark and Hong Kong. This volume offers unique empirical findings about the role that religion and spirituality can play in enabling some male gang members and offenders to transition into a new social sphere characterised by the presence of substitute forms of brotherhood and trust, and alternative forms of masculine status. The author presents critical insights into the potential relationship between religious and spiritual participation and the emergence of coping strategies to deal with the 'stigmata' that gang masculinity leaves behind. With its wide-ranging and multi-perspective approach, this book will be essential reading for students and scholars of gang culture, masculinity and spirituality, as well as policy makers and practitioners.

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 handbook brings together the knowledge on juvenile imprisonment to develop a global, synthesized view of the impact of imprisonment on children and young people. There are a growing number of scholars around the world who have conducted in-depth, qualitative research inside of youth prisons, and about young people incarcerated in adult prisons, and yet this research has never been synthesized or compiled. This book is organized around several core themes including: conditions of confinement, relationships in confinement, gender/sexuality and identity, perspectives on juvenile facility staff, reentry from youth prisons, young people's experiences in adult prisons, and new models and perspectives on juvenile imprisonment. This handbook seeks to educate students, scholars, and policymakers about the role of incarceration in young people's lives, from an empirically-informed, critical, and global perspective.

This book examines how the prison environment, architecture and culture can affect mental health as well as determine both the type and delivery of mental health services. It also discusses how non-medical practices, such as peer support and prison education programs, offer the possibility of transformative practice and support. By drawing on international contributions, it furthermore demonstrates how mental health in prisons is affected by wider socio-economic and cultural factors, and how in recent years neo-liberalism has abandoned, criminalised and contained large numbers of the world's most marginalised and vulnerable populations. Overall, this collection challenges the dominant narrative of individualism by focusing instead on the relationship between structural inequalities, suffering, survival and punishment. Chapter 2 of this book is available open access under a CC BY 4.0 license via link.springer.com.

This book provides a comprehensive overview of capital punishment in the Australian colonies for the very first time. The author illuminates all aspects of the penalty, from shortcomings in execution technique, to the behaviour of the dying criminal, and the antics of the scaffold crowd. Mercy rates, execution numbers, and capital crimes are explored alongside the transition from public to private executions and the push to abolish the death penalty completely. Notions of culture and communication freely pollinate within a conceptual framework of penal change that explains the many transformations the death penalty underwent. A vast array of sources are assembled into one compelling argument that shows how the 'lesson' of the gallows was to be safeguarded, refined, and improved at all costs. This concise and engaging work will be a lasting resource for students, scholars, and general readers who want an in-depth understanding of a long feared punishment. Dr. Steven Anderson is a Visiting Research Fellow in the History Department at The University of Adelaide, Australia. His academic research explores the role of capital punishment in the Australian colonies by situating developments in these jurisdictions within global contexts and conceptual debates.

This book describes the complex process of desistance from sexual crime as told by 74 men incarcerated for sexual offenses and released back into the community. Unlike much of the research on this topic, Harris places strong emphasis on how men who have committed serious sexual offenses come to stop offending and end their 'criminal career'. Drawing on in-depth interviews, Harris outlines three main strategies that the men employ in order to pursue offense-free lives. The Retirement Strategy is divided into those who appear to simply 'resign' and those who go on to 'rebuild' their lives. The Regulation Strategy characterizes desistance as a product of one's ability to navigate increasingly restrictive legislation ('restricted,' 'rehearsed,' 'resistant,' and 'reclusive' desistance). The men who describe their desistance in terms of Recovery do so either through 'rehabilitation' or through 'resilience.' This original and engaging study will be of great interest not only to academics who study sexual aggression but also those who have survived sexual abuse themselves, and anyone working with survivors of sexual abuse, individuals convicted of sexual offenses, their families, and their communities.

