Natalie Lejeune Project 103 11/12/2017 Does Prison Work?
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Prisoner Testimonies of Torture in United States Prisons and Jails
Survivors Speak Prisoner Testimonies of Torture in United States Prisons and Jails A Shadow Report Submitted for the November 2014 Review of the United States by the Committee Against Torture I. Reporting organization The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) is a Quaker faith based organization that promotes lasting peace with justice, as a practical expression of faith in action. AFSC’s interest in prison reform is strongly influenced by Quaker (Religious Society of Friends) activism addressing prison conditions as informed by the imprisonment of Friends for their beliefs and actions in the 17th and 18th centuries. For over three decades AFSC has spoken out on behalf of prisoners, whose voices are all too frequently silenced. We have received thousands of calls and letters of testimony of an increasingly disturbing nature from prisoners and their families about conditions in prison that fail to honor the Light in each of us. Drawing on continuing spiritual insights and working with people of many backgrounds, we nurture the seeds of change and respect for human life that transform social relations and systems. AFSC works to end mass incarceration, improve conditions for people who are in prison, stop prison privatization, and promote a reconciliation and healing approach to criminal justice issues. Contact Person: Lia Lindsey, Esq. 1822 R St NW; Washington, DC 20009; USA Email: [email protected] +1-202-483-3341 x108 Website: www.afsc.org Acknowledgements This report would not have been possible but for the courageous individuals held in U.S. prisons and jails who rise above the specter of reprisal for sharing testimonies of the abuses they endure. -
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 ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ -
The Prisoner As One of Us: Norwegian Wisdom for American Penal Practice
Emory International Law Review Volume 31 Issue 2 2017 The Prisoner as One of Us: Norwegian Wisdom for American Penal Practice Emily Labutta Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarlycommons.law.emory.edu/eilr Recommended Citation Emily Labutta, The Prisoner as One of Us: Norwegian Wisdom for American Penal Practice, 31 Emory Int'l L. Rev. 329 (2017). Available at: https://scholarlycommons.law.emory.edu/eilr/vol31/iss2/4 This Comment is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at Emory Law Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Emory International Law Review by an authorized editor of Emory Law Scholarly Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. LABUTTA GALLEYSPROOFS2 2/21/2017 8:49 AM THE PRISONER AS ONE OF US: NORWEGIAN WISDOM FOR AMERICAN PENAL PRACTICE ABSTRACT The United States suffers from among the highest crime and recidivism rates in the world. This is in part due to its focus on retribution as the purpose of punishment and its high sentencing structure. Norway, on the other hand, has some of the lowest crime and recidivism rates and boasts Halden prison, which has been hailed as the world’s most humane prison. In Halden and other prisons, the Norwegian penal system applies the principle of normality. Under the principle of normality, Norway seeks the reintegration of its offenders into society. Its prisoners suffer fewer of the negative, unintended side effects of prison that isolate the prisoner from society, reinforce bad habits, and make reintegration upon release nearly impossible. -
Comparing Trends in Prison Policy and Practice in England and Wales, and Norway
Crimmigration in convergence? Comparing trends in prison policy and practice in England and Wales, and Norway Francis Pakes, University of Portsmouth, UK and Katrine Holt, Higher Executive Officer, Oslo politidistrikt, Norway. ABSTRACT The crimmigration landscape in the UK is much lamented. Reference is frequently made to the recent creation of dozens of new immigration offences and a sharp increase in the administrative detention of immigrations during the last two decades. In particular the prison has recently become an acute site of crimmigration with separate prisons for foreign nationals (Kaufman, 2013). Norway, on the other hand has traditionally been regarded an exception. The treatment of criminals and outsiders is described as inclusive and rehabilitative and focused on their successful return to society. However, here a distinction is also increasingly made between prisoners that will return to society and those that will not, most particularly foreign nationals. The UK and Norway are virtually the only countries in Western Europe with regular prisons that are exclusively reserved for foreign nationals. This article examines how the arguably most benign and the arguably most severe prison systems of Western Europe have come to mimic each other in this fashion. Wider implications for our theoretical understanding of the nature and loci of crimmigration policies are also considered. Introduction Any comparative research that is worth doing will reveal both similarity and difference (Pakes, 2010; Nelken, 2010)). Researchers are frequently inspired by seeking to understand why criminal justice arrangements in one jurisdiction can be so strikingly different from the next. But similarities can be as intriguing. This is in particular the case where highly dissimilar countries deploy highly similar approaches. -
