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Well-being is defined as the multi-dimensional experience of positive emotions, as well as life satisfaction, autonomy, and purpose. This scoping review examines the impact of musical practices on the well-being of incarcerated individuals and uniquely contributes to the literature by focusing on the relationship between music and power in carceral settings and by expounding on the ways in which musical practices both facilitate and inhibit experiences of well-being. Our review contributes to this body of literature by proposing three distinct ways musical practices may affect well-being: (1) Musical Practices and Psychological Outcomes, (2) Musical Practices and Identity Formation and (3) Musical Practices and Power. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By January 2024, the COVID-19 pandemic claimed more than 1.1 million deaths in the United States (U.S.). People in prison are particularly vulnerable to COVID-19 as they have no ability to socially distance, secure masks, disinfect their environment or have as much access to tests or vaccinations as is available in the community. In addition, many of these individuals reside in crowded conditions with little ventilation, which makes the spread of the virus more likely. In this paper, we used data from two projects, including the UCLA Law COVID Behind Bars Data Project and the COVID Prison Project, and supplemented these with publicly available data to examine the number of deaths and infection rates caused by COVID-19 among people in prison and prison staff in the U.S., as reported by the population of those facilities. We found that the incidence of infections and death rates in prisons were affected by crowding, prison security type (maximum, medium, minimum, or mixed) and level of prison (state or federal). People in prison who were less likely to have as much human contact (e.g., maximum-security prisons) were also less likely to be afflicted with COVID-19. People in prison were twice as likely to be infected by COVID-19 but had a similar death rate compared to the general public. Prison overcrowding increased the infection rate. The most effective state health policy was to quarantine people who had close contact with confirmed, positive cases. Further, state prisons demonstrated a higher death rate compared to federal prisons. Greater efforts to ameliorate COVID-19 and similar pathogens should be directed at state prisons with lower-level security and prisons with closer contact with the community. Quarantining close-contacts and restricting movements were the most effective state-level responses to reduce infections in prisons during April 2020 to April 2022. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over 2.2 million individuals are currently incarcerated in prisons and jails across the United States. Having a family member incarcerated impacts the entire family system. Recent research has shown the relational consequences of incarceration, such as adjusting to and negotiating new rules and roles within the coparenting relationship. The coparenting relationship is multifaceted and necessitates empirical evidence that significantly honors the voices that are at the center of experience but typically silenced by the stigma and prejudice nature of incarceration and its coinciding consequences. Coparenting partners of incarcerated individuals were interviewed to understand the lived experience of incarcerated coparenting using a phenomenological approach. Four themes (positive relationship, stigma, seeking and providing support, and impact of incarceration) emerged from eleven interviews. Implications are provided on how to best advocate for this population through research, clinical work, and policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the relationship between mass incarceration and environmental inequalities. The United States incarcerates more people than any other country, and incarceration is highly racialized. The article discusses how prisons are settler colonial ecosystems that produce injustice. Prisons are located close to hazardous sites and in areas prone to extreme weather events. Food insecurity is also commonplace in jails. The article introduces concepts such as carceral food justice and carceral food sovereignty to recognize the unique circumstances that inmates experience in their quest to acquire healthy, affordable, adequate, and culturally desirable food. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are no mandatory national standards for custodial suicide prevention and response programs in the United States. While some professional organizations do offer accreditation, those programs are optional. Recent research on jails found that most facilities have formal suicide prevention policies, but they differ in their comprehensiveness. Little is known about the elements of state and federal prison suicide prevention policies. This study involves an analysis of state- and federal-level department of corrections suicide prevention and response policies. Elements of each jurisdiction's policies were compared against a list of best practices, developed by professional organizations and correctional suicide scholars, for suicide prevention and response. Results revealed that, on average, department policies contain about half of the recommended elements, and that some policies, including those that could improve the culture of each institution, are not included in most departmental policy documents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the longstanding issues within the correctional officer occupation (e.g., high turnover, absenteeism), decades of research have tended to focus solely on the negative consequences of correctional officer work, rather than on the unique personal characteristics of the officers themselves. This omission is surprising as it is highly probable that each person experiences correctional work differently, with variation potentially hinging on the unique views and characteristics individuals bring with them to the job. Just as the "importation model" of prison adaptation recognizes the importance of pre-prison characteristics in explaining offender behavior, we argue that the unique personal experiences and social histories correctional officers import with them might shape the way they react to prison work. Thus, by thematically, descriptively, and multivariately examining three theoretically germane pre-prison work characteristics of 673 pre-service correctional officers (career motivations, attitudes toward prisoners, occupational histories), this call for research aims to raise awareness of the less studied factors within the correctional officer literature. Understanding the backgrounds and attitudes of newly hired correctional officers may potentially assist in the recruitment and retainment of these crucial employees in the prison system both in the United States and abroad. