Prisons are dangerous places, and assaults, threats, theft and verbal abuse are pervasive - attributable both to the characteristics of the captive population and to an institutional sub culture which promotes violence as a means of resolving conflicts. Yet the crimes perpetrated by prisoners on other prisoners have attracted little interest, and criminological research has contributed little to an understanding of situations in which violence arises in penal institutions. This book seeks to remedy this, and to address and answer a number of key questions: how do features of the prison social setting shape conflicts?; what social norms guide the decision to use violence?; what are the personal and social consequences of spending months or years in places where distrust and anxiety are normal?; how do staff respond to the dangers that are part of daily life in many prisons?; is it possible to identify factors associated with risk and resilience?; and what methods of handling conflicts do prisoners use that could prevent violence? Prison Violence adopts a distinctive approach to answering these questions, and is based on extensive research, including interviews with both victims and perpetrators of prison violence; it pioneers a conflict-centred approach, seeking to understand the pathways into and out of situations where there is potential for violence, focusing on interpersonal and institutional dynamics rather than on individual psychological factors.

This is a masterful effort to recognize and place the prison and asylums in their social contexts. Rothman shows that the complexity of their history can be unraveled and usefully interpreted. By identifying the salient influences that converged in the tumultuous 1820s and 1830s that led to a particular ideology in the development of prisons and asylums, Rothman provides a compelling argument that is historically informed and socially instructive. He weaves a comprehensive story that sets forth and portrays a series of interrelated events, influences, and circumstances that are shown to be connected to the development of prisons and asylums. Rothman demonstrates that meaningful historical interpretation must be based upon not one but a series of historical events and circumstances, their connections and ultimate consequences. Thus, the history of prisons and asylums in the youthful United States is revealed to be complex but not so complex that it cannot be disentangled, described, understood, and applied.

This reissue of a classic study addresses a core concern of social historians and criminal justice professionals: Why in the early nineteenth century did a single generation of Americans resort for the first time to institutional care for its convicts, mentally ill, juvenile delinquents, orphans, and adult poor? Rothman's compelling analysis links this phenomenon to a desperate effort by democratic society to instill a new social order as it perceived the loosening of family, church, and community bonds. As debate persists on the wisdom and effectiveness of these inherited solutions, The Discovery of the Asylum offers a fascinating reflection on our past as well as a source of inspiration for a new century of students and professionals in criminal justice, corrections, social history, and law enforcement.

Around one in five prisoners report the previous or current incarceration of a parent. Many such prisoners attest to the long-term negative effects of parental incarceration on one's own sense of self and on the range and quality of opportunities for building a conventional life. And yet, the problem of intergenerational incarceration has received only passing attention from academics, and virtually little if any consideration from policy makers and correctional officials. This book - the first of its kind - offers an in-depth examination of the causes, experiences and consequences of intergenerational incarceration. It draws extensively from surveys and interviews with second-, third-, fourth- and fifth-generation prisoners to explicate the personal, familial and socio-economic contexts typically associated with incarceration across generations. The book examines 1) the emergence of the prison as a dominant if not life-defining institution for some families, 2) the link between intergenerational trauma, crime and intergenerational incarceration, 3) the role of police, courts, and corrections in amplifying or ameliorating such problems, and 4) the possible means for preventing intergenerational incarceration. This is undeniably a book that bears witness to many tragic and traumatic stories. But it is also a work premised on the idea that knowing these stories - knowing that they often resist alignment with pre-conceived ideas about who prisoners are or who they might become - is part and parcel of advancing critical debate and, more importantly, of creating real change. Written in a clear and direct style, this book will appeal to students and scholars in criminology, sociology, cultural studies, social theory and those interested in learning about more about families in prison.

