Download or read book Ranking Correctional Punishments written by David C. May and published by . This book was released on 2010 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, May and Wood draw on a number of studies they have conducted with convicted offenders (both in prison and supervised in the community), criminal justice practitioners, and the public in the past decade to provide new insight regarding the continuum of corrections proposed by Morris and Tonry in their 1990 classic work Between Prison and Probation. May and Wood's findings call into question the idea of a continuum with prison on one end and regular probation on the other and discuss the implications of these findings for both sentencing and community supervision strategies. "Ranking Correctional Punishments is a unique volume in that it not only questions conventional understandings and definitions of what constitutes punishment and severity of punishment, but it responds to those questions with answers from those to whom punishment truly matters--offenders themselves, criminal justice system actors, and the public. This is an exceptional book that offers a wealth of information. Students, scholars, practitioners, and anyone interested in the concept of criminal punishment will find it an exceptionally beneficial resource. For those interested in understanding how punishment is perceived and understood, this should be the starting point. As a scholar of American corrections, I found Ranking Correctional Punishments to be a great resource for understanding how offenders, the public, and all who are involved in the conduct of American criminal justice think about and conceive of the idea of punishment. This book provides the most information on the topic, in an easily consumed and understood manner. Students of criminal justice should read this book." -- Richard Tewksbury, PhD, Professor of Justice Administration, University of Louisville "May and Wood provide a fascinating examination of traditional and alternative criminal sanctions. They amass solid evidence--using a consistent and sound research approach--to show how the public, criminal justice professionals, and offenders themselves perceive the severity of various punishments. The data encourage thoughtful reconsideration of the so-called "intermediate" punishments that have become so popular during the last quarter of a century. Policy makers and theorists alike will find important new insights to ponder--penalties do not line up easily along a continuum of punitive severity, and sanctions are perceived differently by different social groups, suggesting a previously unrecognized layer of complexity in how punishments may deter future crimes. This book is well-organized, is written clearly, and it should be high on the reading list of all those interested in sentencing, corrections, and criminological theory." -- Brandon K. Applegate, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Criminal Justice and Legal Studies, University of Central Florida "[A]n interesting argument worthy of evaluation and discussion. . . . [A] compelling case for the criminal justice system to modify its current belief on sanction severity and its application as perceived by offenders, practitioners, and the public." -- ACJS Today "May and Wood's programme of research provides an important foundation for what could be a broader assessment of penal sanctions and exchange rates. . . . The book is recommended for researchers, persons working within the justice system, and policy makers." -- Punishment & Society

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 Prisons and Punishment in America written by Michael O'Hear and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2018-09-14 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Synthesizing the latest scholarship in law and the social sciences on criminal sentencing and corrections, this book provides a thorough, balanced, and accessible survey of the major policy issues in these fields of persistent public interest and political debate. After three decades of explosive growth, the American incarceration rate is impracticably high. Drawing on leading research in law and the social sciences, this book covers a range of topics in sentencing and corrections in America in a manner that is accessible and engaging for general readers. Tackling high-level issues in the criminal justice system, it outlines the scale and causes of mass incarceration in the United States. To complement this, it details the roles and relative power of judges and prosecutors, the severity of punishment for drug offenders and white-collar offenders, the abuse of prisoners and the enforcement of prisoner rights, and repeat offending by released prisoners. It examines challenges that come with a high incarceration rate, such as the management of mental illness in the criminal justice system, the management of sex offenders, and the impact of parental incarceration on children. Looking ahead, it considers prospects for reducing current incarceration levels, the availability and effectiveness of alternatives to incarceration, and the future of capital punishment.

Download or read book Profit and Punishment written by Tony Messenger and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2021-12-07 with total page 172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Profit and Punishment, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist exposes the tragedy of modern-day debtors prisons, and how they destroy the lives of poor Americans swept up in a system designed to penalize the most impoverished. “Intimate, raw, and utterly scathing” — Heather Ann Thompson, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Blood in the Water “Crucial evidence that the justice system is broken and has to be fixed. Please read this book.” —James Patterson, #1 New York Times bestselling author As a columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Tony Messenger has spent years in county and municipal courthouses documenting how poor Americans are convicted of minor crimes and then saddled with exorbitant fines and fees. If they are unable to pay, they are often sent to prison, where they are then charged a pay-to-stay bill, in a cycle that soon creates a mountain of debt that can take years to pay off. These insidious penalties are used to raise money for broken local and state budgets, often overseen by for-profit companies, and it is one of the central issues of the criminal justice reform movement. In the tradition of Evicted and The New Jim Crow, Messenger has written a call to arms, shining a light on a two-tiered system invisible to most Americans. He introduces readers to three single mothers caught up in this system: living in poverty in Missouri, Oklahoma, and South Carolina, whose lives are upended when minor offenses become monumental financial and personal catastrophes. As these women struggle to clear their debt and move on with their lives, readers meet the dogged civil rights advocates and lawmakers fighting by their side to create a more equitable and fair court of justice. In this remarkable feat of reporting, Tony Messenger exposes injustice that is agonizing and infuriating in its mundane cruelty, as he champions the rights and dignity of some of the most vulnerable Americans.