Prisons research has very specific skills associated with it, and requires a particular approach to interacting with closed institutions and offending populations. There are many issues that require thought when undertaking prisons research, as well as numerous possible ways to do it. This book provides a comprehensive guide to the different aspects and methods possible in prisons research, allowing the novice researcher to gain some ideas on what is often a relatively secretive practice. After introducing the rationale for prisons research, its methodological and critical context and covering basic practicalities, this book offers a range of tips and tricks for the prisons researcher. It covers key topics such as ethics, the process of choosing methods and prisons research around the world. It is essential reading for students engaged with criminological research methods and for early career researchers.

On the morning of January 31, 2009, Roxana Saberi, an Iranian-American journalist working in Iran, was forced from her home by four men and secretly detained in Iran's notorious Evin Prison. The intelligence agents who captured her accused her of espionage - a charge she denied. For several days, Saberi was held in solitary confinement, ruthlessly interrogated, and cut off from the outside world. For weeks, neither her family nor her friends knew her whereabouts. After a sham trial that made headlines around the world, the thirty-one-year-old reporter was sentenced to eight years in prison. But following international pressure by family, friends, colleagues, various governments, and total strangers, she was released on appeal on May 11, 2009. Now Saberi breaks her silence to share the full account of her ordeal, describing in vivid detail the methods that Iranian hard-liners are using to try to intimidate and control many of the country's people. In this gripping and inspirational true story, Saberi writes movingly of her imprisonment, her trial, her eventual release, and the faith that helped her through it all. Her recollections are interwoven with insights into Iranian society, the Islamic regime, and U.S.-Iran relations, as well as stories of her fellow prisoners - many of whom were jailed for their pursuit of human rights, including freedom of speech, association, and religion. Saberi gains strength and wisdom from her cellmates who support her throughout a grueling hunger strike and remind her of the humanity that remains, even when they are denied the most basic rights. "Between Two Worlds" is also a deeply revealing account of this tumultuous country and the ongoing struggle for freedom that is being fought inside Evin Prison and on the streets of Iran. From her heartfelt perspective, Saberi offers a rich, dramatic, and illuminating portrait of Iran as it undergoes a striking, historic transformation.

'A robust, decolonial challenge to carceral feminism' - Angela Y. Davis ***Winner of an English PEN Award 2022*** The mainstream conversation surrounding gender equality is a repertoire of violence: harassment, rape, abuse, femicide. These words suggest a cruel reality. But they also hide another reality: that of gendered violence committed with the complicity of the State. In this book, Francoise Verges denounces the carceral turn in the fight against sexism. By focusing on 'violent men', we fail to question the sources of their violence. There is no doubt as to the underlying causes: racial capitalism, ultra-conservative populism, the crushing of the Global South by wars and imperialist looting, the exile of millions and the proliferation of prisons - these all put masculinity in the service of a policy of death. Against the spirit of the times, Francoise Verges refuses the punitive obsession of the State in favour of restorative justice.

The profile of prisoners across many Western countries is strikingly similar - 95% male, predominantly undereducated and underemployed, from the most deprived neighbourhoods. This book reflects on how similarly positioned men configure masculinities against global economic shifts that have seen the decimation of traditional, manual-heavy industry and with it the disruption of long-established relations of labour. Drawing on life history interviews and classical ethnography, the book charts a group of men's experiences pre, during and post prison. Tracking the development of masculinities from childhood to adulthood, across impoverished streets, 'failing' schools and inadequate state 'care', the book questions whether this proved better preparation for serving prison time than working in their local, service-dominated, labour markets. It integrates theories of crime, geography, economics and masculinity to take into account structural and global economic shifts as well as individual long-term perspectives in order to provide a broad examination on pathways to prison and post prison.

In the last two decades there has been an unprecedented increase in the use of imprisonment in the United States. This expansion of the imprisonment rate did not happen in the other Western democracies and, more importantly, it happened very unevenly among the fifty states. Professor Davey examines the change in the rate of imprisonment in relationship to the crime rate as well as six other socio-economic variables. Davey then examines a number of states in detail to assess the key factors that resulted in increased imprisonment. Professor Davey concludes from the analyses that "law and order" politics of individual governors was the pivotal factor in the decision to expand prisons. Expansion was neither an outgrowth of unusual crime increases nor an effective method of reducing further crime increases, but waging "war on crime" was a very effective method of winning elections.