The Failures of the American Penal System and the Possible Lessons of Scandinavian Exceptionalism
The failures of the American penal system and the possible lessons of Scandinavian Exceptionalism LUISS (Libera Università Guido Carli) Dipartimento di Scienze Politiche Sociology Candidato: Bruno Di Tillo Relatore: Ilaria Pitti Anno Accademico 2019/2020 !1 INDEX INTRODUCTION ——————————————— p. 3 Part 1 : Prelude ———————————————— p. 4 - 16 1.1: Foucault and Travis ———————————————————— p. 5 -7 1.2 : The State’s role in Society——————————-——————— p. 8 - 16 1.2 a) Scandinavia and The Welfare State ————————p. 8 - 13 1.2 b) USA Model ———————————————— p. 13 - 16 Part 2: The State and The Prison ——————————— p. 17 - 40 2.2 : UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ——————————————— p. 17 - 31 2.2 a) Poverty ——————————————————————p. 18 -19 2.2 b) African American Inmates —————————————p. 20 - 21 2.2 c) Drug Policies ————————————————— p. 22 - 24 2.2 d) Recidivism ————————————————— p. 24- 26 2.2 e) Sex Offenders and Recidivism ————————p. 26 - 27 2.2 f) Privatisation —————————————— p. 27 2.2 g) Prison Ecosystem and “prisonization” —— p. 28 - 31 2.3 : SCANDINAVIA ————————————————————— p. 32 - 41 2.3a) John Pratt and the overall Prison Population —————p. 32 - 33 2.3b) Halden Prison, Guard-Inmate Interaction, and general Prison Ecosystem ————————— p. 34 - 36 2.3c) Recidivism ————————————————— p. 36 - 37 2.3d) Crime Rates and a possible failure of the Nordic model ————————— p. 38- 40 Part 3: Conclusion ————————————————- p. 41 - 42 BIBLIOGRAPHY ————————————————- p. 43- 48 ABSTRACT / SUMMARY ———————————————-—P. 49 !2 Introduction The object of this thesis is to delineate the failures of the United States of America’s prison model and to showcase some of the many lessons Scandinavia has to give. -
ISSN: 2320-5407 Int. J. Adv. Res. 8(07), 1764-1770
ISSN: 2320-5407 Int. J. Adv. Res. 8(07), 1764-1770 Journal Homepage: - www.journalijar.com Article DOI: 10.21474/IJAR01/11445 DOI URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.21474/IJAR01/11445 RESEARCH ARTICLE A COMPARATIVE STUDY ON PRISON SYSTEMS: TIHAR AND HALDEN Vidushi Sahni …………………………………………………………………………………………………….... Manuscript Info Abstract ……………………. ……………………………………………………………… Manuscript History In order to serve justice, countries rely on one of two systems of justice. Received: 31 May 2020 The first way is through the method of retributive justice and the Final Accepted: 30 June 2020 second way is through restorative justice. Countries which tend to Published: July 2020 follow the retributive system of justice in their prisons tend to have higher incarceration and recidivism rates. On the other hand, countries which rely on restorative justice have lower crime rates and recidivism rates. But despite these findings, many justice systems around the world put emphasis on the first approach even though studies have shown that the restorative justice system can turn ex-offenders into well-functioning members of society. The goal of this comparative study is to understand how retributive justice and restorative justice work in India’s Tihar Jail and Norway’s Halden Prison, respectively. Moreover, it is also important to understand the impact of both of these justice systems on the offenders, while they serve time and after they have left the prison. Secondly, the research aims to decipher the possibility for other prisons to implement the restorative approach. To understand the subject in-depth, the researcher has referred to a compilation of secondary sources, including articles, books, documentaries, as well as previous research done in the subject area. -
A More Nordic Norway? Examining Prisons in 21St Century Iceland Francis Pakes and Helgi Gunnlaugsson Nordic Penal Exceptionalism
