Download or read book Controlling Crime written by Philip J. Cook and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2011-10-15 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Criminal justice expenditures have more than doubled since the 1980s, dramatically increasing costs to the public. With state and local revenue shortfalls resulting from the recent recession, the question of whether crime control can be accomplished either with fewer resources or by investing those resources in areas other than the criminal justice system is all the more relevant. Controlling Crime considers alternative ways to reduce crime that do not sacrifice public safety. Among the topics considered here are criminal justice system reform, social policy, and government policies affecting alcohol abuse, drugs, and private crime prevention. Particular attention is paid to the respective roles of both the private sector and government agencies. Through a broad conceptual framework and a careful review of the relevant literature, this volume provides insight into the important trends and patterns of some of the interventions that may be effective in reducing crime.

Download or read book Evaluating the Effectiveness of Correctional Education written by Lois M. Davis and published by Rand Corporation. This book was released on 2013-08-21 with total page 110 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After conducting a comprehensive literature search, the authors undertook a meta-analysis to examine the association between correctional education and reductions in recidivism, improvements in employment after release from prison, and other outcomes. The study finds that receiving correctional education while incarcerated reduces inmates' risk of recidivating and may improve their odds of obtaining employment after release from prison.

Download or read book After Prison written by Rose Ricciardelli and published by Wilfrid Laurier Univ. Press. This book was released on 2017-12-13 with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Employment for former prisoners is a critical pathway toward reintegration into society and is central to the processes of desistance from crime. Nevertheless, the economic climate in Western countries has aggravated the ability of former prisoners and people with criminal records to find gainful employment. After Prison opens with a former prisoner’s story of reintegration employment experiences. Next, relying on a combination of research interviews, quantitative data, and literature, contributors present an international comparative review of Canada’s evolving criminal record legislation; the promotive features of employment; the complex constraints and stigma former prisoners encounter as they seek employment; and the individual and societal benefits of assisting former prisoners attain “gainful” employment. A main theme throughout is the interrelationship between employment and other central conditions necessary for safety and sustenance. This book offers suggestions for criminal record policy amendments and new reintegration practices that would assist individuals in the search for employment. Using the evidence and research findings of practitioners and scholars in social work, criminology and law, psychology, and other related fields, the contributors concentrate on strategies that will reduce the stigma of having been in prison; foster supportive relationships between social and legal agencies and prisons and parole systems; and encourage individually tailored resources and training following release of individuals.

Download or read book Health and Incarceration written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2013-08-08 with total page 67 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over the past four decades, the rate of incarceration in the United States has skyrocketed to unprecedented heights, both historically and in comparison to that of other developed nations. At far higher rates than the general population, those in or entering U.S. jails and prisons are prone to many health problems. This is a problem not just for them, but also for the communities from which they come and to which, in nearly all cases, they will return. Health and Incarceration is the summary of a workshop jointly sponsored by the National Academy of Sciences(NAS) Committee on Law and Justice and the Institute of Medicine(IOM) Board on Health and Select Populations in December 2012. Academics, practitioners, state officials, and nongovernmental organization representatives from the fields of healthcare, prisoner advocacy, and corrections reviewed what is known about these health issues and what appear to be the best opportunities to improve healthcare for those who are now or will be incarcerated. The workshop was designed as a roundtable with brief presentations from 16 experts and time for group discussion. Health and Incarceration reviews what is known about the health of incarcerated individuals, the healthcare they receive, and effects of incarceration on public health. This report identifies opportunities to improve healthcare for these populations and provides a platform for visions of how the world of incarceration health can be a better place.