Alternatives to imprisonment become all the more important with the almost worldwide increase in incarceration. While knowledge about the destructive effects of imprisonment is well-documented, there is less scientific evidence as to the effectiveness of its alternatives. In "Alternatives to Imprisonment," Ulla V. Bondeson undertakes a unique socio-legal and criminological study of the impact of three alternative sanctions: conditional sentence, standard probation, and probation with institutional treatment.

Bondeson thoroughly researches the history of alternative treatments, the genesis of the Swedish Penal Code, and the goals of criminal policy. She further examines the implementation of the sanctions by the courts, probation officers, lay supervisors, institutional staff, and how treatment is perceived by offenders throughout the process. Bondeson's extraordinary work also includes a recidivism study demonstrating considerable and surprising differences among rates of relapse, even when controlling for risk groups. She finds that those sentenced to conditional prison sentences had the lowest rates of criminal relapse. Those on probation had higher rates of relapse, while a combination of probation and institutional approaches had the highest rates. The author shows that despite the legislator's intent to improve the possibilities for re-socialization, principally the opposite result ensued. However, compared with the results of treatment in correctional institutions, the alternatives to imprisonment prove much more effective and less costly. Based on her findings, Bondeson makes a considerable number of practical suggestions for effective reform of penal law and treatment of offenders. Many of her proposals have also been subsequently implemented.

In this book a group of leading authorities in the field address the key issues surrounding the future of sentencing in Britain, in the light particularly of the highly influential Halliday Report. These proposals for reform amount to the single most ambitious and comprehensive set of proposals for reconstituting the sentencing system of a common-law country, and include proposals to replace existing sentencing statutes, the establishment of a sentencing commission and sentencing guidelines, and the creation of a sentence review function in the judiciary. As well as addressing the major issues of the Halliday Report the chapters in this book go beyond this to explore the broader set of policy problems and implications which are raised, drawing upon experiences of reform in other jurisdictions and contexts, particularly that of the USA. This book will be essential reading for anybody with an interest in the future of sentencing or the future direction of the criminal justice system as a whole.

Evidence-Based Practice (EBP) has over the last decade made an increasing mark in several fields, notably health and medicine, education and social welfare. In recent years it has begun to make its mark in criminal justice. As engagement with EBP has spread, it has begun to evolve from what might be regarded as a somewhat narrow doctrine and orthodoxy to something more complex and various. Often criminological research has been at odds with the assumptions, conventions and methodologies associated with first generation EBP. In that context EBP poses a challenge to the research community and existing evidence base and is, accordingly, hotly controversial. This book is a welcome and timely contribution to current debates on evidence-based practice in policing. With a sharp conceptual focus, the chapters provide a critical examination of the recent history of EBP in academic, policy and practitioner communities, evaluate key dimensions of its application to policing, challenge established understandings and pave the way for a much needed change in how research 'evidence' is perceived, generated, transferred, implemented and evaluated.

Working in a tradition established by pioneering historians like Kathy Peiss, Lizabeth Cohen and George Chauncey, Anne Meis Knupfer has written the first thorough study of the Cook County Juvenile Court in Chicago, one of the myriad of Progressive initiatives designed to impose order on an increasingly diverse turn-of-the-century American city. From its inception, the Court concerned itself primarily with 'incorrigible' girls - those young (often immigrant or African-American) women caught riding in a closed automobile, loitering in a department store, or shimmying on the dance floor. Knupfer approaches encounters between delinquents and this new arm of the state as a series of narratives promulgated by legal operatives, state bureaucrats, female social workers and the girls themselves.
Using the elastic term 'delinquency' as their canvas, these parties painted conflicting portraits of modernizing America. They told stories about the emergence of the state, the gendered nature of professionalism, the dangers (and promise) of consumer culture, and the possibilities of pluralism.
Combining rigorous research with passionate writing, Reform and Resistance provides a unique examination of adolescence, sex, delinquency, race and gender.

