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The current study sought to understand the lived experiences of 10 formerly incarcerated Black and Latino men in an apprentice program for physical trainers using directed content analysis. Participants described a variety of microaggressions, including those representing known themes (e.g., assumption of criminality) and new (sub)themes (e.g., borrowed legitimacy). They also described new opportunities afforded to them by virtue of their involvement in the apprentice program and their newly found authority. Results indicate that formerly incarcerated men of color experience daily discrimination and re‐entry challenges that may be destabilizing and contribute to recidivism, thus reinforcing the cycle of mass incarceration. The authors suggest further investment in tertiary interventions to buffer against the harmful effects of microaggressions, as well as further research with a critical race lens and primary interventions aimed at ameliorating the societal conditions that lead men of color to come into contact with the criminal legal system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ear Hustle, the popular Pulitzer Prize nominated podcast focusing on life inside San Quentin State Prison, claims to provide "true" stories of life in prison. Co-hosted by both inmates and volunteers, the show focuses on multiple aspects of life in, and out, of prison. In this essay, I offer a critical reading of the series and argue that, ultimately, Ear Hustle, when read through both the context of contemporary neoliberal ideology and the historical configurations of the meaning of the Black family, presents Black prisoners as both capable and responsible fully for their own achievement/redemption (while ignoring the contradictory racial assemblage that ultimately undermines that ability), albeit with their success assuming commitment to a traditional and largely heterosexual family structure. Even incarcerated individuals, then, are seen as capable of overcoming historical and material obstacles to achieve within free markets. While Ear Hustle is only one story that is being told about imprisonment, it is a popular one that is reflective of, rather than resistant to, contemporary values. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The prevalent criminal justice practices in the U.S. have produced levels and patterns of incarceration that fewer and fewer politicians, scholars, and citizens care to support. There seems to be widespread consensus that the system is indicted as unjust by its outcomes no matter how these outcomes came about. But if that is so, how can it be turned back? Who should be eligible for release, and on what grounds? This article addresses the position of black prisoners serving very long sentences. Many of these prisoners are at risk of missing out under current legislative and administrative proposals designed to reduce overall levels of imprisonment. Partly this is due to the fact that the wrong of mass incarceration is often understood as a wrong suffered at the collective level by what has come to be referred to as "overpunished communities." It is unclear how the existence of that collective wrong affects the permissibility of continued punishment at the individual level. This article develops an argument that, at the individual level, being a black prisoner serving a very long sentence gives rise to a moral entitlement for a review of the need and justification for continued incarceration. The article outlines the basic shape of a clemency scheme devised especially for these prisoners as a moral imperative for a reform process intended to remedy penal injustice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Through the analysis of survey data, collected by HM Inspectorate of Prisons between 2010 and 2019, we examine the responses of adult male prisoners of different ages and ethnicities and the extent to which they report being treated with respect by staff. Survey responses from 62,664 prisoners support the conclusion that Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) prisoners are less likely than white prisoners to report that they are treated with respect; younger prisoners are less likely than older prisoners to do so. Our macro‐level findings demonstrate that there is considerable variation between the subgroups within these broad categories and that a simplification of experiences may lead to incorrect assumptions about the experiences of minority groups in prison. These survey data should be used in conjunction with other resources, such as official data and operational statistics, to support detailed examination of prisoner treatment and conditions for safe, decent and rehabilitative prisons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article describes an archeological ethnographic study of the history and social context of the Virginia State Penitentiary, where burials excavated in the 1990s still remain in limbo: unpublished, unmemorialized, and unmourned. The penitentiary (1804–1991) was a feared site of solitary confinement, carceral labor, and capital punishment. Fieldwork conducted in advance of the penitentiary's demolition recorded solitary confinement cells within the eighteenth‐century foundations, but also discovered a substantial burial ground within the prison walls. The collection includes the remains of over 200 people, many of whom were black prisoners who died between 1878 and 1884. Unfortunately, archeological analysis and publication were never completed. This article presents a new public engagement process to identify fresh possibilities for the sites and the individuals represented in this collection. Based on over thirty semistructured interviews conducted in 2015 and data from over 230 respondents to the 2018 Richmond Penitentiary Survey, we discuss how the penitentiary remains resonate or fails to resonate with Richmond residents, even as the city's broader history of archeological neglect is becoming better understood. We discuss how archival research and emerging models for archeological restorative justice may provide new avenues for addressing this urban archeological erasure in a major Southern metropolis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spearman's hypothesis states that differences between groups on the subtests of an IQ battery are a function of the g loadings of these subtests, and it is virtually always supported. There are anomalies: comparisons for which Spearman's hypothesis shows no supporting evidence. What they all have in common is an unusual Verbal/Performance profile. We carried out meta-analyses for these comparisons: Black and White prisoners, Asians and Whites, and Arabs and Jews in Israel. We carried out three meta-analyses based on, respectively, 2 data points and a total N = 575; 15 data points and a total N = 8100; 5 data points and a total N = 730. In all three meta-analyses Spearman's hypothesis showed no supporting evidence with sample-size weighted correlations with values of, respectively, −.18, .01 and −.24. Correcting for reliability led to similar outcomes. Bypassing the unusual V/P profile by testing Spearman's hypothesis separately on Verbal subtests and Performance subtests led to a confirmation in approximately half of the comparisons. So, it could be that the unusual V/P profile obstructs support for Spearman's hypothesis in approximately half of the cases. We conclude that the anomalies appear to be more in line with Spearman's hypothesis than previously thought. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An essay on the ways in which diagnostic processes contribute to the normalization of antiblack violence in Canada from 2012-2016. It analyzes a special investigations unit statement and report on the 2015 death of Somali refugee Abshir in Canadian immigration custody. It argues that increased mental health assessment and treatment of immigration detainees are paradoxical and worsens conditions of distress by contributing to the expansion of the detention and deportations systems.