A more Nordic Norway? Examining prisons in 21st century Iceland Francis Pakes and Helgi Gunnlaugsson Nordic Penal Exceptionalism: Finding Iceland John Pratt put Nordic penal exceptionalism firmly on the criminological agenda (Pratt, 2008a, b). His two papers from 2008 in the British Journal of Criminology described penal practice in Norway, Sweden and Finland. This was then placed in sharp contrast to what they called Anglophone penal excess in Pratt and Eriksson’s subsequent book (2011). Pratt travelled to the Nordic countries to establish why penal practice was restrained, positive and generally form an exception to penal trends worldwide. Ironically, the key ingredient of exceptionalism is in fact its semantic opposite, normalisation. It refers to efforts to maintain in prison life as state of normality, for prison life to be as ‘normal’ as possible in order to facilitate Nordic prisons’ main objective of preparing prisoners for a return to society. The common phrase used is that Nordic prisons are places of punishment but not places for punishment: the deprivation of liberty is in the fact the punishment whilst the stay in prison should facilitate a prisoner’s betterment or personal growth. Pratt and Eriksson (2011) substantiate their thesis twofold. Their first point is that rates of imprisonment are low in the Nordic countries. Prison is seen as a last resort. The second is that material prison conditions are simply better in the Nordic countries than in places like the UK, Australia, the US or New Zealand. Prisons are smaller in the Nordic countries. Prison officer/prisoner relations are more cordial and less hostile possibly partly due to a more beneficial staff/prisoner ratio. -
A Decade After Abu Ghraib: Lessons in Softening up the Enemy and Sex-Based Humiliation
Minnesota Journal of Law & Inequality Volume 31 Issue 1 Article 1 June 2013 A Decade after Abu Ghraib: Lessons in Softening Up the Enemy and Sex-Based Humiliation Johanna Bond Follow this and additional works at: https://lawandinequality.org/ Recommended Citation Johanna Bond, A Decade after Abu Ghraib: Lessons in Softening Up the Enemy and Sex-Based Humiliation, 31(1) LAW & INEQ. 1 (2013). Available at: https://scholarship.law.umn.edu/lawineq/vol31/iss1/1 Minnesota Journal of Law & Inequality is published by the University of Minnesota Libraries Publishing. 1 A Decade After Abu Ghraib: Lessons In "Softening Up" The Enemy and Sex-Based Humiliation Johanna Bondi Introduction In April 2004, many in the United States and around the world watched with horror as the now-infamous photographs of torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib Prison emerged. The photos depicted images of U.S. soldiers engaged in torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment.! Among other things, the photos documented the sexual abuse and humiliation of Iraqi detainees in the prison.' The photographs depict naked detainees, some of whom were forced to engage in sex acts or simulated sex acts.3 Sworn statements of the detainees at Abu Ghraib reveal a pattern of abuse and degradation, including "details of how they were sexually humiliated and assaulted, threatened with rape, t. Johanna Bond, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Associate Professor of Law, Washington & Lee University School of Law. 1. Joshua L. Dratel, The Legal Narrative,in THE TORTURE PAPERS: THE ROAD To ABU GHRAIB xxi (Karen J. Greenberg & Joshua L. -
From Slave Ship to Supermax
Introduction Antipanoptic Expressivity and the New Neo-Slave Novel As a slave, the social phenomenon that engages my whole con- sciousness is, of course, revolution. Anyone who passed the civil service examination yesterday can kill me today with complete immunity. I’ve lived with repression every moment of my life, a re- pression so formidable that any movement on my part can only bring relief, the respite of a small victory or the release of death.1 xactly 140 years after Nat Turner led a slave rebellion in southeastern Virginia, the U.S. carceral state attempted to silence another influential EBlack captive revolutionary: the imprisoned intellectual George Jackson. When guards at California’s San Quentin Prison shot Jackson to death on August 21, 1971, allegedly for attempting an escape, the acclaimed novelist James Baldwin responded with a prescience that would linger in the African American literary imagination: “No Black person will ever believe that George Jackson died the way they tell us he did.”2 Baldwin had long been an advocate for Jackson, and Jackson—as evident from his identification with the slave in the block quotation above—had long been a critic of social control practices in the criminal justice system reminiscent of slavery. Jackson was a well-read Black freedom fighter, political prisoner, Black Panther Party field marshal, and radical social theorist who organized a prisoners’ liberation movement while serving an indeterminate sentence of one year to life for his presumed complicity in a seventy-dollar gas station robbery. He first exposed slavery’s vestiges in the penal system in Soledad Brother, the collection of prison letters 2 Introduction he published in 1970. -
Movement in the Prison Landscape: Leisure Activities – Inside, Outside and In-Between Berit Johnsen
