The Rise (And Fall?) of Supermax Prisons How Did We Get from Here… to There?
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Chalk and Cheese: Australian Vs. Norwegian Prisons
Chalk and Cheese Australian vs. Norwegian Prisons by Irina Dunn 1Published by Community Justice Coalition 2017 © Community Justice Coalition / Irina Dunn 2017 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted by any person or entity, including internet such as engines or retailers, in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying (except under the statutory exceptions provisions of the Australian Copyright Act 1968), recording, scanning or by any information storage and retrieval system without the prior written permission of the copyright owner. The fact that this book is published online does not mean that any part of it can be reproduced without frst obtaining written permission: copyright laws do still apply. Inquiries should be directed to the author. First published by Community Justice Coalition in 2017 PO Box 386 Broadway Sydney NSW 2007 Australia Phone (02) 9283 0123 www.communityjusticecoalition.org National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry: Creator: Irina Dunn, author Title: Chalk & Cheese: Australian vs. Norwegian Prisons ISBN: 9780648140405 (ebook) Subjects: Criminal justice, Administrator of --Australia Criminal justice, Administration of --Great Britain Criminal justice, Administration of --Norway Criminal justice, Administration of --Netherlands Criminal justice, Administration of --Cross-Cultural-Studies Cover designed by Nick Freeman Breakout Media Communications Edited by Irina Dunn 2 Table of Contents Executive Summary ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ -
Supermax Isolation
one Supermax Isolation Solitary confinement has been part of American correctional practice since the birth of the nation. Th e idea of isolating prisoners for their own good was supported in the fi nal years of the eighteenth century by such prominent fi gures as Benjamin Franklin and his friend Benjamin Rush, the pioneering psychiatrist. During that era, many Quakers viewed crime as a moral lapse and jail as a place where prisoners would be left by themselves in a cell and would be expected to search their souls about their errant ways and be “penitent” (thus the origin of the word penitentiary). But over the years, prison funding could not keep pace with a growing prison population, so this kind of solitary confi nement for the general population of prisoners was abandoned as too expensive to construct for or to maintain. Where solitary was retained, its original rehabilitative rationale was stripped away; it was now openly used merely as a dreaded punishment and deterrent within the prison and as a convenient means of separating out, for months, years, even decades, individuals whose inclusion in the general prison population might pose problems for prison management. the long history of solitary confinement in the united states Th e fi rst correctional facility in the nation to consign prisoners to single cells was the Walnut Street Jail in Philadelphia. It was originally built in 1773 to handle the overfl ow of prisoners from the nearby, massively overcrowded High Street Jail. Th ere were simply too many debtors, paupers, prostitutes, thieves, and ex- slaves going to jail for the jailers to fi nd the space to house them. -
Prison Privatization in the United States: a New Strategy for Racial Control
PRISON PRIVATIZATION IN THE UNITED STATES: A NEW STRATEGY FOR RACIAL CONTROL by Gertrudis Mercadal A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Sciences in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Florida Atlantic University Boca Raton, Florida August 2014 Copyright by Gertrudis Mercadal 2014 ii PRISON PRIVATIZATION IN THE UNITED STATES: A NEW STRATEGY FOR RACIAL CONTROL by Gertrudis Mercadal This dissertation was prepared under the direction of the candidate’s dissertation advisor, Dr. Farshad Araghi, Department of Sociology, and has been approved by the members of her supervisory committee. It was submitted to the faculty of the Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts & Letters and was accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. SUPERVISORY COMMITTEE: ______________________________ Farshad Araghi, Ph.D. Dissertation Advisor ______________________________ Susan Love Brown, Ph.D. _____________________________ Simon Glynn, Ph.D. ___________________________________ Michael J. Horswell, Ph.D. Director, Comparative Studies Program ___________________________________ Heather Coltman, DMA Dean, Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts & Letters ___________________________________ __________________ Deborah L. Floyd, Ed.D. Date Interim Dean, Graduate College iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The author wishes to express her sincere love and gratitude to her husband, André Sabbagh, and her mother, Lucy Cottone Palencia, for their encouragement and patience during the writing of this manuscript. The author also wishes to thank the members of her advisory committee for their valuable time and advice during the development of this work, most especially Dr. Farshad Araghi for his insightful guidance and thoughtful mentorship during the years of research and writing of this dissertation. -