Working in a tradition established by pioneering historians like Kathy Peiss, Lizabeth Cohen and George Chauncey, Anne Meis Knupfer has written the first thorough study of the Cook County Juvenile Court in Chicago, one of the myriad of Progressive initiatives designed to impose order on an increasingly diverse turn-of-the-century American city. From its inception, the Court concerned itself primarily with 'incorrigible' girls - those young (often immigrant or African-American) women caught riding in a closed automobile, loitering in a department store, or shimmying on the dance floor. Knupfer approaches encounters between delinquents and this new arm of the state as a series of narratives promulgated by legal operatives, state bureaucrats, female social workers and the girls themselves.
Using the elastic term 'delinquency' as their canvas, these parties painted conflicting portraits of modernizing America. They told stories about the emergence of the state, the gendered nature of professionalism, the dangers (and promise) of consumer culture, and the possibilities of pluralism.
Combining rigorous research with passionate writing, Reform and Resistance provides a unique examination of adolescence, sex, delinquency, race and gender.

The best-selling bible of the movement to defund the police in an updated edition.

The massive uprising that followed the police killing of George Floyd in the summer of 2020— by some estimates the largest protests in US history—thrust the argument to defund the police to the forefront of international politics. That case had been put persuasively a few years earlier in The End of Policing by Alex Vitale, now a leading figure in the urgent public discussion over policing and racial justice.

The central problem, Vitale demonstrates, is the dramatic expansion of the police role over the last forty years. Drawing on firsthand research from across the globe, he shows how the implementation of alternatives to policing—such as drug legalization, regulation, and harm reduction instead of the policing of drugs—has led to reductions in crime, spending, and injustice.

This updated edition includes a new introduction that takes stock of the renewed movement to challenge police impunity and shows how we move forward, evaluating protest, policy, and the political situation.

During the past two centuries a vibrant prison press has chronicled life behind bars in American prisons, championed inmate causes, and challenged those in authority who sought to silence it. At its apex, several hundred periodicals were published by and for inmates. Unlike their peers who passed their sentences stamping out license plates, these convicts spent their days like reporters in any community-looking for the story. Yet their own story, the lengthy history of their unique brand of journalism, has remained largely unknown. In "Jailhouse Journalism," James McGrath Morris presents the history of this medium, the lives of the men and women who brought it to life, and the controversies that often surround it.

The dramatic history of prison journalism has included many famous, notorious, and unique personalities such as Robert Morris, the "financier of the America Revolution"; the Younger Brothers of the Jesse James gang; Julian Hawthorne, the only son of Nathaniel Hawthorne; men of the radical Industrial Workers of the World (IWW); Charles Chapin, famed city editor of New York's "Evening World" until he murdered his wife; Dr. Frederick Cook, North Pole explorer whose claim to have been the first to reach the pole is still debated today; Tom Runyon, who won a place for himself in history with an Underwood; and Wilbert Rideau, an illiterate teenaged murderer who raised prison journalism to the pinnacle of achievement.

In his new introduction Morris addresses the spread of prison journalism into other forms of media, such as radio and the Internet. He discusses the conflicts between those who publish jailhouse news and those who would wish to control, or eliminate it altogether.

The disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991 left 25 million Russians living outside the Russian Federation. This important new book explores their social identity, examining the mutually held perceptions, fears and resulting nationalism of both the ethnic Russians living outside the Russian Federation and the indigenous, or 'titular', populations they live amongst.
Based on a unique study involving national surveys conducted in Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia and Kazakhstan, the book maps the main individual, intergroup and cross-national factors that shape the fears of 'titulars' and Russians as well as the possible consequences and the risk of ethnic conflict in the five republics. There is detailed statistical analysis of how background factors (personal and national) affect intergroup perceptions; along with discussion of mutual stereotypes, social distance, language and the perception of citizenship and analysis of the dynamics of assimilation and separation of Russians in former soviet states. The attitudes of both groups to other smaller minority groups are also examined.
This book provides significant new conclusions on the complexity of intergroup relations and seeks to relate these findings to a general theory of intergroup relations. It will be essential reading for those working in this area within the disciplines of Psychology, Sociology and Politics.