Download or read book Rethinking Punishment written by Karol M Lucken and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2017-02-10 with total page 193 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There are visible signs that the "get-tough" era of punishment is finally winding down. A "get-smart" agenda has emerged that aims to reduce costs and crime by reducing the incarceration of non-violent drug offenders, expanding use of community-based corrections, revising sentencing structures, and supporting offender re-entry into the community. This change in policy affords an opportunity to re-examine and challenge certain other conventions in the study and practice of punishment. Each chapter of Rethinking Punishment examines a convention and posits arguments that challenge that convention and expand the conversation. These arguments are based on the prior literature, existing and original data, and historical documents. These conventions and arguments for rethinking punishment are framed accordingly: Justifying Penal Policy Defining the Attributes of Punishment Measuring the Scope and Severity of Punishment Evaluating Effectiveness in Punishment Finally, the author provides specific recommendations for research and policy based on these original arguments. Drawing on underlying philosophical, empirical and political issues and offering a critical discussion of the relationship between research, policy and practice, this book makes compelling and instructive reading for students taking courses in criminal justice, corrections, philosophy of punishment, the sociology of punishment, and law and justice.

Download or read book American Prison written by Shane Bauer and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2019-06-11 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An enraging, necessary look at the private prison system, and a convincing clarion call for prison reform.” —NPR.org New York Times Book Review 10 Best Books of 2018 * One of President Barack Obama’s favorite books of 2018 * Winner of the 2019 J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize * Winner of the Helen Bernstein Book Award for Excellence in Journalism * Winner of the 2019 RFK Book and Journalism Award * A New York Times Notable Book A ground-breaking and brave inside reckoning with the nexus of prison and profit in America: in one Louisiana prison and over the course of our country's history. In 2014, Shane Bauer was hired for $9 an hour to work as an entry-level prison guard at a private prison in Winnfield, Louisiana. An award-winning investigative journalist, he used his real name; there was no meaningful background check. Four months later, his employment came to an abrupt end. But he had seen enough, and in short order he wrote an exposé about his experiences that won a National Magazine Award and became the most-read feature in the history of the magazine Mother Jones. Still, there was much more that he needed to say. In American Prison, Bauer weaves a much deeper reckoning with his experiences together with a thoroughly researched history of for-profit prisons in America from their origins in the decades before the Civil War. For, as he soon realized, we can't understand the cruelty of our current system and its place in the larger story of mass incarceration without understanding where it came from. Private prisons became entrenched in the South as part of a systemic effort to keep the African-American labor force in place in the aftermath of slavery, and the echoes of these shameful origins are with us still. The private prison system is deliberately unaccountable to public scrutiny. Private prisons are not incentivized to tend to the health of their inmates, or to feed them well, or to attract and retain a highly-trained prison staff. Though Bauer befriends some of his colleagues and sympathizes with their plight, the chronic dysfunction of their lives only adds to the prison's sense of chaos. To his horror, Bauer finds himself becoming crueler and more aggressive the longer he works in the prison, and he is far from alone. A blistering indictment of the private prison system, and the powerful forces that drive it, American Prison is a necessary human document about the true face of justice in America.

Download or read book Popular Punishment written by Jesper Ryberg and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Should public opinion determine--or even influence--sentencing policy and practice? Should the punishment of criminal offenders reflect what the public regards as appropriate? These deceptively simple questions conceal complex theoretical and methodological challenges to the administration of punishment. In the West, politicians have often answered these questions in the affirmative; penal reforms have been justified with direct reference to the attitudes of the public. This is why the contention that politicians should bridge the gap between the public and criminal justice practice has widespread resonance. Criminal law scholars, for their part, have often been more reluctant to accept public input in penal practice, and some have even held that the idea of consulting public opinion constitutes a populist approach to punishment. The purpose of this book is to examine the moral significance of public opinion for penal theory and practice. For the first time in a single volume the editors, Jesper Ryberg and Julian V. Roberts, have assembled a number of respected criminologists, philosophers, and legal theorists to address the various aspects of why and how public opinion should be reflected in the way the criminal justice system deals with criminals. The chapters address the myriad complexities surrounding this issue by first weighing the justifications for incorporating public views into punishment practices and then considering the various ways this might be achieved through juries, prosecutors, restorative justice programs, and other means.