Download or read book Barriers to Reentry written by Shawn D. Bushway and published by Russell Sage Foundation. This book was released on 2007-06-14 with total page 394 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With the introduction of more aggressive policing, prosecution, and sentencing since the late 1970s, the number of Americans in prison has increased dramatically. While many have credited these "get tough" policies with lowering violent crime rates, we are only just beginning to understand the broader costs of mass incarceration. In Barriers to Reentry? experts on labor markets and the criminal justice system investigate how imprisonment affects ex-offenders' employment prospects, and how the challenge of finding work after prison affects the likelihood that they will break the law again and return to prison. The authors examine the intersection of imprisonment and employment from many vantage points, including employer surveys, interviews with former prisoners, and state data on prison employment programs and post-incarceration employment rates. Ex-prisoners face many obstacles to re-entering the job market—from employers' fears of negligent hiring lawsuits to the lost opportunities for acquiring work experience while incarcerated. In a study of former prisoners, Becky Pettit and Christopher Lyons find that employment among this group was actually higher immediately after their release than before they were incarcerated, but that over time their employment rate dropped to their pre-imprisonment levels. Exploring the demand side of the equation, Harry Holzer, Steven Raphael, and Michael Stoll report on their survey of employers in Los Angeles about the hiring of former criminals, in which they find strong evidence of pervasive hiring discrimination against ex-prisoners. Devah Pager finds similar evidence of employer discrimination in an experiment in which Milwaukee employers were presented with applications for otherwise comparable jobseekers, some of whom had criminal records and some of whom did not. Such findings are particularly troubling in light of research by Steven Raphael and David Weiman which shows that ex-criminals are more likely to violate parole if they are unemployed. In a concluding chapter, Bruce Western warns that prison is becoming the norm for too many inner-city minority males; by preventing access to the labor market, mass incarceration is exacerbating inequality. Western argues that, ultimately, the most successful policies are those that keep young men out of prison in the first place. Promoting social justice and reducing recidivism both demand greater efforts to reintegrate former prisoners into the workforce. Barriers to Reentry? cogently underscores one of the major social costs of incarceration, and builds a compelling case for rethinking the way our country rehabilitates criminals.

Download or read book The Growth of Incarceration in the United States written by Committee on Causes and Consequences of High Rates of Incarceration and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2014-12-31 with total page 800 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After decades of stability from the 1920s to the early 1970s, the rate of imprisonment in the United States has increased fivefold during the last four decades. The U.S. penal population of 2.2 million adults is by far the largest in the world. Just under one-quarter of the world's prisoners are held in American prisons. The U.S. rate of incarceration, with nearly 1 out of every 100 adults in prison or jail, is 5 to 10 times higher than the rates in Western Europe and other democracies. The U.S. prison population is largely drawn from the most disadvantaged part of the nation's population: mostly men under age 40, disproportionately minority, and poorly educated. Prisoners often carry additional deficits of drug and alcohol addictions, mental and physical illnesses, and lack of work preparation or experience. The growth of incarceration in the United States during four decades has prompted numerous critiques and a growing body of scientific knowledge about what prompted the rise and what its consequences have been for the people imprisoned, their families and communities, and for U.S. society. The Growth of Incarceration in the United States examines research and analysis of the dramatic rise of incarceration rates and its affects. This study makes the case that the United States has gone far past the point where the numbers of people in prison can be justified by social benefits and has reached a level where these high rates of incarceration themselves constitute a source of injustice and social harm. The Growth of Incarceration in the United States examines policy changes that created an increasingly punitive political climate and offers specific policy advice in sentencing policy, prison policy, and social policy. The report also identifies important research questions that must be answered to provide a firmer basis for policy. This report is a call for change in the way society views criminals, punishment, and prison. This landmark study assesses the evidence and its implications for public policy to inform an extensive and thoughtful public debate about and reconsideration of policies.

Download or read book Prisoner Reentry in the Era of Mass Incarceration written by Daniel P. Mears and published by SAGE Publications. This book was released on 2014-10-27 with total page 467 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Understanding and Improving Prisoner Reentry Outcomes "Mass imprisonment and mass prisoner reentry are two faces of the same coin. In a comprehensive and penetrating analysis, Daniel Mears and Joshua Cochran unravel the causes of this pressing problem, detail the challenges confronting released prisoners, and provide an evidence-based blueprint for successfully reintegrating offenders into the community. Scholarly yet accessible, this volume is essential reading—whether by academics or students—for anyone wishing to understand the chief policy issue facing American corrections." Francis T. Cullen Distinguished Research Professor, University of Cincinnati Prisoner Reentry is an engaging and comprehensive examination of prisoner reentry and how to improve public safety, well-being, and justice in the "era of mass incarceration." Renowned authors Daniel P. Mears and Joshua C. Cochran investigate historical trends in incarceration and punishment policy, the salience of in-prison and post-prison contexts and experiences for reentry, and the importance of understanding group differences in offending, punishment, and social context. Using extensive reliance on both theory and empirical research, the authors identify how reentry reflects criminal justice policy in America and, at the same time, has profound implications for crime prevention and justice. Readers will develop a diverse foundation for current policies, identify the implications of reentry for families, community, and society at large, and gain a conceptual and empirical toolkit for analyzing and improving the lives of those released from prison.