The principle that a sentence should be proportionate to the seriousness of the offence remains at the centre of penal practice and scholarly debate. This volume explores highly topical aspects of proportionality theory that require examination and further analysis. von Hirsch and Ashworth explore the relevance of the principle of proportionality to the sentencing of young offenders, the possible reasons for departing from the principle when sentencing dangerous offenders, and the application of the principle to socially deprived offenders. They examine the claim that the principle tends to be associated with greater severity in sentencing, and explore the relevance of penance and of restorative justice to proportionality theory. Their examination of arguments and counter-arguments culminates in a re-statement of the main criteria for proportionate sentencing. The authors are well known for their previous writings on proportionality theory, and this volume broadens the theory to deal with important contemporary issues in crime and punishment.

Drawing on Foucauldian theory and 'social harm' paradigms, Michael Naughton offers a radical redefinition of miscarriages of justice from a critical perspective. This book uncovers the limits of the entire criminal justice process and challenges the dominant perception that miscarriages of justices are rare and exceptional cases of wrongful imprisonment.

Can punishments ever meaningfully be proportioned in severity to the seriousness of the crimes for which they are imposed? A great deal of attention has been paid to the general justification of punishment, but the thorny practical questions have received significantly less. Serious analysis has seldom delved into what makes crimes more or less serious, what makes punishments more or less severe, and how links are to be made between them. In Of One-eyed and Toothless Miscreants, Michael Tonry has gathered together a distinguished cast of contributors to offer among the first sustained efforts to specify with precision how proportionality can be understood in relation to the implementation of punishment. Each chapter examines scholarly and lay thinking about punishment of people convicted of crimes with particular emphasis on "making the punishment fit the crime." The contributors challenge the most prevalent current theories and emphasize the need for a shift away from the politicized emotionalism of recent decades. They argue that theories that coincided with mass incarceration and rampant injustice to countless individuals are evolving in ways that better countenance moving toward more humane and thoughtful approaches. Written by many of the leading thinkers on punishment, this volume dissects previously undeveloped issues related to considerations of deserved punishment and provides new ways to understand both the severities of punishment and the seriousness of crime.

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.

This book addresses the idea that victims remain contested and controversial participants of justice in the twenty-first century adversarial criminal trial. Victims are increasingly participating in all phases of the criminal trial, with new substantive and procedural rights, many of which may be enforced against the state or defendant. This movement to substantive rights has been contentious, and evidences a contested terrain between lawyers, defendants, policy-makers and even victims themselves. Bringing together substantial source materials from law and policy, this book sets out the rights and powers of the victim throughout the phases of the modern adversarial criminal trial. It examines the role of the victim in pre-trial processes, alternative pathways and restorative intervention, the jury trial, sentencing, appeal and parole. Preventative detention, victim registers, criminal injuries compensation and victim assistance, restitution and reparations, and extra-curial rights and declarations are examined to set out the rights of victims as they impact upon and constitute aspects of the modern criminal trial process. The adversarial criminal trial is also assessed in the context of the increased rights of victims in international law and procedure, and with reference to policy transfer between civil and common law jurisdictions. This timely and comprehensive book will be of great interest to scholars of criminology, criminal law and socio-legal studies.

This edited volume presents nine new state-of-the-science chapters covering topics relevant to psychology and law, from established and emerging researchers in the field. Relevant to researchers, clinical practitioners, and policy makers, topics include discussions of rape and sexual assault, eyewitness identification, body-worn cameras, forensic gait analysis, evaluations and assessments, veteran's experiences, therapeutic animals and wrongful convictions.