Download or read book An Essay on Crimes and Punishments written by Cesare Beccaria and published by The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd.. This book was released on 2006 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reprint of the fourth edition, which contains an additional text attributed to Voltaire. Originally published anonymously in 1764, Dei Delitti e Delle Pene was the first systematic study of the principles of crime and punishment. Infused with the spirit of the Enlightenment, its advocacy of crime prevention and the abolition of torture and capital punishment marked a significant advance in criminological thought, which had changed little since the Middle Ages. It had a profound influence on the development of criminal law in Europe and the United States.

Download or read book Pervasive Punishment written by Fergus McNeill and published by Emerald Group Publishing. This book was released on 2018-11-16 with total page 264 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book challenges the centrality of the prison in our understanding of punishment, inviting us to see, hear, imagine, analyse and restrain 'mass supervision'. Though rooted in social theory and social research, its innovative approach complements more conventional academic writing with photography, song-writing and storytelling.

Download or read book Community Punishment written by Gwen Robinson and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-10-16 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Community Punishment: European perspectives, the authors place punishment in the community under the spotlight by exploring the origins, evolution and adaptations of supervision in 11 European jurisdictions. For most people, punishment in the criminal justice system is synonymous with imprisonment. Yet, both in Europe and in the USA, the numbers of people under some form of penal supervision in the community far exceeds the numbers in prison, and many prisoners are released under supervision. Written and edited by leading scholars in the field, this collection advances the sociology of punishment by illuminating the neglected but crucial phenomenon of ‘mass supervision’. As well as putting criminological and penological theories to the test in an examination of their ability to explain the evolution of punishment beyond the prison, and across diverse states, the contributors to this volume also assess the appropriateness of the term ‘community punishment’ in different parts of Europe. Engaging in a serious exploration of common themes and differences in the jurisdictions included in the collection, the authors go on to examine how ‘community punishment’ came into being in their jurisdiction and how its institutional forms and practices have been legitimated and re-legitimated in response to shifting social, cultural and political contexts. This book is essential reading for academics and students involved in the study of both community punishment and comparative penology, but will also be of great interest to criminal justice policymakers, managers and practitioners.

Download or read book In Defense of Flogging written by Peter Moskos and published by Basic Books (AZ). This book was released on 2011-05-31 with total page 194 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Presents philosophical and practical arguments in favor of the administration of judicial corporal punishment as a way of addressing problems in the American criminal justice system.

Download or read book Corrections Punishment written by David F. Greenberg and published by SAGE Publications, Incorporated. This book was released on 1977-09 with total page 300 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book The Oxford Handbook of Prisons and Imprisonment written by John D. Wooldredge and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018-03-09 with total page 816 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Research on prisons prior to the prison boom of the 1980s and 1990s focused mainly on inmate subcultures, inmate rights, and sociological interpretations of inmate and guard adaptations to their environment, with qualitative studies and ethnographic methods the norm. In recent years, research has expanded considerably to issues related to inmates' mental health, suicide, managing special types of offenders, risk assessment, and evidence-based treatment programs. The Oxford Handbook of Prisons and Imprisonment provides the only single source that bridges social scientific and behavioral perspectives, providing graduate students with a more comprehensive understanding of the topic, academics with a body of knowledge that will more effectively inform their own research, and practitioners with an overview of evidence-based best practices. Across thirty chapters, leading contributors offer new ideas, critical treatments of substantive topics with theoretical and policy implications, and comprehensive literature reviews that reflect cumulative knowledge on what works and what doesn't. The Handbook covers critical topics in the field, some of which include recent trends in imprisonment, prison gangs, inmate victimization, the use and impact of restrictive housing, unique problems faced by women in prison, special offender populations, risk assessment and treatment effectiveness, prisoner re-entry, and privatization. The Oxford Handbook of Prisons and Imprisonment offers a rich source of information on the current state of institutional corrections around the world, on issues facing both inmates and prison staff, and on how those issues may impede or facilitate the various goals of incarceration.

Download or read book Of One eyed and Toothless Miscreants written by Michael Tonry and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2019-10-02 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Can punishments ever meaningfully be proportioned in severity to the seriousness of the crimes for which they are imposed? A great deal of attention has been paid to the general justification of punishment, but the thorny practical questions have received significantly less. Serious analysis has seldom delved into what makes crimes more or less serious, what makes punishments more or less severe, and how links are to be made between them. In Of One-eyed and Toothless Miscreants, Michael Tonry has gathered together a distinguished cast of contributors to offer among the first sustained efforts to specify with precision how proportionality can be understood in relation to the implementation of punishment. Each chapter examines scholarly and lay thinking about punishment of people convicted of crimes with particular emphasis on "making the punishment fit the crime." The contributors challenge the most prevalent current theories and emphasize the need for a shift away from the politicized emotionalism of recent decades. They argue that theories that coincided with mass incarceration and rampant injustice to countless individuals are evolving in ways that better countenance moving toward more humane and thoughtful approaches. Written by many of the leading thinkers on punishment, this volume dissects previously undeveloped issues related to considerations of deserved punishment and provides new ways to understand both the severities of punishment and the seriousness of crime.

