Suchergebnisse

In the last decade there has been a dramatic growth in the use of so-called super-maximum security custody in the United States. At the end of 1998 some 20,000 prisoners or 1.8 percent of all those serving sentences of a year or more in state and federal prisons were accommodated in such facilities. Most supermax facilities, including the Federal ADX at Florence Colorado and those in 30 states, have been newly constructed although some states have retro-fitted existing buildings either instead of, or in addition to, new build. In such facilities prisoners who loosely defined as the `worst of the worst' are kept in near total lock-down situations, sometimes for very long periods and often without clear entry and exit criteria, ostensibly to protect staff, other prisoners and the public. This article examines the origins and proliferation of supermax custody in the United States, and identifies some of the problems that are associated with its use and abuse, which will be explored in greater depth in subsequent papers. On the basis of comparisons with European experience, where resort to such levels of restrictive custody has been typically on a much smaller and more time limited scale, and has involved little new building, this article questions whether the development of supermax custody in the United States is either a necessary or a proportionate response to the problems actually experienced.

Abstract:This paper explores some of the similarities and differences between the prison systems of eastern Europe since the collapse of the former Soviet Union, and then considers in more detail the process of prison reform in Romania. Two projects carried out under the auspices of the Netherlands Helsinki Committee and Penal Reform International working in cooperation with the Romanian Penitentiary Administration, are considered: a training seminar for prison governors and the planning of the regime for the new penitentiary in Bucharest.

AbstractIn this abbreviated version of an address to the Howard League three models of management‐staff relations in the prison service are reviewed: a military model, a professional model and a wage‐labour model. It is suggested that the military model can no longer apply, and that attempts to introduce a professional model failed. Unless major changes to the service can be achieved, that would allow a new professional model to be introduced, it is argued that the wage‐labour model is here to stay.

"Through a comprehensive analysis of legislative and organisational changes and interviews with all the key players, The Honest Politician's Guide to Prisons and Probation provides an authoritative account of the crisis which has gradually engulfed the prison and probation services since 1991. Setting out the nature and extent of the crisis, King and Willmott show how the Woolf agenda was overridden in a process of political churn, through explorations of the Conservative Government until 1997, New Labour, and the Coalition and Conservative Governments since 2010"--

"Through a comprehensive analysis of legislative and organisational changes and interviews with all the key players, The Honest Politician's Guide to Prisons and Probation provides an authoritative account of the crisis which has gradually engulfed the prison and probation services since 1991. Setting out the nature and extent of the crisis, King and Willmott show how the Woolf agenda was overridden in a process of political churn, through explorations of the Conservative Government until 1997, New Labour, and the Coalition and Conservative Governments since 2010"--

Abstract: The introduction of the new staffing package known as Fresh Start was expected to release up to 20% of spare capacity in the prison system that could be used, among other things, to enhance regimes for prisoners. In this study of five prisons in Midland Region comparisons on seven regime measures before and after Fresh Start showed twice as many examples of deterioration as enhancement of regimes.

AbstractIn this paper the authors review developments within the prison service since the publication of the May Report in 1979. They do so from the standpoint of their own evidence to the May Committee because, it is argued, no alternative view of the future of the prison system has been systematically developed. It is suggested that in spite of the abandonment of serious attempts to control the size of the prison population, the massive extension of the prison building programme, and the continuing uncertainty surrounding industrial relations, there are some small signs of change which could, eventually, produce real reforms in the prison system.