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Burnout is a phenomenon commonly found in the workplace. When burnout is job-related, it is considered job burnout. Historically, job burnout has been most common among those who work in human services fields and who deal with stressful situations on a regular basis. Job burnout consists of three components: emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and feelings of work ineffectiveness. While job burnout may be common, not all workers in stressful fields experience it, which indicates that there must be organizational or individual factors that limit the likelihood of job burnout for some workers. This study examined the impact of four job-related factors (job stress, job involvement, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment) on the three components of job burnout for correctional workers in a large, maximum-security prison in the Southern United States. The findings indicated that the four job-related factors were related strongly and in the predicted direction to two or three of the measures of job burnout. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite a long line of scholarship on race and social control, evidence that incarceration can be connected to slavery is difficult to provide. This study evaluates whether slavery had long-term effects on growth in state incarceration rates by focusing on two key theoretical indicators: the size of the enslaved population prior to the Civil War and demographic changes during the Great Migration. Results reveal that states that historically had larger enslaved populations and those that acted as destinations for southern migrants experienced increased growth in incarceration between 1970 and 2015. Mediation analyses show that both variables have indirect effects on change in incarceration rates through contemporary demographic composition and public opinion. These findings lend support to theoretical claims that link slavery to mass incarceration and shed light on the mechanisms that enable racial histories to map onto current criminal punishments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic is something that affected, and continues to affect, the entire world. In the United States specifically, it impacted the nation majorly- so many people became infected and died, and there were numerous policies implemented to slow the spread. These policies mostly took place in the general population, but in the prison population, many inmates were not protected. Inmates have five times greater risk of COVID than citizens in the general population do. Carceral institutions in the United States are already known to treat many of their inmates inhumanely, but the COVID pandemic amplified the poor living conditions of the inmates. This paper gives an overview of how prisons functioned pre-pandemic, and then it goes into how federal, state, and local carceral institutions initially responded to the start of COVID. How inmates were treated and whether or not they were prioritized in vaccine distributions is discussed, and the impact the COVID virus had on correctional staff is discussed as well. The rise of lawsuits is also briefly explored. Ultimately, there is much variation in how different jurisdictions responded to the pandemic and how they continue to respond. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study evaluates how homicide, racial threat, and media discourse interacted to shape the timing and persistence of prison growth in the United States. Drawing on Blumer's classic work, I argue that media discourse circulates threat narratives that portray racial minorities as either economically, politically, or criminally threatening. Criminal threat narratives increase in response to highly salient crimes, like homicide, and exert institutionally specific pressures that increase incarceration. To evaluate these claims, I use machine learning to classify 1,026,862 news articles in accordance with economic, political, and criminal threat themes in a time series analysis of the national incarceration rate between 1926 and 2016. Results reveal that the period of prison growth is characterized by an influx of criminal threat narratives that coincides with increases in the homicide rate. Criminal threat narratives and the homicide rate both have sizable long-term effects on the incarceration rate, whereas economic and political threat narratives have little explanatory power. Further analyses show that criminal threat narratives account for roughly half of the effect of the homicide rate on incarceration, and that the homicide rate has an indirect effect on racial disparity in prison admissions by acting through criminal threat narratives. These findings support core theoretical claims and expand our understanding of the complex interaction between racial threat and homicide in the historical rise of incarceration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The COVID-19 pandemic impacted people across the globe but left particular risks and restrictions for incarcerated people. Lockdowns and the suspension of in-person visitation in U.S. facilities drastically changed everyday life for incarcerated people and their families. Families on the outside were left with less contact with their incarcerated loved ones. This study explores access to communication during the COVID-19 pandemic from the perspectives of families with incarcerated loved ones in the United States. We conducted two rounds of interviews with family members across 20 states (n = 59). Results of our thematic analysis reveal stressors