Imprisonment of Women: Why Orange Should Not Be the New Black
MITIGATING THE CRIME THAT IS THE OVER- IMPRISONMENT OF WOMEN: WHY ORANGE SHOULD NOT BE THE NEW BLACK Professor Mirko Bagaric* & Brienna Bagaric** INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................... 538 I. FEMALE OFFENDING PATTERNS AND INCARCERATION TRENDS: WOMEN COMMIT MUCH LESS CRIME AND EVEN LESS SERIOUS CRIME, YET THEIR INCARCERATION RATE IS INCREASING ....................................................................................... 545 A. The Situation in the United States ................................................... 545 B. Similar Female Offending and Incarceration Patterns in Australia ...................................................................................... 547 C. Interlude—Speculation as to Why Women Commit Less Crime and Why Even Serious Crimes Females Commit Are Not as Bad .................................................................. 549 II. FOUR REASONS FOR SENTENCING WOMEN LESS HARSHLY ................ 555 A. Mitigation in Sentencing ................................................................. 555 B. Women Reoffend Less Frequently—Better Prospects of Rehabilitation .................................................................................. 559 C. Women Suffer More as a Result of Prison than Men ...................... 563 D. Other People Are Harmed More When Females Are Imprisoned ....................................................................................... 570 E. Women Offenders Are Often the Victims of Child Sexual Abuse -
Prison Labor and the Economic Dimension of Employment Relationships
Vanderbilt Law Review Volume 61 Issue 3 Issue 3 - April 2008 Article 3 4-2008 Working at the Boundaries of Markets: Prison Labor and the Economic Dimension of Employment Relationships Noah D. Zatz Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.vanderbilt.edu/vlr Part of the Labor and Employment Law Commons Recommended Citation Noah D. Zatz, Working at the Boundaries of Markets: Prison Labor and the Economic Dimension of Employment Relationships, 61 Vanderbilt Law Review 857 (2008) Available at: https://scholarship.law.vanderbilt.edu/vlr/vol61/iss3/3 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Scholarship@Vanderbilt Law. It has been accepted for inclusion in Vanderbilt Law Review by an authorized editor of Scholarship@Vanderbilt Law. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Working at the Boundaries of Markets: Prison Labor and the Economic Dimension of Employment Relationships Noah D. Zatz* IN TRODU CTION ............................................................................... 859 I. PRISON LABOR AND CONVENTIONAL EMPLOYMENT LAW A N A LY SIS ............................................................................. 867 A. The Basic Contours of Contemporary P rison L abor ............................................................ 868 B. Prison Labor and the Control Dimension of Employment ....................................... 871 C. Prison Labor and Statutory Exclusions .................. 875 D. Moving Beyond Control and Exclusions.................. 879 II. EMPLOYMENT'S -
The Cruelty of Supermax Detention and the Case for a Hard-Time Sentencing Discount: a Pragmatic Solution to a Moral Shortcoming
Santa Clara Law Review Volume 60 Number 1 Article 3 5-3-2020 THE CRUELTY OF SUPERMAX DETENTION AND THE CASE FOR A HARD-TIME SENTENCING DISCOUNT: A PRAGMATIC SOLUTION TO A MORAL SHORTCOMING Bagaric, Mirko Svilar, Jennifer Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.law.scu.edu/lawreview Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation Bagaric, Mirko and Svilar, Jennifer, THE CRUELTY OF SUPERMAX DETENTION AND THE CASE FOR A HARD-TIME SENTENCING DISCOUNT: A PRAGMATIC SOLUTION TO A MORAL SHORTCOMING, 60 SANTA CLARA L. REV. 101 (2020). Available at: https://digitalcommons.law.scu.edu/lawreview/vol60/iss1/3 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at Santa Clara Law Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Santa Clara Law Review by an authorized editor of Santa Clara Law Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. THE CRUELTY OF SUPERMAX DETENTION AND THE CASE FOR A HARD-TIME SENTENCING DISCOUNT: A PRAGMATIC SOLUTION TO A MORAL SHORTCOMING Mirko Bagaric* & Jennifer Svilar** We should send offenders to prison as punishment, not for punish- ment. This principle is currently being violated for approximately 60,000 offenders who are caged in ‘supermax’ prison conditions in the United States. Prisoners subjected to supermax conditions suffer con- siderably more than those in conventional prison conditions. Many of these prisoners spend up to 23 hours in a small cell with no contact with any person. The conditions are traumatic. Emerging evidence demon- strates that these conditions cause considerable psychological and phys- ical harm to prisoners. -
Evaluating the Effectiveness of Supermax Prisons