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Adults are being incarcerated in the United States at an ever-escalating rate, and child welfare professionals are encountering growing numbers of children who have parents in prison. Current estimates indicate that as many as 1.5 million children have an incarcerated parent; many thousands of others have experienced the incarceration of a parent at some point in their lives. These vulnerable children face unique difficulties, and their growing numbers and special needs demand attention. Existing literature indicates that children whose parents are incarcerated experience a variety of negative consequences, particularly in terms of their emotional health and well being. They also may have difficult interactions or limited contact with their parents. There are also issues connected with their physical care and child custody. The many challenges facing the child welfare system as it attempts to work with this population are explored in Children with Parents in Prison. Topics covered include: "Supporting Families and Children of Mothers in Jail"; "Meeting the Challenge of Permanency Planning for Children with Incarcerated Mothers"; "The Impact of Changing Public Policy on Relatives Caring for Children with Incarcerated Parents"; "Legal Issues and Recommendations"; "Facilitating Parent-Child Contact in Correctional Settings"; "Earning Trust from Youths with None to Spare"; "Developing Quality Services for Offenders and Families"; and in closing, "Understanding the Forces that Influence Incarcerated Fathers' Relationships with Their Children." Children and families have long struggled with the difficulties created when a parent goes to prison. What is new is the magnitude of the problem. This volume calls for increased public awareness of the impact of parental incarceration on children. Its goal is to stimulate discussion about how to best meet the special needs of these children and families and how to provide a resource for the child welfare community as it responds to the growing numbers of children made vulnerable by their parents' incarceration. Cynthia Seymour is general counsel at the Child Welfare League of America in Washington, DC. Creasie Finney Hairston is dean and professor at Jane Addams College of Social Work, the University of Illinois at Chicago.

This title was first published in 2003. The "Red Mafia" in Russia have become the subject of increasing international interest and considerable misinterpretation. After well-received editions in Russian, French and Italian, Anton Oleinik's study of Russian prisons, in which he explores the social roots of organized crime in post-Soviet societies, is now published in English. This English edition includes a postscript on the Moscow terrorist crisis of 2002. Oleinik's analysis reveals prison society as a mirror of broader Russian society - characterized by the absence of the state as an organizer of social practices. He builds on this to make a central distinction between two types of societies - the modern "large" society and the "small" society, like Russia, that has only been partially modernized, and in which the world of everyday life, experiences and relationships remains entirely separated from the official aims of modernization and efficiency. Oleinik is interested in the void between these two separate worlds, a void he sees being filled in Russia by the Mafia.

Community penalties are punishments that, in the courts' sentencing tariff, come between imprisonment and fines. They include electronic tagging, supervised unpaid work, and compulsory participation by offenders in treatment programmes. Recent years have seen many changes in England in the field of community penalties. These have included the rapid development of accredited offending behaviour programmes, and some new court orders such as the Referral Order for juveniles, based on the principles of restorative justice. Organisationally, too, the year 2001 sees a major change with the establishment of the National Probation Service for England and Wales. Community Penalties: change and challenges addresses the key issues facing community penalties at this critical time. Topics covered include the recent history of community penalties, partnership work, cognitive behavioural approaches to changing offenders' behaviour (and the need to look beyond these), compliance theory, accountability to the public and to the victim, accommodating difference and diversity in the delivery of community penalties, the use of technology in community penalties, and community penalties and issues of public safety. Community Penalties: change and challenges brings together many leading authors in this field. Together, they provide an authoritative review of a vital field of public policy.