encountered by families during the pandemic, including worry and frustration around uncertainty in communication, disconnected relationships due to visitation closure, and additional financial and emotional burdens. Interviewees noted the importance of social support in coping with these stressors. We discuss theoretical and policy implications followed by future directions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the contemporary United States, millions of fathers cycle through the criminal justice and child support systems—cycles that create new forms of debt and disadvantage. This symposium discusses those cycles and their effects on fathers and their families. Through comments on Lynne Haney's book, Prisons of Debt: The Afterlives of Incarcerated Fathers, the authors analyze the criminalization of child support and the ways it complicates reentry after prison. They engage Haney's arguments about the causes and consequences of prisons of debt and her empirical material on men's struggles as indebted fathers—or, as Michael Mitchell put it, the book's insistence on "getting proximate to human suffering." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Privatization and austerity measures have turned US prisons and jails into sites of financial extraction. As corrections systems have slashed budgets for essential services, incarcerated individuals are increasingly expected to cover the costs of their institutionalization, including amounts for administrative fees and legal support, and for covering basic necessities during incarceration. This article focuses on the commissary system as a central yet understudied institution of the American neo-liberal prison. It conceptualizes commissary as a double-edged institution: on the one hand, prison commissary stores—where people can purchase a wide variety of items, from extra food to small appliances—constitute a crucial mechanism for extending financial extraction inside carceral institutions, siphoning millions of dollars each year from impoverished households. At the same time, we argue, shopping at commissary allows incarcerated persons to mitigate against the punitive frugality imposed by the prison and to limit the reach of disciplinary power. Drawing on qualitative research with sixty formerly incarcerated men in New York State, and on the personal experiences of one of the authors with the New York penal system, this article reconstructs how access to economic capital functions as a mediating structure in contemporary US prisons, enabling some prisoners to negotiate carceral punishment, while leaving others fully exposed to its harmful consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the scale, inequity, and consequences of mass incarceration, health care provider knowledge and awareness on correctional health remain limited. Understanding the educational experiences of health professions learners and the studies used to evaluate them can provide useful information about current gaps to guide future curricular improvement. To address this need, we conducted a scoping review of peer-reviewed studies examining United States-based academic health professions educational programs on correctional health. Studies were coded based on study characteristics, learner outcomes, and degree to which they contained elements described in relevant position statements by two professional medical associations. Overall, 27 articles (1975–2021) were included. Learner outcomes were primarily documented at the "reactions" (93%) and "learning" (52%) levels of the Kirkpatrick model (1979), relative to "behaviors" (11%) and "long-term outcomes" (0%). Comparison of curricula to select position statements revealed multiple content gaps in the realms of prevalent conditions requiring expertise (e.g., violence and self-harm); ethical and medical–legal considerations (e.g., privatization of correctional health care); and correctional health care systems, structures, and administration. Taken together, findings highlight gaps in, and opportunities for, correctional health educational programs. Addressing health care workforce training needs is a necessary yet insufficient step to achieving health equity for populations affected by incarceration. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Policies for next-of-kin (NOK) notification and disposition of remains surrounding death are unclear across the United States' (US) carceral systems. The goal of this study was to collect data on carceral system policies pertaining to NOK notification and disposition of remains for individuals who are incarcerated. We collected publicly available operational policies for the Federal Bureau of Prisons, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, 50 state prison systems, and the Washington D.C. jail for a total of 53 systems. Results: Approximately 70% of systems had available policies on NOK notification and disposition of remains. Few systems had information on time constraints for NOK notification, notifying parties or designated contacts person, and ultimate disposition of unclaimed remains. Several systems had no accessible policies. Conclusions: Across the US, carceral systems vary in policies for notifying NOK after the death of an incarcerated individual and their processes for the disposition of remains. Carceral and health systems should work towards standardization of policies on communication and disposition of remains after death of an individual who is incarcerated to work towards equity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Restorative justice seeks to balance the needs of the victim, offender, and community by repairing the harm caused by crime and wrongdoing and improving the prosocial competencies and accountability of the offender in response to an offense. Restorative justice interventions (RJIs) offer an alternative method to reduce harm and short- and long-term recidivism. However, empirical validation of mechanisms and moderating factors warrant additional inquiry within jail and prison settings. Thus, the authors sought to examine RJI delivery timing on recidivism outcomes with age and gender as moderators. A final sample of 1,316 individuals (49.8% female) incarcerated in several United States prisons received an RJI between 2001 and 2017. RJI timing did not relate to binary recidivism. However, women recidivated less than men and older individual recidivated less than younger individuals. For the subsample of reoffenders (n = 283), RJIs delivered closer to release increased the amount of time before recidivism. Delivering RJIs closer to release from prison may allow for other community programs to intervene and reduce recidivism even further. