“WOMEN'S PRISONS” AND “MEN'S PRISONS”: SHOULD PRISONERS BE CLASSIFIED BY SEX?

What are the differences between “women's prisons” and “men's prisons”? That question is answered in this article, which documents that many institutions “for” women do not provide services designed specially for women, or anyone else. Moreover, some women's prisons provide fewer vocational, recreational, and educational programs than do institutions “for” men. Given the growing literature on the disparity of services and on the relative deprivations faced by many women prisoners, the author questions whether segregation by sex should continue to be used as a major premise of prison classification systems.     

Addressing diversion effects

Alan Wertheimer argues that those who promulgate principles of research ethics have a responsibility to take into account the diversion effects of those principles. In this commentary, I argue that Wertheimer''s proposal that diversion effects should be considered when promulgating principles of research ethics makes sense, but it often may be best to deal with these effects once a principle has been accepted and implemented, rather than focusing on them at the outset.