Detention and desistance from crime: Evaluating the influence of a new generation jail on recidivism

New generation jails represent a fundamental reform to the structure and management style of traditional jails. Evaluations have investigated the effects of this innovation on the internal operations of detention facilities, although no study has yet examined the potential impact of new generation designs on the postrelease criminal behavior of inmates. Using a sample of 600 inmates housed under indirect or direct supervision, the present study began to address this issue. The results suggest that the new generation model does not increase recidivism and may reduce postrelease offending in some situations.     

Muslims in Ottoman Europe: Population from 1800 to 1912

Work in the Baltic area is not easy and will not become so in the near future.

1. One has to command a number of languages in order to contribute.

2. The number of scholars interested in the Baltic is not great and they are widely dispersed. Hence, cooperation is impeded.

3. A student or scholar must become a Baltic specialist in terms of some other academic discipline.

4. Materials needed for studying the Baltic at a distance are scarce and dispersed. Even the best library holdings are none too extensive and existing collections are all too often not catalogued.

There are, however, positive aspects.

1. One can go to the area for short‐term visits with an idea of gaining insight into the locality and establishing personal contacts with resident scholars.

2. Funds, while not ample, are no more restricted than in other academic enterprises. In some respects, money is the resource most available.

     

Collection of Delinquent Fines: An Adaptive Randomized Trial to Assess the Effectiveness of Alternative Text Messages

The collection of delinquent fines is a vast and ongoing public administration challenge. In the United Kingdom, unpaid fines amount to more than 500 million pounds. Managing noncompliant accounts and dispatching bailiffs to collect fines in person is costly. This paper reports the results of a large randomized controlled trial, led by the UK Cabinet Office's Behavioural Insights Team, which was designed to test the effectiveness of mobile phone text messaging as an alternative method of inducing people to pay their outstanding fines. An adaptive trial design was used, first to test the effectiveness of text messaging against no treatment and then to test the relative effectiveness of alternative messages. Text messages, which are relatively inexpensive, are found to significantly increase average payment of delinquent fines. We found text messages to be especially effective when they address the recipient by name.     

Techniques of covert propaganda: the British approach in the mid-1960s

In early 2019, the British government declassified a tranche of Information Research Department files. Among them is a candid and concise overview of British thinking about covert propaganda, complete with a list of examples of British forgery operations. This short piece transcribes the briefing note and provides an introduction. The document sheds new light on UK covert action, but also talks to ongoing scholarly debates in Intelligence Studies and International Relations more broadly.     

The social functions of correctional policy: A case study of the Alabama convict lease system 1845–1928

Private sector involvement in corrections is a controversial contemporary practice. This paper examines, from a historical perspective, one state’s experiment with leasing state sentenced convicts to private contractors for use on a variety of for profit labor projects. The convict lease system in Alabama was noteworthy for two reasons: first, Alabama relied on the lease system of convict labor longer than any other state, and second, the state operated one of the most profitable lease systems in the United States. Convicts in Alabama were used in agriculture, road and railway construction, manufacturing, in quarries and in the coal mines. It was in the coal mines that the lease system brought the greatest profit and controversy. Leases with the coal companies for convict labor became a major source of revenue for the state treasury while at the same time, prison reformers criticized the practice for its cruel and inhumane treatment of inmates (the death rate at some of the mining camps exceeded 40% of the inmates under custody per year). In addition, this paper examines some of the social consequences associated with the correctional policy of convict leasing.