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the experiences of incarcerated mothers who participate in a faith-based parenting program at a women's prison in the United States. Thirty-three women participated in four focus groups. Using a grounded theory framework, four major themes emerged from the analysis, including building foundations, guilty mom, on the mend, and opening the lines of communication. Overall, the findings highlight numerous benefits of the program for incarcerated women's relationships with their children, their ability to reframe the experience of motherhood, and their personal growth. A theoretical model for others who must parent 'from a distance' is proposed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United States is the world leader in confining bodies behind bars. As scholars, practitioners, and activists struggle against the problem of mass incarceration, this article makes a distinction between two competing perspectives, both of which seek to change the current criminal legal system: "prison abolition" and "reformism." Each represents ideological and political differences in how mass incarceration should and could be resolved. Prior research has relied on historical methods and data to examine theoretical departures between prison reform and prison abolition, yet to our knowledge, there have been no explorations of these perspectives on new media. This article fills the gap, drawing on a sample of 2,112,206 tweets between 2011 and 2020 and engaging in an in‐depth qualitative analysis of nearly 5,000 tweets over a 6‐year period in order to investigate the ways Twitter users disclose and define their positions on criminal justice reform on one hand, and prison abolition on the other, and how these discussions have changed over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Numerous articles and textbooks advise qualitative researchers on accessing "hard-to-reach" or "hidden" populations. In this article, I compare two studies that I conducted with justice-involved women in the United States: a yearlong ethnography inside a state women's prison and an interview study with formerly incarcerated women. Although these two populations are interconnected—and both are widely deemed hard-to-reach—the barriers to access differed. In the prison study, hard-to-reach reflected an issue of institutional legitimacy, in which researchers must demonstrate themselves and their proposed study as legible, appropriate, and worthy to organizational gatekeepers. In the reentry study, hard-to-reach reflected an issue of structural precarity, in which researchers must navigate the everyday vulnerabilities of research participants' social position to ensure the study is inclusive and feasible. Juxtaposing these two experiences, I propose greater nuance to the term hard-to-reach such that researchers may proactively address institutional and structural barriers to access. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Migration, detention, and deportation are often rife with violence. This study sought to examine associations among pre-migration experiences, detention conditions, and mental health among Mexicans deported from the U.S. to Mexico between 2020 and 2021. Data from the Migrante Project (N=306, weighted N=14,841) were analyzed using descriptive statistics and unadjusted and adjusted multivariate regression models. The prevalence of a lifetime mental health diagnosis was 18.5%. Exposure to adverse conditions in detention (adjusted odds ratio [AOR]=17.56, p<.001) and having been detained in both immigration and non-immigration facilities (AOR=9.70, p=.042) were significantly associated with increased odds of experiencing abuse during migrants' most recent detention. Experiencing abuse during migrants' most recent detention was, in turn, associated with increased odds of a lifetime mental health diagnosis (AOR=4.72, p<.005). Targeted, trauma-informed mental health services are needed for deported Mexican migrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To understand and improve the experiences of Black chaplains, it is essential to consider how they experience and are integrated into their workplaces. This article draws from interviews with ten Black chaplains in the military and prisons. In light of historic, state-sanctioned, discrimination in these institutions, we ask how these chaplains experience their workplaces racially. All experience racial burdens in the workplace as part of being the first or only Black chaplain or in response to overt racial discrimination. They identify few to no formal workplace efforts to support them as Black chaplains and spoke of resistance to informal efforts that have been tried over the years. State and federal workplaces must recognize the racial burdens Black chaplains' experiences and take action to respond to and support these systemic workplace issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The identification and treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in carceral settings remain a fundamental concern for practitioners, policy-makers, and incarcerated persons (IPs) alike. In recent years, PTSD assessment tools designed for the general population have been adopted for use in prisons upon intake, sometimes side-by-side with other assessment tools. This study attempts to provide insight into how these tools are used for a majority of IPs within the United States. Based on results from six U.S. states and the federal prison system, we find that PTSD assessment would benefit from newer tools designed for the specific challenges in the prison environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Criminal justice systems across the United States are reducing reliance on prison incarceration and moving toward more local and noncustodial types of responses to felony offenders. Rather than wholesale