Download or read book How Effective Is Correctional Education and Where Do We Go from Here The Results of a Comprehensive Evaluation written by Lois M. Davis and published by Rand Corporation. This book was released on 2014-02-28 with total page 153 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Assesses the effectiveness of correctional education for both incarcerated adults and juveniles, presents the results of a survey of U.S. state correctional education directors, and offers recommendations for improving correctional education.

Download or read book On the Outside written by David J. Harding and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2019-02-21 with total page 309 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the Vera Institute of Justice’s Best Criminal Justice Books of 2019 America’s high incarceration rates are a well-known facet of contemporary political conversations. Mentioned far less often is what happens to the nearly 700,000 former prisoners who rejoin society each year. On the Outside examines the lives of twenty-two people—varied in race and gender but united by their time in the criminal justice system—as they pass out of the prison gates and back into the world. The book takes a clear-eyed look at the challenges faced by formerly incarcerated citizens as they try to find work, housing, and stable communities. Standing alongside these individual portraits is a quantitative study conducted by the authors that followed every state prisoner in Michigan who was released on parole in 2003 (roughly 11,000 individuals) for the next seven years, providing a comprehensive view of their postprison neighborhoods, families, employment, and contact with the parole system. On the Outside delivers a powerful combination of hard data and personal narrative that shows why our country continues to struggle with the social and economic reintegration of the formerly incarcerated. For further information, including an instructor guide and slide deck, please visit: http://ontheoutsidebook.us/home/instructors

Download or read book But They All Come Back written by Jeremy Travis and published by The Urban Insitute. This book was released on 2005 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The iron law of imprisonment is that “they all come back”. In 2002, more than 630,000 individuals left U.S. federal and state prisons. Thirty years ago, only 150,000 did. In this study, Travis decribes the new realities of imprisonment, and explores the impact of returning prisoners on seven policy domains: public safety, families and children, work, housing, public health, civic identity, and community capacity. Travis proposes a new architecture for the criminal justice system, organized around five principles of reentry, to encourage change and spur innovation.

Download or read book Global Perspectives on Desistance written by Joanna Shapland and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-03-31 with total page 538 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In recent years attention has switched from how adolescents are attracted into crime, to how adults reduce their offending and then stop – the process of desistance. There are now around a dozen major longitudinal and in-depth studies around the world which have followed or are following offenders over their life course, charting their offending history and their social and economic circumstances. The book is the first to offer a global perspective on desistance and brings together international leading experts in the field from countries including the UK, Ireland, the Netherlands, Scandinavia, Spain, the USA, and Australia to set out what we know about desistance, and to advance our theoretical understanding. Drawing on leading studies, this book sets the academic agenda for future work on desistance and examines the implications and potential positive effects of this research on desistance processes among current offenders. Global Perspectives on Desistance is divided into three sections: Agency, structure and desistance from crime, Life phases and desistance, Criminal justice and state interventions. Comprehensive and forward-thinking, this book is ideal for students studying criminology, probation and social work, social policy, sociology, and psychology. It is also essential reading for academic criminologists, sociologists, and policy makers and practitioners working in corrections and reform.

Download or read book Employing Our Returning Citizens written by Nicole C. Jones Young and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on with total page 332 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Controlling Crime written by Philip J. Cook and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2011-08-22 with total page 636 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Criminal justice expenditures have more than doubled since the 1980s, dramatically increasing costs to the public. With state and local revenue shortfalls resulting from the recent recession, the question of whether crime control can be accomplished either with fewer resources or by investing those resources in areas other than the criminal justice system is all the more relevant. Controlling Crime considers alternative ways to reduce crime that do not sacrifice public safety. Among the topics considered here are criminal justice system reform, social policy, and government policies affecting alcohol abuse, drugs, and private crime prevention. Particular attention is paid to the respective roles of both the private sector and government agencies. Through a broad conceptual framework and a careful review of the relevant literature, this volume provides insight into the important trends and patterns of some of the interventions that may be effective in reducing crime.