CHAPTER 4 Movement in the Prison Landscape: Leisure Activities – Inside, Outside and In-between Berit Johnsen When I’m released, the first thing I’ll do is to walk uphill. Prisoner This article discusses the arrangement and movement of bodies in the prison land- scape. The focus is on closed prisons and the practice of leisure activities. The keeping of bodies ‘in place’ limits what a body can do in that the prisoners’ possibility to affect, be affected and create relations with their surroundings becomes limited. This also concerns the practice of leisure activities, which mostly happen in places espe- cially designed for this purpose. The principle of normalisation is concerned with bringing the outside into the inside. ‘Too much’ of the outside inside, in relation to facilities, the facilitation and the function of leisure activities, is often criticised in presentations of the inside, as too luxurious, or the prisoners having too good of a time in prison. However, leisure activities are supposed to be experienced as pleasur- able and meaningful, and it is argued that this is how leisure activities should be for prisoners too. Efforts should therefore be made to use both time and space in facili- tating such activities for the sake of the prisoners’ wellbeing and health. To extend the limit of what a body can do will give prisoners the opportunity to affect, to be affected and to create new relations that could also have positive outcomes for the prisoners’ rehabilitation. 65 chapter 4 Introduction The physical environment in Norwegian prisons shows a great variety. -
The Global Economy, Economic Crisis, and White-Collar Crime
Contents Volume 9 • Issue 3 • August 2010 SPECIAL ISSUE The Global Economy, Economic Crisis, and White-Collar Crime EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION White-collar crime and the Great Recession .......................................................................429 Neal Shover, Peter Grabosky WALLS OF SECRECY AND SILENCE RESEARCH ARTICLE. Walls of secrecy and silence: The Madoff case ..........................................435 and cartels in the construction industry Henk van de Bunt POLICY ESSAY. Secrecy, silence, and corporate crime reforms ..................................................455 William S. Laufer POLICY ESSAY. Silent or invisible? Governments and corporate financial crimes .....................467 John Minkes POLICY ESSAY. How to effectively get crooks like Bernie Madoff in Dutch .............................475 Henry N. Pontell, Gilbert Geis POLICY ESSAY. Getting our attention .......................................................................................483 Nancy Reichman SERIOUS TAX FRAUD AND NONCOMPLIANCE RESEARCH ARTICLE. Serious tax fraud and noncompliance: A review of evidence ....................493 on the differential impact of criminal and noncriminal proceedings Michael Levi POLICY ESSAY. Criminal prosecution within responsive regulatory practice ............................515 Valerie Braithwaite POLICY ESSAY. Fairness matters—more than deterrence: .........................................................525 Class bias and the limits of deterrence Paul Leighton POLICY ESSAY. Serious tax noncompliance: Motivation -
By Lilli Fisher What's the Purpose of a Prison?
By Lilli Fisher What’s the purpose of a prison? Answering this question might seem straightforward, but the answer varies depending on who you ask. The complexity of the issue is revealed by the diverse incarceration systems that exist around the world. In the United States, most prisons are austere environments, designed to restrict movement and facilitate surveillance.1 In many Scandinavian countries, prison systems operate on the opposite end of the spectrum, valuing rehabilitation over punishment and security. In Norway, for example, attractive buildings in campus style layouts are designed to mimic life outside the prison in order to ease the transition back into society.2 A society’s collective thoughts, feelings, and beliefs about crime are manifested in the physical spaces constructed to contain individuals who break the law. http://www.terrapinbrightgreen.com/blog/2016/08/prison-nature-social- structure/?utm_source=Website+Signups&utm_campaign=17e33afd6d- August_Newsletter8_12_2016&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_83a051a21f-17e33afd6d-104035097 Aerial view of Halden Prison, a campus style prison in Norway with forested grounds. Halden: A Prison in the Woods Norwegian penal philosophy focuses on rehabilitating inmates through humane treatment and a “guiding principle of normality,” the idea that life inside the prison should feel as much like regular life as possible.2 Halden Prison, a high-security facility designed by HLM Arkitektur in collaboration with Erik Møller Arkitekter,3 exemplifies the Norwegian Ministry of Justice’s policy of reintegration. Halden is a collection of buildings contained inside a tall curving wall and surrounded by a forest of spruce, scotch pine, and blueberry bushes. Inmates are allowed to roam the wooded grounds unaccompanied by guards, buy groceries from the prison grocery store, and cook their own meals.