decarceration, states and counties are shifting felons along what we call a "continuum of control," which allows for people who previously might have been incarcerated in state prison to be sentenced to jail, jail plus probation, or probation without a custodial spell. With some notable exceptions, existing research has focused primarily on contrasting prison versus community placements and ignored the intermediary alternatives between the poles of the continuum. In this study, we compare the recidivism outcomes of felons sentenced to prison versus those sentenced to jail, jail plus probation, and probation alone. On balance, our findings show that jail incarceration results in the same or lower rearrest and reconviction rates than incarceration in prison. We also find consistent evidence that while rearrests are frequently higher for probation with or without a jail spell, reconvictions are consistently lower for similarly situated offenders than prison. These findings provide partial evidence in support of policies that move people convicted of felonies to less costly, more local, and less confining alternatives than prison. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Context: The Crouse decision from 1838 laid precedent to the positioning of prisons as sites where education takes place. With a massive expansion of youth carceral facilities since then, alongside the prison-schools within them, we continually rely on prison-school spaces as places where youth are brought to experience education and punishment. While the wider population of youth who are incarcerated in the United States has significantly reduced since the year 2000, the reduction of incarcerated Girls of Color has not. Many incarcerated Girls of Color are also disabled. Thus, it is within this context that we explore the prison-school space as a site that is intended to provide robust educational opportunities. Focus of Study: In this article, we repositioned disabled incarcerated Girls of Color as knowledge generators and as experts well positioned to describe existing prison-school practices and alternatives to prison-school. Through the conceptual frames of forgotten places and the destructive practices within, we focused on the lived experiences of disabled incarcerated Girls of Color in SYRAD, a Midwestern maximum-security youth prison, to address our main research question: What are the education experiences of disabled Girls of Color in prison-schools? Research Design: Our qualitative study is part of a larger project that included 14 disabled incarcerated Girls of Color. Throughout the year, the girls were enrolled in a credit-bearing course with the principal investigator and research team. Our full corpus of data included interviews with the girls (23) and adults in the youth prison (6); classroom observations (25); education journey maps (10); focus groups (4); field notes (20); and classroom artifacts (21). For this study, we mainly focused on the initial interviews with the girls in which they discussed topics related to their experiences in a prison and prison-school. Conclusions/Recommendations: Our analyses showcased that prison-schools do not offer robust educational opportunities as claimed by the Crouse decision. Instead, the collective experiences of disabled incarcerated Girls of Color in our study were saturated with destructive prison-school practices. Three main findings emerged in our analysis that framed prison-school educational spaces as "concentrated sinks" of destructive practices: (1) curricular reduction, (2) remedial pedagogy, and (3) relational antagonism. Further, the girls offered robust explications on why naming and describing destructive practices is important, especially "when you carry a lot" as an incarcerated disabled Girl of Color in a forgotten place of prison-school. These findings led us to the need for an eventual abolition of prisons and prison-school spaces that can be anchored in a DisCrit abolitionist imaginary in the meantime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

On June 7th, 2019, Layleen Xtravaganza Cubilette-Polanco, a transgender woman from New York, died at Rikers Island while in solitary confinement. According to officials from the Department of Corrections, Layleen's death was a result of a series of interrelated health problems.. Trans, queer, and gender non-conforming people, especially youth of colour and Black trans women, face heightened rates of homelessness, violent victimisation, barriers to housing, employment, and healthcare. These social conditions are tied to heightened engagement in survival sex work, over-policing, and surveillance of their communities. As a result, Trans and queer people are disproportionately impacted by mass incarceration, and must contend with the nexus of a system that functions on racist and colonial legal construction of gender, making carceral spaces sites of (in)visibility and death. The death of Trans people within these carceral spaces are followed by multiple discursive deaths, including the use of dead names in media, misgendering, and transphobic political debate. This paper aims to highlight and explore carceral settings as sites of death and (in)visbility for Trans and queer people and how reframing allows us to identify how (neo)liberal reforms meant to protect Trans people only entrench mass incarceration in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose This chapter gives an overview of the impact that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on institutional corrections in the United States and the responses correctional institutions have taken to lessen those impacts. Methodology/Approach -- A review of the extant literature was conducted to gather information on COVID-19 and the institutional corrections systems within the United States. Findings The impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on correctional institutions within the United States were more pronounced due to the demographic characteristics of inmates and facility challenges. Responses to outbreaks or potential outbreaks in jails and prisons in the United States included screening measures, restricted inmate movement and visitation, and decarceration efforts.Originality/Value This chapter builds upon literature by discussing the challenges posed to correctional institutions in the United States in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic and summarizing the measures taken to reduce the impact of COVID-19 on inmates, institutional staff, and community members alike. