The Correctional Experiences of Youth in Adult and Juvenile Prisons

This article analyzes data from interviews with inmates to examine the correctional experiences of young men incarcerated through criminal (adult) courts in a large Northeastern state. The sample (N = 95) includes respondents from five correctional institutions; some of these inmates have been sentenced to adult department of corrections facilities, and some to juvenile facilities operated by the state's children's services bureau. Relative to the adult facilities, the juvenile facilities are smaller, have much lower inmate‐to‐staff ratios, and they place greater emphasis (in their official guidelines) on treatment, counseling, education, and mentoring of inmates. As a result, one might expect juvenile‐facility inmates to report a relatively more supportive, mentoring‐focused style of staff–inmate interactions than adult‐facility inmates. Yet surprisingly, inmates in adult facilities report better access to education and treatment/counseling services offered in their facilities.     

Psychiatric Medication Intake in Suicide Victims: Gender Disparities and Implications for Suicide Prevention

Frequency and gender differences of psychiatric medication intake in a sample of suicide victims from the Athens Greater Area were investigated with a particular focus on the implications for suicide prevention. Data were collected from the toxicological analyses of the suicide cases of the period November 2007–October 2009. Information was available for 262 individuals, 196 men (74.8%) and 66 women (25.2%); 109 of these (41.6%) were receiving psychiatric medication(s). Women were statistically more frequently under treatment: antidepressants (32.8% vs. 11.3%, p < 0.001), antiepileptics (9.1% vs. 0.5%, p = 0.001), antipsychotics (24.2% vs. 9.2%, p = 0.003), and benzodiazepines (16.7% vs. 6.6%, p = 0.024). Campaigns aiming to bring men with psychological difficulties in contact with mental health services and to lessen the stigma of mental illness, together with better training of nonpsychiatrists into “suspecting” “male” depression, could be particularly helpful for decreasing male suicides. More thoughtful choice of psychiatric medication could possibly already prevent a number of female suicides.     

Recommendations for Correctional Leaders to Reduce Boundary Violations: Female Correctional Employees and Male Inmates

The correctional profession continues to report boundary-violating behavior by correctional employees with inmates, such as aiding an inmate in an escape and engaging in sexual contact with an inmate. These criminal behaviors obviously threaten the safety within the institutions and the community; however, these types of actions are normally preceded by minor boundary crossings within the institution. Therefore, all types of boundary violations and crossings between an inmate and an employee must be examined and eliminated. This article offers correctional leaders recommendations for organizational change that may reduce the number of boundary violations and crossings between female employees and male inmates. These recommendations are built on a larger qualitative study that used portraiture methodology, by interviewing 4 former female correctional employees who developed relationships with male inmates.     

关注监狱警察心理健康

心理学研究表明,监狱警察仅在任职头3年内耳闻目睹的丑恶面,比普通人一生中见到和感受到的还要多几倍,“高负荷、高强度、高风险”以及个体认知、社会支持和生物免疫三大中介系统的薄弱无力,使监狱警察成为一个最易出现心理问题的群体。一、心理健康问题敲响警钟有关监狱警察心     

Murder Followed by Suicide: Filicide–Suicide Mothers in Italy from 1992 to 2010

The international literature shows that in 40–50% of the cases, homicides–suicides involving children under the age of 10 are committed by mothers. Here, we report some results on homicides–suicides, in the mother–child relationship, occurred in Italy between 1992 and 2010. We examined 36 cases of filicide–suicide mothers by consulting the archives of RAI, daily newspapers, and the ANSA news agency. We focused on: mothers and children's age, place of residence, date and place of the murder, number and sex of the murdered children, and modality of the homicide–suicide. At the time of the homicide–suicide, the average age of mothers was 35.4. The number of children killed by each mother was one, except in seven cases. All the women had underestimated psychopathological disorders and only six women were regularly treated. The dynamics and characteristics of the events were much more similar to suicides than homicides, so we can consider them as “extensive suicides.”     

Court Orders and County Correctional Expenditures: Power of the Purse?*

Despite much speculation that court orders against correctional facilities have adversely impacted government finances, little empirical investigation has been conducted. Counties, already experiencing severe fiscal crisis, may increasingly allocate more of their budget toward local jails to comply with court-ordered improvements. This hypothesis was tested by examining time series data, case histories, and interviews with government, corrections, and justice officials in three counties. In addition, cross-sectional data from two constructed samples of matched counties compared expenditures in counties under and not under court order. Results suggested that judges were sometimes persistent in seeking reform, even ordering direct expenditures on jails. However, statistical investigation revealed that the effects of judicial intervention were relatively strong in some cases, but weak in others. The effects of court orders on correctional policy are heterogeneous, and the judicial “power of the purse” is limited by various legal and pragmatic constraints.     

Picking battles: Correctional officers,rules, and discretion in prison

To outsiders, prisons vacillate between visions of regimented order and anarchic disorder. The place of rules in prison sits at the fulcrum between these two visions of regulation. Based on 131 qualitative interviews with correctional officers across four different prisons in western Canada, we examine how correctional officers understand and exercise discretion in prison. Our findings highlight how an officer's habitus shapes individual instances of discretionary decision‐making. We show how officers modify how they exercise discretion in light of their views on how incarcerated people, fellow officers, and supervisors will interpret their decisions. Although existing research often sees a correlation between “rule‐following” by incarcerated individuals and official statistics on such misdeeds, our data highlight that official statistics on rule violations do not easily represent the rate or frequency of such misbehavior. Instead, these numbers are highly discretionary organizational accomplishments. Our findings advance an appreciation for correctional officer discretion by focusing on the range of factors officers might contemplate in forward‐looking decisions about applying a rule and how they rationalize the nonenforcement of rules.     

Correction to: Coronial Inquests,Indigenous Suicide and the Colonial Narrative

Critical Criminology -     

影响环境资源法实施的障碍研究

“十五规划”期间的环境资源状况说明,我国的环境资源法没有得到有效实施。当前环境法律法规实施不力的深层原因,在于开展环境资源保护工作在短期内既不符合地方政府的经济利益,也不符合地方政府的政治利益,还在于立法工作中的部门利益问题严重影响国家层面环境资源立法的质量。为了有效实施环境资源法,应当建立有利于环境资源法全面实施的机制,加强民主立法和科学立法,并强化环境资源法律和有关法律的执法、司法和监督。     

关于劳动教养向违法行为矫治制度过渡的实践与思考

劳动教养作为具有中国特色的一项法律制度,已经走过了近50年的风雨历程,成功地教育挽救了大批违法和轻微犯罪人员,为维护国家政治稳定和社会安定发挥了重要作用。但是随着我国法制的日趋完备和依法治国,建设社会主义法治国家进程的整体推进,劳动教养制度深层次的矛盾和问题已日渐凸显,严重束缚了劳动教养制度的规范化发展。作为劳教工作的实践者,面对新形势、新任务,理应站在建设社会主义法治国家的高度,按照中央司法体制改革和司法部关于劳教办特色,推进管理工作改革的总体部署,坚持与时俱进的精神,探索符合劳教自身发展规律,完善和创新执…     

Conservative Sanctioning and Correctional Innovations in the United States: An Examination of Recent Trends

Since the late 1960s sanctioning and correctional policies and practices in the Unites States have increasingly turned punitive for many types of crimes and offenders. This paper examines three of the most prominent policy shifts in sanctioning and correctional policies in the last three decades, and brings together evidence of their broad impacts on incarceration, recidivism rates, specific segments of the offender population, and the court system.