Download or read book Between Prison and Probation written by Norval Morris and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 1991-09-12 with total page 294 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Across the country prisons are jammed to capacity and, in extreme cases, barges and mobile homes are used to stem the overflow. Probation officers in some cities have caseloads of 200 and more--hardly a manageable number of offenders to track and supervise. And with about one million people in prison and jail, and two and a half million on probation, it is clear we are experiencing a crisis in our penal system. In Between Prison and Probation, Norval Morris and Michael Tonry, two of the nation's leading criminologists, offer an important and timely strategy for alleviating these problems. They argue that our overwhelmed corrections system cannot cope with the flow of convicted offenders because the two extremes of punishment--imprisonment and probation--are both used excessively, with a near-vacuum of useful punishments in between. Morris and Tonry propose instead a comprehensive program that relies on a range of punishment including fines and other financial sanctions, community service, house arrest, intensive probation, closely supervised treatment programs for drugs, alcohol and mental illness, and electronic monitoring of movement. Used in rational combinations, these "intermediate" punishments would better serve the community than our present polarized choice. Serious consideration of these punishments has been hindered by the widespread perception that they are therapeutic rather than punitive. The reality, however, Morris and Tonry argue, "is that the American criminal justice system is both too severe and too lenient--almost randomly." Systematically implemented and rigorously enforced, intermediate punishments can "better and more economically serve the community, the victim, and the criminal than the prison terms and probation orders they supplant." Between Prison and Probation goes beyond mere advocacy of an increasing use of intermediate punishments; the book also addresses the difficult task of fitting these punishments into a comprehensive, fair and community-protective sentencing system.

Download or read book The SAGE Handbook of Punishment and Society written by Jonathan Simon and published by SAGE. This book was released on 2012-09-18 with total page 521 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The project of interpreting contemporary forms of punishment means exploring the social, political, economic, and historical conditions in the society in which those forms arise. The SAGE Handbook of Punishment and Society draws together this disparate and expansive field of punishment and society into one compelling new volume. Headed by two of the leading scholars in the field, Jonathan Simon and Richard Sparks have crafted a comprehensive and definitive resource that illuminates some of the key themes in this complex area - from historical and prospective issues to penal trends and related contributions through theory, literature and philosophy. Incorporating a stellar and international line-up of contributors the book addresses issues such as: capital punishment, the civilising process, gender, diversity, inequality, power, human rights and neoliberalism. This engaging, vibrantly written collection will be captivating reading for academics and researchers in criminology, penology, criminal justice, sociology, cultural studies, philosophy and politics.

Download or read book Encyclopedia of Community Corrections written by Shannon M. Barton-Bellessa and published by SAGE Publications. This book was released on 2012-04-17 with total page 871 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In response to recognition in the late 1960s and early 1970s that traditional incarceration was not working, alternatives to standard prison settings were sought and developed. One of those alternatives—community-based corrections—had been conceived in the 1950s as a system that might prove more progressive, humane, and effective, particularly with people who had committed less serious criminal offenses and for whom incarceration, with constant exposure to serious offenders and career criminals, might prove more damaging than rehabilitative. The alternative of community corrections has evolved to become a substantial part of the criminal justice and correctional system, spurred in recent years not so much by a progressive, humane philosophy as by dramatically increasing prison populations, court orders to "fix" overextended prison settings, and an economic search for cost savings. Although community correction programs have been in place for some 40 years now, to date no comprehensive reference resource has tackled this topic. Accessible and jargon-free and available in both print and electronic formats, the one-volume Encyclopedia of Community Corrections will explore all aspects of community corrections, from its philosophical foundation to its current inception. Features & Benefits: 150 signed entries (each with Cross References and Further Readings) are organized in A-to-Z fashion to give students easy access to the full range of topics in community corrections. A thematic Reader′s Guide in the front matter groups entries by broad topical or thematic areas to make it easy for users to find related entries at a glance. In the electronic version, the Reader′s Guide combines with a detailed Index and the Cross References to provide users with convenient search-and-browse capacities. A Chronology in the back matter helps students put individual events into broader historical context. A Glossary provides students with concise definitions to key terms in the field. A Resource Guide to classic books, journals, and web sites (along with the Further Readings accompanying each entry) guides students to further resources in their research journeys. An Appendix offers statistics from the Bureau of Justice.