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The United States prison system, the largest in the world, operates through both exploitative and rehabilitative modes of discipline. To gain political and public support for the extensive resources expended housing, feeding, and controlling its incarcerated population, the carceral state strategically emphasizes a mix of each mode. Agriculture in prisons is particularly illustrative. With roots in racial capitalism and the carceral state's criminalization of poverty, plantation convict leasing system, work reform efforts, and punitive and welfarist carceral logics, prison agriculture embodies explicit forms of exploitation and claims of rehabilitation. Accordingly, this article contextualizes and explains results from a nationwide study of state prisons within our framework of the disciplinary matrix. At least 662 adult state prisons have agricultural activities, including an array of animal, food, and plant production. We find that the drivers of these activities are financial, idleness reduction, reparative, and training. Our disciplinary matrix framework departs from conventional assignments of a particular activity to one disciplinary mode or the other and recognizes that any activity may be driven by different prison needs or philosophies. We investigate how different combinations of agricultural activities and drivers rely on discourses of deservingness to naturalize and reproduce structures of racialized, classed, and gendered control inside and outside prison, as well as the legitimacy of the prison system itself. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mass incarceration is an ethical crisis. Yet it is not only the magnitude of the system that is troubling. Mass incarceration has been created and sustained by racism, classism, and ableism, and the problems of the criminal legal system will not be solved without meaningfully intervening upon these forms of oppression. Beyond that, incarceration itself—whether of one person or 2 million—represents a moral failing. To punish and control, rather than invest in community and healing, is antithetical to the values of the field of bioethics. This commentary, which responds to the article "Fifty Years of U.S. Mass Incarceration and What It Means for Bioethics," by Sean Valles, considers abolition as a crucial form of justice that must be centered in the work of bioethics. Abolition is both an antiracist intervention and a means of considering the ways health care broadly and bioethics specifically have allowed for the perpetuation of carcerality in the United States. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Custodial prison work and vocation programs are among the most common programs in United States corrections. However, literature suggests ambiguity regarding their effectiveness in producing desired outcomes. Extant systematic reviews and meta-analyses of these programs are dated, focus on post-release programs, and rely on monolithic effect sizes to determine if these programs 'work.' To assess this issue, we conduct a meta-analysis of 31 program evaluations published between 1986 and 2017, focusing on study and program characteristics that moderate conclusions of success. We argue that several issues require attention before researchers can conclude whether and for whom custodial work and vocational programs are successful, including: incomparable outcomes; treatment heterogeneity and treatment effect heterogeneity; program stacking; and conflicting definitions of programs. Implications from this study aid in establishing a cohesive literature to make stronger conclusions about the characteristics of programs and program evaluations that produce effective custodial work and vocation programs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is broad consensus within the international community that conditions in the al-Holprison camp, which holds thousands of captured wives and children of ISIS fighters, constitute egregious international legal violations. Less clear, however, is which State (or States) may be held internationally responsible for those violations. Litigation at the European Court of Human Rights thus far has centered on the question of 'whether detainees' States of nationality bear a positive obligation to repatriate or else violate extraterritorial obligations under regional human rights instruments. Yet the primary violations implicated by the camp likely go further than those contained within those treaties--and the States facilitating the continued operation of the camp are not only European States of nationality. The United States, along with several other members of the Global Coalition, have continued to assist the Syrian Democratic Forces in its management of the camp by funding, training, and equipping its members. Yet a finding of international responsibility for those States will likely be hampered by the limitations within the current framework provided by the Articles on the Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Conduct (ASR). This Note seeks to do three things: first, to articulate which rules of international law the camp and its conditions violate; second, to pinpoint the "legal lacuna" in the ASR which allows for complicit States to evade responsibility; and third, to identify the potential solutions for bridging this legal gap. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In its Apprendi line of cases, the Supreme Court has held that any fact found at sentencing (other than prior conviction) that aggravates the punishment range otherwise authorized by the conviction is an "element" that must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt to a jury. Whether Apprendi controls factfinding for the imposition and revocation of probation, parole, and supervised release is critically important. Seven of ten adults under correctional control in the United States are serving terms of state probation and postconfinement supervision, and roughly half of all prison admissions result from revocations of such terms. But scholars have yet to confront the effect of the Court's Apprendi rulings on the regulation of conditional release in the states. This Article takes on that project. The Article makes three contributions. First, it explains why and how the Apprendi doctrine applies to judicial findings at initial sentencing that either lengthen the term of conditional release an offender must serve or mandate incarceration instead of conditional release. State courts continue to divide on these questions. Second, regarding factfinding at the revocation stage, the Article tackles the many questions left open by the Court's only effort to consider Apprendi in the revocation context--United States v. Haymond. The Article defends two due process analyses, derived from past precedent and Justice Breyer's controlling concurrence in Haymond, that are better suited than the Apprendi doctrine to protect against legislative overreach in the revocation context. Scholarship discussing Haymond has barely mentioned Justice Breyer's analysis. This Article gives his controlling concurrence the attention it deserves. Combined, these due process analyses provide a sound middle ground between the rigid application of Apprendi's rules to conditional release and the limitless use of revocation to punish new criminal conduct. Third, the Article applies these analyses to state statutes governing the imposition and revocation of probation and post-confinement supervision. This long-overdue state-centered focus provides needed guidance for policymakers designing conditional release policies that reserve more punitive sentences for more egregious cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Approximately 40% of the incarcerated population in the world are reported to suffer from a mental health condition. People in correctional settings are subjected to multiple psychosocial adversities which negatively affect their mental health. Moreover, people with mental illness are at higher risk for abuse and exploitation within the criminal justice system. The prison populations of the United States (US) and India are among the highest, among both high-income and low-middle-income countries, respectively. In this article, we aim to describe the existing prison mental health services in the US and India and discuss their challenges. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The conditions within U.S. prisons have long been a concern among human rights advocates and a source of litigation under the Eighth Amendment. While an issue long before COVID-19, the pandemic brought the state of healthcare services in prisons to the public's attention. Many people incarcerated in state and federal prisons suffer from chronic disease, and Hepatitis C is especially widespread. Despite its prevalence, effective treatment for Hepatitis C in prisons is rare, and ample legal hurdles exist to prevent incarcerated people from challenging insufficient treatment. In two recent cases from the Sixth Circuit, the court made it more difficult for incarcerated people with chronic disease to get the care that they need by holding that prisons can deny otherwise widely accepted forms of treatment on the basis of cost. Both cases not only ignore prior holdings to the contrary, but also incentivize prison officials to turn a blind eye to patients' chronic conditions and refuse providing any care or treatment at all. Furthermore, because of the impacts of mass incarceration and the imposition of longer sentences, the Sixth Circuit's decisions will potentially leave people serving long sentences in prison with no means of treating their chronic disease. This Recent Development will address the faults in both the court's analysis of the legal issues involved in these cases, as well as their implications for healthcare and human rights in prisons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Methamphetamine use can be associated with involvement with correctional services and incarceration. Traditionally, treatments for methamphetamine use have been delivered in-person – however, lockdowns initiated during the COVID-19 pandemic significantly reduced access to such in-person support in prisons. Therefore, in May 2020 a digital cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) program for substance use disorders - 'Breaking Free from Substance Abuse' - was made available across prisons in Ohio in order to meet this treatment gap. This represents the first time this digital CBT intervention has been made widely available to incarcerated people residing in prisons or jails in the United States (US). This was a within-subjects study using data from 2187 Ohio prison residents who engaged with this digital CBT program to address their methamphetamine use. Results: Participants reported multiple psychosocial risk factors, including moderate to severe substance dependence, depression and anxiety; interpersonal conflict; aggressive behavior; paranoia; and difficulties with work, education and accommodation. Significant reductions in substance dependence, depression/anxiety and biopsychosocial impairment, and improvements in quality of life, were identified in the sample. Risk factors were associated with less positive outcomes, specifically interpersonal conflict and poor mental health. Completion of specific components of the program were associated with more positive outcomes – a dose response was also identified. Conclusions: Digital CBT can be delivered in secure US correctional settings and may help to fill unmet needs for in-person treatment. Specifically, this digital CBT program may support incarcerated individuals to address methamphetamine use, with outcomes being associated with psychosocial risk factors and program engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article explores administrative and constitutional laws with regard to prison jurisprudence in the U.S. Topics discussed include the legal reasoning of state courts in the applicability of Administrative Procedure Acts (APA) to prison systems particularly state departments of corrections (DOC), the implementation of the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA), and the exemption of DOC from the formal rulemaking requirements of APA.