The author(s) shown below used Federal funds provided by the U.S. Department of Justice and prepared the following final report: Document Title: Evaluating the Effectiveness of Supermax Prisons Author(s): Daniel P. Mears Document No.: 211971 Date Received: January 2006 Award Number: 2002-IJ-CX-0019 This report has not been published by the U.S. Department of Justice. To provide better customer service, NCJRS has made this Federally- funded grant final report available electronically in addition to traditional paper copies. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. SPUPERMAX RISONS URBAN INSTITUTE Evaluating the Effectiveness of Supermax Prisons Abstract for Project # 2002-IJ-CX-0019 Research Goals and Objectives Statement of Purpose: Despite the growth in super-maximum security prisons, no research has systematically assessed the goals, impacts, or costs of these prisons. The purpose of the Urban Institute (UI) research was to help states and correctional systems make informed decisions about investing in supermax prisons, and, specifically, to create an empirically-based framework to guide research on the goals and impacts of supermax prisons, and a tool for facilitating the understanding and use of benefit-cost analyses of these prisons. Research Subjects: The study included interviews with 60 corrections administrators, wardens, and officers, and state legislators, and a survey of state prison wardens. Respondents’ age, gender, and race/ethnicity were not recorded for the interviews or survey. Research Design and Methodology Methods: The study involved (1) a systematic review of research, corrections agency reports, and news and legal accounts of supermax prisons; (2) site visits to three states; (3) interviews with 60 corrections administrators, wardens, and officers, and state legislators, across eleven states; (4) a national survey of wardens’; and (5) creation of a benefit-cost analysis (BCA) policy brief and tool. -
Buried Alive: Solitary Confinement in the US Detention System
Physicians for Human Rights Buried Alive: Solitary Confinement in the US Detention System April 2013 physiciansforhumanrights.org About Physicians for Human Rights Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) is an independent nonprofit organization that uses medical and scientific expertise to investigate human rights violations and advocate for justice, accountability, and the health and dignity of all people. PHR’s Asylum Program and its network of hundreds of volunteer health professionals have helped thousands of survivors of torture and other brutal forms of persecution gain asylum in the United States by providing medical evaluations to corroborate their claims of persecution. PHR’s Anti-Torture Program seeks to strengthen international human rights norms in US national security law, policy, and practice, particularly in interrogation and detention settings, and to protect US health care professionals from complicity in the abuse and mistreatment of detainees. Our Impact 1986 — Led investigations of torture in Chile, gaining freedom for heroic doctors there 1988 — First to document the Iraqi use of chemical weapons on Kurds, providing evidence for prosecution of war criminals 1996 — Exhumed mass graves in the Balkans for International Tribunals, and sounded the alarm about refugee camps in Bosnia and Kosovo. 1996 — Provided evidence of genocide for the Rwanda Tribunal 1997 — Shared the Nobel Peace Prize for the International Campaign to Ban Landmines 2003 — Warned US policymakers on health and human rights conditions prior to and during the -
Violence, Punishment, & Space in the Contemporary US
CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by Bucknell University Bucknell University Bucknell Digital Commons Faculty Journal Articles Faculty Scholarship July 2013 'Security Here is Not Safe': Violence, Punishment, & Space in the Contemporary U.S. Penitentiary Karen M. Morin Bucknell University, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.bucknell.edu/fac_journ Part of the Human Geography Commons Recommended Citation Morin, Karen M.. "'Security Here is Not Safe': Violence, Punishment, & Space in the Contemporary U.S. Penitentiary." Environment and Planning D: Society and Space (2013) : 381-399. This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Scholarship at Bucknell Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Journal Articles by an authorized administrator of Bucknell Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 2013, volume 31, pages 381 – 399 doi:10.1068/d15011 “Security here is not safe”: violence, punishment, and space in the contemporary US penitentiary Karen M Morin Department of Geography, 106 Coleman Hall, Bucknell University, Lewisburg, PA 17837, USA; e-mail: [email protected] Received 25 July 2011; in revised form 17 June 2012 Abstract. The US penitentiary at Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, was retrofitted in 2008 to offer the country’s first federal Special Management Unit (SMU) program of its kind. This model SMU is designed for federal inmates from around the country identified as the most intractably troublesome, and features double-celling of inmates in tiny spaces, in 23-hour or 24-hour a day lockdown, requiring them to pass through a two-year program of readjustment. -
