Recently in Corrections Category

Source: Richard Williams, State Legislatures, Vol. 38 no. 5, May 2012

Lawmakers in more than two dozen states are changing the rules on bail.
See also:
online extra: Two experts discuss pretrial release and bail.

Source: Adam Gopnik, New Yorker, January 30, 2012

...The accelerating rate of incarceration over the past few decades is just as startling as the number of people jailed: in 1980, there were about two hundred and twenty people incarcerated for every hundred thousand Americans; by 2010, the number had more than tripled, to seven hundred and thirty-one. No other country even approaches that. In the past two decades, the money that states spend on prisons has risen at six times the rate of spending on higher education....
See also:
Incarceration nation
Source: Fareed Zakaria, CNN, March 30, 2012

Source: Matthew T. DeMichele, Brian K. Payne, Adam K. Matz, American Probation and Parole Association, August 2011

From the abstract:
Supported by a grant awarded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance, the American Probation and Parole Association developed the report Community Supervision Workload Considerations for Public Safety discussing the dilemma of managing officer time amidst an array of tasks, constraining resources, and high caseloads. Two tools are provided within the document; 1) workload matrices that provide agencies with estimated time ranges for specific tasks officers complete classified by risk level and case type (e.g., domestic violence, sex offender), and 2) a time study template to assist agencies in conducting their own examination of officer workload.

Source: Human Rights Watch, January 2012

From the abstract:
This report includes new data Human Rights Watch developed from a variety of federal and state sources that document dramatic increases in the number of older US prisoners.

Human Rights Watch visited nine states and 20 prisons to interview prison officials, corrections and gerontology experts, and prisoners. Human Rights Watch found officials scrambling to respond to the needs and vulnerabilities of older prisoners. They are constrained, however, by straitened budgets, prison architecture not designed for common age-related disabilities, limited medical facilities and staff, lack of planning, lack of support from elected officials, and the press of day-to-day operations.
See also:
- Press release
- Summary

Source: Bob Sullivan, MSNBC, Red Tape blog, March 6, 2012

If you think privacy settings on your Facebook and Twitter accounts guarantee future employers or schools can't see your private posts, guess again.

Employers and colleges find the treasure-trove of personal information hiding behind password-protected accounts and privacy walls just too tempting, and some are demanding full access from job applicants and student athletes.

In Maryland, job seekers applying to the state's Department of Corrections have been asked during interviews to log into their accounts and let an interviewer watch while the potential employee clicks through wall posts, friends, photos and anything else that might be found behind the privacy wall.

Previously, applicants were asked to surrender their user name and password, but a complaint from the ACLU stopped that practice last year. While submitting to a Facebook review is voluntary, virtually all applicants agree to it out of a desire to score well in the interview, according Maryland ACLU legislative director Melissa Coretz Goemann....
See also:
- Can Interviewers Insist on 'Shoulder Surfing' Your Facebook Page?
Source: Martha C. White, Time, Moneyland, March 9, 2012
- Want A Job? Password, Please!
Source: Meredith Curtis, ACLU of Maryland, February 18, 2012

Source: Jörg Pont, Heino Stöver, Hans Wolff, American Journal of Public Health, Vol. 102 No. 3, March 2012
(subscription required)

From the abstract:
Despite the dissemination of principles of medical ethics in prisons, formulated and advocated by numerous international organizations, health care professionals in prisons all over the world continue to infringe these principles because of perceived or real dual loyalty to patients and prison authorities.

Health care professionals and nonmedical prison staff need greater awareness of and training in medical ethics and prisoner human rights. All parties should accept integration of prison health services with public health services.

Health care workers in prison should act exclusively as caregivers, and medical tasks required by the prosecution, court, or security system should be carried out by medical professionals not involved in the care of prisoners.

Source: PBS, Air date: February 13, 2012

From the summary:
Slavery by Another Name is a 90-minute documentary that challenges one of Americans' most cherished assumptions: the belief that slavery in this country ended with the Emancipation Proclamation. The film tells how even as chattel slavery came to an end in the South in 1865, thousands of African Americans were pulled back into forced labor with shocking force and brutality. It was a system in which men, often guilty of no crime at all, were arrested, compelled to work without pay, repeatedly bought and sold, and coerced to do the bidding of masters. Tolerated by both the North and South, forced labor lasted well into the 20th century.

Source: Joseph L. Martin, Bronwen Lichtenstein, Robert B. Jenkot, David R. Forde, Prison Journal, Vol. 92 no. 1, March 2012
(subscription required)

From the abstract:
Prisons in the Southern United States are among the most underfunded, understaffed, and crowded in the nation. This study seeks to identify how Alabama state correctional officers experienced crowding related to their mental and physical health and safety. A total of 66 correctional officers at 3 Alabama men's prisons are surveyed about crowding in relation to job performance, health and safety, and inmate control. Respondents at all facilities, which had occupancy rates between 154% and 206% of capacity, report high levels of stress and impaired job performance due to understaffing and overwork. Officers at the most crowded prison are most stressed and fearful of inmates. In the absence of policies to reduce density or increase staffing in prisons, new strategies are urgently needed to reduce occupational stress among officers in crowded correctional facilities.

Source: Christian Henrichson, Ruth Delaney, VERA Institute of Justice, January 2012

From the press release:
State taxpayers pay, on average, 14 percent more on prisons than corrections department budgets reflect, according to a report released today by the Vera Institute of Justice. The report, The Price of Prisons: What Incarceration Costs Taxpayers--published today--shows that in 40 states that participated, the aggregate cost of prisons in FY2010 was $38.8 billion, $5.4 billion more than their corrections budgets reflected. When all costs are considered, the annual average taxpayer cost in these states was $31,166 per inmate.

While it is common knowledge that some prison costs are tracked outside corrections budgets, The Price of Prisons marks the first time these costs have been quantified for prisons across the states. To calculate the total price of prisons, Vera developed a survey tool that tallied costs outside corrections budgets. The most common of these costs were fringe benefits, underfunded contributions for corrections employees' pension and retiree health care plans, inmate health care, capital projects, legal costs, and inmate education and training.
See also:
The Price of Prisons: 40 state fact sheets

Source: Michael McNutt, The Oklahoman, January 12, 2012

The group's findings recommend proposals that would reduce violent crimes in Oklahoma by 10 percent by 2016 and would provide post-prison supervision for all felons while containing growth in prison costs.
See also:
Justice Reinvestment in Oklahoma: Analysis and Policy Framework
Source: Council of State Governments, Justice Center, January 2012