Nutrition-related health disparities plague prisons in the United States. Unregulated and inadequate prison menus may contribute to noncommunicable chronic health conditions in this vulnerable population. The purpose of this research was to assess nutrition offerings provided by prison menus. Researchers requested the most current version of all master menus and associated nutrition analyses for gendered and age-centric (pediatric vs geriatric) menus. Menu and nutrient data were extracted and entered into a spreadsheet for analysis. Prisons serve gendered or nongendered menus to the general population, and 52.9% of prisons offer nongendered menus where males and females receive the same meals. This approach provides excess calories and saturated fat to females. Sodium was served in excess to both males and females. Fruit and vegetable servings on all gendered menus fell short of recommendations. The average prison menu inappropriately offers calories, sodium, and fruit and vegetable servings in a one-size-fits-all menu development method without considering gender, age, and physical activity. Interpretation and application of Dietary Guidelines for Americans are inconsistent. Nutrition guidelines recommending appropriate nutrients and food groups should be developed and available to corrections systems and dietitians. Current prison menu development practices yield inappropriate nutrition for prison populations.

Background: Incarceration is a social determinant of cardiovascular health but is rarely addressed in clinical settings or public health prevention efforts. People who have been incarcerated are more likely to develop cardiovascular disease (CVD) at younger ages and have worse cardiovascular outcomes compared with the general population, even after controlling for traditional risk factors. This study aims to identify incarceration-specific factors that are associated with uncontrolled CVD risk factors to identify potential targets for prevention., Methods and Results: Using data from JUSTICE (Justice-Involved Individuals Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology), a prospective cohort study of individuals released from incarceration with CVD risk factors, we examine the unique association between incarceration-specific factors and CVD risk factor control. Participants (N=471), with a mean age of 45.0±10.8 (SD) years, were disproportionately from racially minoritized groups (79%), and poor (91%). Over half (54%) had at least 1 uncontrolled CVD risk factor at baseline. People released from jail, compared with prison, had lower Life's Essential 8 scores for blood pressure and smoking. Release from jail, as compared with prison, was associated with an increased odds of having an uncontrolled CVD risk factor, even after adjusting for age, race and ethnicity, gender, perceived stress, and life adversity score (adjusted odds ratio 1.62 [95% CI, 1.02-2.57])., Discussion: Release from jail is associated with poor CVD risk factor control and requires tailored intervention, which is informative as states design and implement the Centers of Medicare & Medicaid Services Reentry 1115 waiver, which allows Medicaid to cover services before release from correctional facilities.

The United States has the highest number of people incarcerated in the world. Criminal-legal involved populations, including people who are incarcerated in jails and prisons and people who are under community carceral control through probation or parole are at an increased risk for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). Increasing access to HIV testing, treatment and prevention is necessary to curb the HIV epidemic. This chapter outlines the history of HIV testing in jails and prisons and suggests a Status Neutral HIV Care Framework for improving access to HIV prevention services., Competing Interests: Disclosure The authors have nothing to disclose., (Copyright © 2024 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Carceral conditions in the United States may serve as a proxy for crises within justice and health systems. This study seeks to consider and measure prison climate from the perspective of incarcerated people. By examining within-facility differences in carceral experiences, results shed light on the complex nexus between the carceral context, health, and justice. We administered the Prison Climate Questionnaire (PCQ) to the complete population of incarcerated men in a correctional facility located in the Eastern United States. In this facility, housing units hold distinct populations, fulfill different functions, and can offer unique programming. We regress select items from the PCQ on a set of dummies corresponding to different residential units within the facility. Responses indicate low but relatively uniform perceptions of overall personal health, as well as access to, and satisfaction with, medical care. Between-unit differences emerge regarding staff relationships, experiences of discrimination, and levels of isolation. The perspectives of incarcerated people can, and should, play a role in understanding and conceptualizing the nature of the prison environment. Policy responses, especially those that impact the health and well-being of currently and formerly incarcerated people, can be informed by these perspectives., (© 2024. The Author(s).)

While the overall United States prison population has decreased over the last 10 years, the number of sentenced individuals above the age of 50 nearly doubled during the same period. The focus of this study, the pains of imprisonment experienced by the aging, is an under-researched area in the prison literature. Results from a sample of 134 male participants of True Grit, a structured living program for older prisoners, indicate strong agreement among sexagenarians, among septuagenarians, and between them. Previous studies of the pains of imprisonment found similar evaluations of the most and least difficult aspects of incarceration. While different instruments were used, collectively these studies suggest some commonality in the greatest hardships and least problematic aspects of incarceration. Policy implications derived from the present research are considered. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]