This book explores the experiences of lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans (LGBT) communities as victims, offenders and staff within the criminal justice system. It draws on both emerging and existing LGBT research and campaigns to identify and explore issues relevant to the criminal justice system, including: agencies of the criminal justice system, victimisation, domestic violence and abuse, transgender experiences, LGBT people as offenders, international perspectives and the personal experiences of LGBT people. Charlotte Knight and Kath Wilson trace the legislative journey toward equal treatment before and after the Wolfenden Report. They consider why, for example, lesbians are over represented on death row in the US, how the prosecution characterises them and what part homophobia might play in offending and in sentencing. They raise important questions about the causes of, and responses to, same-sex domestic violence and abuse and how the system delivers justice to trans people. Sodomy laws and the treatment of LGBT people worldwide are also considered and models of good practice are offered. Their insights will be of interest to practitioners, policy makers and scholars of the criminal justice system, particularly those concerned with the rights of LGBT communities.

Young people, crime and delinquency are words that are commonly linked in public perception and young people are often blamed for social ills. Their deviancy and threat to social control has been held to be a social fact from Plato to today. This book subjects that 'fact' to critical examination through consideration of youth justice systems in six different countries, drawing on sociological and criminological analysis as well as expert practitioner opinion. This book's comparative, cultural approach allows for consideration of the impact of new and emergent systems of communication and discourse and considers how these may impact future constructions of delinquency at a local and global level. Understanding changing constructions of delinquency, the systems and responses we already have and their strengths and weaknesses enables critique about what we do and what we know, and allows us to imagine how it might be otherwise.

Corrections: Exploring Crime, Punishment, and Justice in America provides a thorough introduction to the topic of corrections in America. In addition to providing complete coverage of the history and structure of corrections, it offers a balanced account of the issues facing the field so that readers can arrive at informed opinions regarding the process and current state of corrections in America. The 3e introduces new content and fully updated information on America's correctional system in a lively, colorful, readable textbook. Both instructors and students benefit from the inclusion of pedagogical tools and visual elements that help clarify the material.

An Irish Times and The i Book of 2022 'Tense and intimate . . . an education' - Geoff Dyer 'Enriching, sobering and at times heartrending. A wonder' - Sir Lenny Henry 'Authentic, fascinating and deeply moving' - Terry Waite __________ Can someone in prison be more free than someone outside? Would we ever be good if we never felt shame? What makes a person worthy of forgiveness? Andy West teaches philosophy in prisons. Every day he has conversations with people inside about their lives, discusses their ideas and feelings, and listens as they explore new ways to think about their situation. When Andy steps into a prison, he also confronts his inherited shame: his father, uncle and brother all spent time behind bars. While Andy has built a different life for himself, he still fears that their fate will also be his. As he discusses pressing questions of truth, identity and hope with his students, he searches for his own form of freedom too. Moving, sympathetic, wise and frequently funny, The Life Inside is an elegantly written and unforgettable memoir. Through a blend of storytelling and gentle philosophical questioning, it offers a new insight into our stretched justice system, our failing prisons and the complex lives being lived inside. __________ 'Inspiring' - The Observer 'Strives with humour and compassion to understand the phenomenon of prison' - Sydney Review of Books 'Expands both heart and mind' - Ciaran Thapar 'A fascinating and enlightening journey . . . A legitimate page-turner' - 3AM

This book brings together a collection of emergent research that moves the debate on desistance beyond a general consideration of individual and social structural influences. The authors examine empirical developments which have implications for policy surrounding resettlement and re-offending, but also for punishment practices. Presenting thought-provoking theoretical advances and critiques, the editors challenge and enrich traditional understandings of desistance. A wide range of chapters explore how some criminal justice interventions hinder the desistance process, but also how alternative approaches may be more helpful in promoting and supporting desistance. Thorough and diverse, this book will be of great interest to scholars of criminology and criminal justice, social policy, sociology and psychology, and of special interest to researchers and practitioners working with (ex-)offenders.