The police rely heavily on paid and unpaid informers: without them clear-up rates would plummet, and many crimes would remain undetected. Yet little is known about the informer system and how it works, for example: who are these informers? how are they recruited? how are they handled? who handles them? what sort of information do they provide? Recent high profile cases have drawn attention to the use of informers, there has been a growing debate about the subject, and many feel that stricter controls are needed - but how is this to be achieved without undermining the effectiveness of the system? This is the first book of its kind on informers in Britain, providing an invaluable source of information and analysis from key authorities in the field.

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.

This book examines what it means to be a family within the restrictive, disruptive, and often distressing context of imprisonment. Drawing on original qualitative data, it looks beyond traditional models of the family to examine the question of which relationships matter to individuals affected by imprisonment, and demonstrates how family relationships are actively constructed and maintained through family "practices" and "displays" such as visits, shared experiences and continuing family memories and traditions. It sheds new light not only on the true extent of who is impacted by the imposition of a prison sentence, but also the barriers to family life that these individuals encounter throughout its duration. This book also contributes to our understanding of wider issues such as poverty and social marginalisation, the role of family relationships on desistance from crime, and legitimacy. It argues that the act of supporting an individual in custody can bring families into regular contact with the criminal justice system in ways that can be both distressing and problematic, and therefore contends that the prison system should minimise the damage caused by imprisonment not only to family relationships, but also to the perceived legitimacy of the criminal justice system. Generating new conceptual insights into the harms of imprisonment and how perceptions of legitimacy and fairness are shaped by the criminal justice system, this book will be of much interest to students of criminology and sociology engaged in studies of criminal justice, prisons, gender, social work, and punishment. It will also be of interest to policy makers, penal-reformers, and activists.

First Published in 2000. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

This book arises from a research project funded in Australia by the Criminology Research Council. The topic, bail reform, has attracted attention from criminologists and law reformers over many years. In the USA, a reform movement has argued that risk analysis and pre-trial services should replace the bail bond system (the state of California may introduce this system in 2020). In the United Kingdom, Europe and Australia, there have been concerns about tough bail laws that have contributed to a rise in imprisonment rates. The approach in this book is distinctive. The inter-disciplinary authors include criminologists, an academic lawyer and a forensic psychologist together with qualitative researchers with backgrounds in sociology and anthropology. The book advances a policy argument through presenting descriptive statistics, interviews with practitioners and detailed accounts of bail applications and their outcomes. There is discussion of methodological issues throughout the book, including the challenges of obtaining data from the courts.

Macho Love: Sex Behind Bars in Central America is the first in-depth study of sexual culture and AIDS in Latin prisons. Psychologists, social workers, criminologists, and AIDS specialists will discover how the interplay of sexual ideals, prostitution, manipulation, resistance, and power relationships among prisoners and some staff are based on money, sex, drugs, and violence. Macho Love gives you a stirring and emotional look at the various risks and dangers lurking in the Latin American prison culture and discusses how Costa Rican and Central American prisons are improving the situation with new intervention programs. Fascinating and informative, Macho Love explores the dangerous Latin prison culture as it discusses: new HIV/AIDS prevention programs implemented in some Costa Rican and Central American prisons the frequency and types of prostitution and rape in prison drug and alcohol addiction and their effects on the spread of HIV/AIDS an understanding of why rehabilitation programs fail or succeed the lack of opportunities to work or to study that leaves the inmates vulnerable to the only freedom they have left--sex why a "cachero," or a man who penetrates another man, is not considered a homosexual and often refuses to wear a condom, which tremendously increases the risk of HIV/AIDS Macho Love explores the life-threatening sexual culture in prisons to bring you the realities of the Latin prison culture. This revealing book examines the different types of relationships which occur in prisons and the factors that place inmates at risk for contracting the HIV virus, such as not wearing a condom because of intoxication due to drugs and alcohol. Macho Love also shows you how the new HIV/AIDS intervention programs in Costa Rica are combatting these serious problems to lower HIV infection rates and avoid the spread of this deadly and dangerous disease.