Torture in United States Prisons Evidence of Human Rights Violations 2Nd Edition
Torture in United States Prisons Evidence of Human Rights Violations 2nd Edition American Friends Service Committee Northeast Region Healing Justice Program Edited by: Bonnie Kerness Coordinator, Prison Watch Editorial Assistant: Beth Breslaw Intern, Prison Watch Torture in United States Prisons Evidence of Human Rights Violations 2nd Edition American Friends Service Committee Northeast Region Healing Justice Program Edited by: Bonnie Kerness Coordinator, Prison Watch Editorial Assistant: Beth Breslaw Intern, Prison Watch © 2011 American Friends Service Committee Northeast Region Prison Watch Project 89 Market Street, 6th floor Newark, NJ 07102 www.afsc.org (973) 643-3192 Cover art by Todd (Hyung-Rae) Tarselli CONTENTS Introduction 2 Isolation 5 Communications Management Units 27 Health and Medical Services and Conditions 32 Mental Illness 39 Use of Force and Devices of Torture 45 Contraband Surveillance Watch 59 Racism 65 Women in Prison 72 How you can get involved 79 Appendix 83 Glossary 90 Special thanks to King Downing, on whose work “How You Can Get Involved” (pages 79-82) is based. Torture in United States Prisons | Evidence of Human Rights Violations Introduction When prison doors close behind men and women they become our prisoners. If we are their family and friends, we may visit, write, call, and advocate on their behalf. If they are anonymous, we will likely dismiss them with the thought, “they broke the law—that was their choice— and now they must pay the penalty.” And we proceed about our daily lives without looking over the prison wall. It is time we did just that; prisons reflect the societies that create them. -
Globalism and the Prison Industrial Complex
10 2014 Globalism and the prison industrial complex An Interview with Angela Davis conducted by Avery Gordon Angela Davis I’d like to begin by asking you to describe what is meant by the “prison industrial complex”. Almost two million people are currently locked up in the immense network of US prisons and jails. More than 70 per cent of the imprisoned population are people of colour. Approximately five million people – including those on probation and parole – are directly under the surveillance of the criminal justice system. Three decades ago, the imprisoned population was approximately one-eighth its current size. […] According to Elliott Currie, “[t]he prison has become a looming presence in our society to an extent unparalleled in our history – or that of any other industrial democracy. Short of major wars, mass incarceration has been the most thoroughly implemented government social programme of our times.”[1] Penal infrastructures must be created to accommodate this rapidly swelling population of caged people. Goods and people must be provided to keep imprisoned populations alive. Sometimes these populations must be kept busy and at other times - particularly in repressive super-maximum prisons and in Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) detention centres – they must be deprived of virtually all meaningful activity. Vast numbers of handcuffed and shackled people are moved across state borders as they are transferred from one state or federal prison to another. All this work, which used to be the primary province of government, is now also performed by private corporations, whose links to government in the field of what is euphemistically called “corrections” reveal dangerous resonances with the military industrial complex. -
Prison: Evidence of Its Use and Over-Use from Around the World
PRISON Evidence of its use and over-use from around the world Jessica Jacobson Catherine Heard Helen Fair i Prison: Evidence of its use and over-use from around the world Institute for Criminal Policy Research Birkbeck, University of London 42 Store Street London WC1E 7DB Email [email protected] ICPR website http://www.icpr.org.uk/ World Prison Brief http://www.prisonstudies.org/world-prison-brief Twitter @icprtweet and @ICPSLondon Fair Trials 5 Castle Road London NW1 8PR Website https://www.fairtrials.org/ Twitter @fairtrials © 2017 Institute for Criminal Policy Research and the authors The rights of Jessica Jacobson, Catherine Heard and Helen Fair to be identified as the authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. This publication may be freely reviewed, abstracted or reproduced in part, but not for sale or for use in conjunction with any commercial purposes. Any changes to the text of this publication must be approved in writing by the Institute for Criminal Policy Research. Due credit must be given to the Institute for Criminal Policy Research and to this publication. Enquiries should be addressed to [email protected] This document was produced with financial assistance from the Open Society Foundations. Its contents are the sole responsibility of the Institute for Criminal Policy Research and can under no circumstances be regarded as reflecting the position of the Open Society Foundations. Design & print www.intertype.co.uk ii Contents Foreword v Acknowledgments vi Summary vii 1. Use and over-use of imprisonment worldwide 1 1.1 Patterns of imprisonment worldwide 1 1.2 The ten jurisdictions 2 2.