The mobility of nonwhites in Cap-Français was perceived by the city's white inhabitants as subversive, an enunciation of freedom. Walking and other forms of mobility such as trade and economic exchange constituted acts of contesting power and place in the colony. This essay examines the mobility of three groups of people in Le Cap-black prisoners, free black property owners, and traders in racialized market spaces-and shows how their mobility was read as a destabilization of the social and political order of the slave society on the eve of the Haitian Revolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article focuses on several demonstrations and public movements in prison in history during the "Black Lives Matter" movement. Topics include the death of Hugo Pinell, comrade of prisoner revolutionary George L. Jackson, Pinell spending more than 40 years in solitary confinement and Pinell trying for racial unity and terminate inhumanity.

The Level of Service Inventory–Revised (LSI-R) is a risk/needs assessment tool that is widely used in correctional settings. Extant research has demonstrated the predictive validity of the LSI-R for individuals under correctional supervision. Yet, few researchers have assessed whether the LSI-R and its various subcomponents predict prison misconduct similarly for White versus non-White inmates. Using data collected from male inmates confined in prisons across a Midwestern state, we examined the predictive validity of the LSI-R and its 10 subcomponents for White, Black, and Hispanic inmates. We found that the LSI-R predicted the prevalence of misconduct for inmates of varying races/ethnicities. However, we reached a different conclusion when we examined the incidence of misconduct; the LSI-R composite score and subcomponent scores showed greater predictive utility for White inmates than for non-White inmates. Our findings add to a growing body of research that suggests that the predictive validity of the LSI-R differs by offender race/ethnicity. We discuss the policy implications of our findings and offer recommendations for future research. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Objective This study highlights the complex role that race plays in the restrictiveness of felon collateral consequence policies in the 50 states by introducing the combination of symbolic racism and racial threat as integral dimensions of the traditional race-based arguments made in this policy area. Methods Using Alec Ewald's felon collateral consequence scores for the 50 states as the dependent variable and symbolic racism and racial threat variables as the major independent variables, an ordinary least squares (OLS) regression model estimated the effects of race-based, ideological, political, and demographic independent variables on a state's felon collateral consequence score. Results The combination of symbolic racism and racial threat add an additional dimension to the traditional race-policy connection within this policy area. Specifically, states with high levels of racial threat and symbolic racism were more likely to have higher felon collateral consequence scores. Yet, the presence of a state with a high level of black representatives in its state's legislature negated the effect of these variables. Conclusions Although similar studies have confirmed that racially neutral policies, such as felon collateral consequence policies, are affected by race, they have limited their discussion to one specific dimension-racial threat. The evidence presented in this study provided support for the inclusion of a multidimensional race-based argument in this policy area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Recently the prison has been compared to slavery transport (Davis, 2000), the Jim Crow system (Alexander, 2010), the urban ghetto (Wacquant, 2002), a new apartheid (Massey, 2007), and an embodiment of state power and security apparatus (Drake, 2012). In these analyses, imprisonment is explicitly linked to racially motivated processes of criminalization and segregation. The focus of this article is a further analogous framework by which prisons might be understood: that of Hell. Drawing from Dante'sInferno, the cultural purchase of which remains undiminished 700 years after it was written, this article argues that the social exclusion and mass imprisonment of young Black men is related to broad historical and cultural practices of discrimination and to contemporary discourses of “othering.” It suggests that not only can the prison be understood through the lens of darkness and lightness, Heaven and Hell, but also such metaphors serve to justify and authorize the prison as hell-hole. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper summarizes key findings of a qualitative dissertation study that involved interviews with black male college graduates (BMCs) and black male jail/prison releasees (BMRs). One component of the study was a comparison of the socio-economic characteristics in the families of BMCs and BMRs. The study also measured if BMCs and BMRs identified with three Kwanzaa principles - Umoja (unity), Ujima (collective work and responsibility), and Ujamaa (economic cooperation). Black males are products of single parent household structures that are characterized by strained financial conditions. These are related to low college enrollment and graduation rates and high rates of incarceration. Kwanzaa, celebrated as a Pan-African holiday, was identified as a measurable Afrocentric value system that could reduce the adverse effect of family and social conditions. A thematic codification analysis of qualitative interviews revealed that the families of BMCs (n=25) and BMRs (n=25) did not differ significantly in structure or financial conditions (p >.05). BMCs and BMRs differed significantly in their identification with Umoja (p<.05) but did not differ significantly in their identification with Ujima (p>.05) or Ujamaa (p>.05). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sociology of punishment has developed a rich understanding of the social and historical forces that have transformed American penality during the last 40 years. But whereas these social forces are not unique to the United States, their penal impact there has been disproportionately large, relative to comparable nations. To address this issue, I suggest that future research should attend more closely to the structure and operation of the penal state. I begin by distinguishing penality (the penal field) from the penal state (the governing institutions that direct and control the penal field). I then present a preliminary conceptualization of 'the penal state' and discuss the relationship between the penal state and the American state more generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