Download or read book After Prison written by David J. Harding and published by Russell Sage Foundation. This book was released on 2020-08-31 with total page 350 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The incarceration rate in the United States is the highest of any developed nation, with a prison population of approximately 2.3 million in 2016. Over 700,000 prisoners are released each year, and most face significant educational, economic, and social disadvantages. In After Prison, sociologist David Harding and criminologist Heather Harris provide a comprehensive account of young men’s experiences of reentry and reintegration in the era of mass incarceration. They focus on the unique challenges faced by 1,300 black and white youth aged 18 to 25 who were released from Michigan prisons in 2003, investigating the lives of those who achieved some measure of success after leaving prison as well as those who struggled with the challenges of creating new lives for themselves. The transition to young adulthood typically includes school completion, full-time employment, leaving the childhood home, marriage, and childbearing, events that are disrupted by incarceration. While one quarter of the young men who participated in the study successfully transitioned into adulthood—achieving employment and residential independence and avoiding arrest and incarceration—the same number of young men remained deeply involved with the criminal justice system, spending on average four out of the seven years after their initial release re-incarcerated. Not surprisingly, whites are more likely to experience success after prison. The authors attribute this racial disparity to the increased stigma of criminal records for blacks, racial discrimination, and differing levels of social network support that connect whites to higher quality jobs. Black men earn less than white men, are more concentrated in industries characterized by low wages and job insecurity, and are less likely to remain employed once they have a job. The authors demonstrate that families, social networks, neighborhoods, and labor market, educational, and criminal justice institutions can have a profound impact on young people’s lives. Their research indicates that residential stability is key to the transition to adulthood. Harding and Harris make the case for helping families, municipalities, and non-profit organizations provide formerly incarcerated young people access to long-term supportive housing and public housing. A remarkably large number of men in this study eventually enrolled in college, reflecting the growing recognition of college as a gateway to living wage work. But the young men in the study spent only brief spells in college, and the majority failed to earn degrees. They were most likely to enroll in community colleges, trade schools, and for-profit institutions, suggesting that interventions focused on these kinds of schools are more likely to be effective. The authors suggest that, in addition to helping students find employment, educational institutions can aid reentry efforts for the formerly incarcerated by providing supports like childcare and paid apprenticeships. After Prison offers a set of targeted policy interventions to improve these young people’s chances: lifting restrictions on federal financial aid for education, encouraging criminal record sealing and expungement, and reducing the use of incarceration in response to technical parole violations. This book will be an important contribution to the fields of scholarly work on the criminal justice system and disconnected youth.

Download or read book Quitting Hard Habits written by United States. Congress. House. Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Subcommittee on Domestic Policy and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The New Scarlet Letter written by Steven Raphael and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the labor market prospects of the growing population of former prison inmates in the United States. In particular, the specific challenges created by the characteristics of this population and the common hiring and screening practices of U.S. employers. In addition, various policy efforts are discussed to improve the employment prospects and limit the future criminal activity of former prison inmates either through improving the skills and qualications of these job seekers or through the provision of incentives to employers to hire such individuals.

Download or read book Arresting Citizenship written by Amy E. Lerman and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2014-06-06 with total page 343 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The numbers are staggering: One-third of America’s adult population has passed through the criminal justice system and now has a criminal record. Many more were never convicted, but are nonetheless subject to surveillance by the state. Never before has the American government maintained so vast a network of institutions dedicated solely to the control and confinement of its citizens. A provocative assessment of the contemporary carceral state for American democracy, Arresting Citizenship argues that the broad reach of the criminal justice system has fundamentally recast the relation between citizen and state, resulting in a sizable—and growing—group of second-class citizens. From police stops to court cases and incarceration, at each stage of the criminal justice system individuals belonging to this disempowered group come to experience a state-within-a-state that reflects few of the country’s core democratic values. Through scores of interviews, along with analyses of survey data, Amy E. Lerman and Vesla M. Weaver show how this contact with police, courts, and prisons decreases faith in the capacity of American political institutions to respond to citizens’ concerns and diminishes the sense of full and equal citizenship—even for those who have not been found guilty of any crime. The effects of this increasingly frequent contact with the criminal justice system are wide-ranging—and pernicious—and Lerman and Weaver go on to offer concrete proposals for reforms to reincorporate this large group of citizens as active participants in American civic and political life.