Macho Love: Sex Behind Bars in Central America is the first in-depth study of sexual culture and AIDS in Latin prisons. Psychologists, social workers, criminologists, and AIDS specialists will discover how the interplay of sexual ideals, prostitution, manipulation, resistance, and power relationships among prisoners and some staff are based on money, sex, drugs, and violence. Macho Love gives you a stirring and emotional look at the various risks and dangers lurking in the Latin American prison culture and discusses how Costa Rican and Central American prisons are improving the situation with new intervention programs. Fascinating and informative, Macho Love explores the dangerous Latin prison culture as it discusses: new HIV/AIDS prevention programs implemented in some Costa Rican and Central American prisons the frequency and types of prostitution and rape in prison drug and alcohol addiction and their effects on the spread of HIV/AIDS an understanding of why rehabilitation programs fail or succeed the lack of opportunities to work or to study that leaves the inmates vulnerable to the only freedom they have left--sex why a "cachero," or a man who penetrates another man, is not considered a homosexual and often refuses to wear a condom, which tremendously increases the risk of HIV/AIDS Macho Love explores the life-threatening sexual culture in prisons to bring you the realities of the Latin prison culture. This revealing book examines the different types of relationships which occur in prisons and the factors that place inmates at risk for contracting the HIV virus, such as not wearing a condom because of intoxication due to drugs and alcohol. Macho Love also shows you how the new HIV/AIDS intervention programs in Costa Rica are combatting these serious problems to lower HIV infection rates and avoid the spread of this deadly and dangerous disease.

Considers colonial school-prison systems in relation to the self-determination of Native communities, nations, and peoples The School-Prison Trust describes interrelated histories, ongoing ideologies, and contemporary expressions of what the authors call the "school-prison trust": a conquest strategy encompassing the boarding school and juvenile prison models, and deployed in the long war against Native peoples. At its heart, the book is a constellation of stories of Indigenous self-determination in the face of this ongoing conquest. Following the stories of an incarcerated young man named Jakes, the authors consider features of school-prison relations for young Native people to ask urgent questions about Indigenous sovereignty, conquest, survivance, and refusal.

Much has been written about the laogai (sometimes likened to the Soviet gulag) in the People's Republic of China. Depending on the source, the prisons are described as nonexistent, enlightened institutions, or hellish places that subject the inmates to degradation and misery. The system is commonly thought of (by admirers and critics alike) as having a measurable impact on the national economy and providing significant resources to the state. Based on research in classified documents and extensive interviews with former prisoners, judicial personnel, and other insiders, and featuring case studies dealing with the three northwestern provinces, this book examines such assertions on the basis of the facts about this underexamined subject in order to arrive at a detailed, objective, and realistic picture of the situation. In the case of each province under study, the authors discuss the history of the provincial prison system and the impact that each has had at the macro, meso, and micro levels.

Comparing and contrasting the prison systems of 15 nations, this volume addresses the crisis and change in penology which has occurred during the 1980s and 1990s. The contributors identify both common and unusual problems which face penal systems throughout the world, and compare a variety of these systems by employing sociological analysis. Analyses of the penal systems in industrial, non-industrial, stable and unstable nations are undertaken here, and possible prospects for social and penal reform around the globe are discussed.

Sir Leon Radzinowicz is one of the key figures in the development of criminology in the 20th century, working as an academic criminologist, an adviser to government, and as the founding director of the Institute of Criminology at the University of Cambridge. This account of the development of criminology intertwines his personal narrative as a criminologist with the development of criminology itself. From a long career spanning 70 years from the 1920s to the late 1990s, he offers an overview of the changing understanding of crime and criminals, of criminal justice systems and penology, and of the tensions and dilemmas these pose for democratic societies. His own work as a scholar, adviser to governments, and the founding director of the first criminological research institute in Britain results in this book offering a well informed account of the intellectual and institutional history of criminology in Britain and Europe, and its place within a wider comparative perspective.