After repressing the mutiny of West African ex-prisoners in Thiaroye near Dakar on 1 December 1944, the French military authorities concluded that the German treatment of these prisoners had made them prone to revolting. Allegedly, the Germans had planned to destabilize French colonialism by treating the prisoners well (despite the German army massacres of black French soldiers in June 1940) and by allowing black prisoners to enter into intimate relationships with white French women. The article critically analyzes the explanations of the French authorities for the revolt of Thiaroye, tracing the motivations of the ex-prisoners to the way they interpreted Free French policies after liberation in the context of their captivity experience. It argues that the relatively correct German treatment of the African POWs after the summer of 1940 and the contacts of prisoners with French civilians were circumstantial and not part of a deliberate German policy to incite revolts in the French colonies. Ultimately, the unruliness of African ex-prisoners resulted much less from German measures than from the disillusioning experience of the soldiers with the Vichy and Free French authorities during and after captivity, which formed a powerful contrast to the mostly friendly and respectful treatment of the Africans by the French civilian population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the first half of the twentieth century, parole in the Deep South of the United States was part of a nexus of penal mechanisms providing white employers with a pliant black labour force. By contrast, in New York, which was at the forefront of innovations in parole policy, there was a surprising interracial consensus among white parole administrators and politicians, civil rights activists, and black prisoners themselves that the African American community was integral to parole administration and success. This article explores why different constituencies supported this consensus through debates on parole in the black press and via the desperate, and invariably futile, letters that prisoners wrote to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). These sources also indicate that, for black prisoners in New York, African American influence over the parole system was routinely constrained by widespread black poverty, racial segregation, and discrimination in employment. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

While interned by the Nazis in Belgium and Bavaria during World War II, the little-known Surinamese artist Josef Nassy (1904–76) created a series of paintings and drawings documenting his experiences and those of other black prisoners. Nassy's artworks uniquely register the presence of Caribbean, African, and African American prisoners in the Nazi camp system. While the Nassy Collection at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum cannot render transparent a wartime experience that has gone largely unrecorded, it illustrates how shifting from a textual to a visual lens can enable an unremembered history to enter our field of vision, thereby generating an alternative wartime narrative. After tracing Nassy's family history in Suriname and the conditions of his European incarceration, this essay discusses two paintings that demonstrate the significance of visual art in the context of black civilian internment—for both the artist-prisoner and the researcher. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Several graphs are presented that show the percentage of minorities represented in incarcerated populations in the U.S. in 2010, the increase in black inmate population in Canada from 2002-2011, and the increase in total prison population in Brazil from 1990-2014.

The article presents the annual report by National Offender Management Services (NOMS) that offers details on offender equalities in Great Britain. Statistics of increase in prison population especially the blacks and minority ethnics (BME). Also noted are incidents that occur in prison like self harm in women and men in prison. The article also talks about probation supervision of offenders in communities.