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Prison reform becomes an issue worldwide. The central argument for prison reform is human rights. Imprisonment is related to deprivation of the basic right of liberty, poverty, public health implications, and other detrimental social impacts such as disrupting relationships and family structures.
In the United States, prisons started to expand in the early 1970s. Three decades later, the U.S. policy makers began to see falling crime rates but an increasing prison budget. Reformers believe that changes in prison system are on the horizon.
The First Step Act was signed into law in 2018 in an effort to improve criminal justice outcome and reduce the size of federal prison population.
Pioneer in prison reform for the improvement of conditions of female prisoners. See article Women in Corrections, Elizabeth Gurney Fry.
Sitting on Hudson River, New York, Sing Sing Prison becomes a symbolic correctional facility in the U.S. prison transformation.
Thomas Mott Osborne is American reformer in prison problems and prison reform.
| Alternative Sentencing | Increasingly, alternative approaches to sentencing reflect an acknowledgement by the criminal justice system that crimes and offenders differ in severity and intent and may benefit from more nuanced approaches to punishment, whereas in other cases (e.g. mothers) prison may be deemed unreasonably harmful to connected others and thus should be avoided for such reasons. Opposition to alternative sentencing is variable but being ‘soft’ on crime and criminals is a populist criticism often targeted at those in favor of it. |
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| Collateral Consequences |
The additional civil state penalties, mandated by statute, that attach to criminal convictions. They are not part of the direct consequences of criminal conviction, such as prison, fines, or probation, but they are known to adversely affect adoptions, housing, welfare, immigration, employment, professional licensure, property rights, mobility, and other opportunities—the collective effect of which increases recidivism and undermines meaningful reentry of the convicted for a lifetime. (See Collateral Consequences) |
| Correctional Education | a coordinated system of individualized learning services and activities conducted within the walls of a correctional facility. |
| Felony Disenfranchisement | the denial of the right to vote to incarcerated persons and released ex-offenders who were convicted of certain classified crimes, though not necessarily felonies. Since the adoption of the practice in colonial America, felony disenfranchisement has become a common practice within the United States. This practice has been particularly harmful to racial minorities, who have had the ability to exercise their political clout compromised. |
| Incarceration | the state of being confined in prison; imprisonment. Being locked up in a jail or prison for extended period can lead to the development of depression in many inmates. |
| Juvenile Delinquency | juvenile crime, it is something different than crime committed by adults. The concept led to creation of separate juvenile courts and correctional programs. Crimes committed by juveniles were thereafter construed as having different causes than adult crime. |
| Recidivism | the likelihood that a convicted criminal will reoffend. Also Prisoner Reentry. |
| Rehabilitation | involves changing an offender’s circumstances, attitudes or behaviors in order to prevent further offending. |
| Sentencing Policy | the government’s expressed position on what should happen to convicted offenders. |
| Supermax Prisons | short for super-maximum security prisons, or secure housing units (SHUs), are best understood as the highest-security accommodation in American state and federal prison systems. Since supermax facilities offer such scope for abuse and may be assumed to produce profound effects, they have attracted the attention of both campaigners and the courts. (See  Supermax Prisons) |
Dictionary of Prisons and Punishment by 
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Reform in the Making: The Implementation of Social Policy in Prison by
In Reform in the Making, Ann Chih Lin takes an in-depth look at common rehabilitation programs currently in operation--education, job training, and drug treatment--and examining how they are used or misused, Lin offers a practical approach to understanding their high failure rate and how the situation could be improved. The book is based on extensive observation and over 350 interviews with staff and prisoners in five medium-security male prisons.
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Behind the Walls: A Guide for Families and Friends of Texas Prison Inmates by
Written to inform about the processes, services, activities, issues and problems of being incarcerated, this is a valuable guide to anyone who has a relative or friend incarcerated in Texas, or for those who want to understand how prisoners live, eat, work, play and die in a contemporary US prison.
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Punishment for Sale: Private Prisons, Big Business, and the Incarceration Binge by
Punishment for Sale is the definitive modern history of private prisons, told through social, economic and political frames. The authors explore the origin of the ideas of modern privatization, the establishment of private prisons, and the efforts to keep expanding in the face of problems and bad publicity. The book provides a balanced telling of the story of private prisons and the resistance they engendered within the context of criminology, and it is intended for supplemental use in undergraduate and graduate courses in criminology, social problems, and race and ethnicity.
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Liberating Minds: The Case for College in Prison by
Many college-in-prison graduates achieve success and the positive effects for their families and communities are dramatic. College-in-prison programs greatly reduce recidivism, leading to savings in the cost of prisons. They increase employment, allowing the formerly incarcerated to support families and reintegrate into communities. College programs decrease violence within prisons, improving conditions for officers and inmates. Liberating Minds makes the case for these benefits and also tells the stories of formerly incarcerated students and the remarkable transformations in their lives.
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Prisons in the Americas in the Twenty-First Century by
This volume on penitentiary systems in the Americas offers a long-overdue look at the prisons that exist at the forefront of the ongoing struggle against drugs and violence throughout North, Central, and South America and the Caribbean. From Haiti to Bolivia, the authors examine the conditions in these systems, and allow several common themes to emerge, including the alarming prevalence of lengthy pre-trial detention and the often abysmal living conditions in these institutions. Taken together, this comprises the first comparative overview of the use and abuse of prisons in the Americas.
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This link opens in a new windowThis page was originally developed by Ru "Lucy" Ngu.
First published: Summer 2020
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