The Crime Report (https://thecrimereport.org/tag/prison-reform/)
A West Virginia researcher calls them “prisoners of fate” and argues that “Family Impact Statements” assessing the health and psychological effect of a parent’s imprisonment should be mandatory in pre-sentencing reports.
“Extralegal violence” against inmates has diminished as prisoners gained standing under U.S. law, but courts, lawmakers and prison administrators have carefully limited civil rights of the incarcerated—ushering in what some advocates call the modern era of hygienic, systematized and lawful cruelty, says a TCR op ed writer.
TRUE, a pilot program at a maximum security facility in Connecticut, offers prisoners a path back to normalcy, with educational programs and schedules they help devise. It’s one of several innovative experiments in changing correctional practices that reformers hope will change the face of U.S. prisons.
The Vera Institute of Justice calls for “a new and fundamentally different approach to incarceration” that prioritizes respect for human dignity in a groundbreaking report that recommends radical changes to U.S. correctional practices and prison design.
With the Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh pending, The Crime Report asks legal scholars around the country for their views on the criminal justice challenges the next Court will face.
Prison is often just a stop along the road for individuals who have been struggling with victimization all their lives, says Bruce Western, author of a new book exploring returning inmates’ experiences. That’s why the justice system should rethink its approach to who it punishes—and how—he argued during a talk in New York Thursday.
On the 10th anniversary of the Second Chance Act, veteran corrections administrator and researcher Stefan LoBuglio says attitudes towards prisoner reentry have undergone a “sea change” since the 1990s. But in an extended chat with TCR, he warns of a retrenchment in programming that threatens the overall functioning of the U.S. corrections system.
Presidential adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner will tour Seagoville Federal Correctional Institution outside Dallas Friday to promote the First Step Act, bipartisan legislation modeled after successful reforms in Texas and other states to help ex-offenders reenter society.
The time he spent in solitary confinement, trapped in a tiny prison cell with almost no human contact, is “going to be with me for the rest of my life,” says Rev. Matthew Burke. It’s a common refrain among those subjected to what many argue is a counterproductive form of punishment for already-incarcerated individuals—but their special needs are often overlooked in prisoner reentry services.
Eliminating the use of solitary is essential to transforming the modern culture of corrections, speakers at John Jay College said Wednesday. The college’s week-long examination of solitary confinement continues Thursday with a conference of leading researchers, legislators and advocates.