tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/prisoners-19094/articlesPrisoners – The Conversation2023-12-20T16:05:48Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2188752023-12-20T16:05:48Z2023-12-20T16:05:48ZTeaching prisoners to start businesses can help them return to society<p>When people are released from prison back into society, they can find themselves in an unknown world for which they are <a href="https://online.simmons.edu/blog/prisoner-reentry/">ill-equipped</a>. They need stability and security to get their lives back on track – yet often have nowhere to go. They also <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/prison-education-a-review-of-reading-education-in-prisons/prison-education-a-review-of-reading-education-in-prisons">tend to lack</a> basic literacy and numeracy, which makes it unlikely they will find work.</p>
<p>Prisoners attend various orientation programmes intended to help them with things like housing, finances, transport and employment. Surprisingly, however, there isn’t typically a programme in the UK to help them to become entrepreneurs.</p>
<p>In fact, ex-prisoners are well suited to setting up businesses. They tend to show many <a href="https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/sea2.12103?casa_token=PBoPotqavvAAAAAA%3Aok0dQtJ9BdQ-D56HNk7rb1O0BgHTHV2bYLIxZBGD-wxL4yhkaPhzc_EfJAgnfn9Ikj4Bm43mDUvk">entrepreneurial traits</a>, such as self-sufficiency, creativity and the capacity to take risks. They have the added incentive of not wanting to return to prison and have <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-66603-3_14">responded well</a> to entrepreneurship programmes in places like the US. </p>
<h2>Programmes in the US and UK</h2>
<p>Across the US, the <a href="https://inmatestoentrepreneurs.org/">Inmates to Entrepreneurs</a> programme offers many prisoners an eight-week course in which they are taught the basics of setting up a business through a combination of face-to-face and online provision. </p>
<p>Out of more than <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/22/formerly-incarcerated-people-are-turning-to-entrepreneurship-.html">100,000 people</a> who have taken the programme, around 30% have gone on to start a business. With ex-prisoners around <a href="https://journals.aom.org/doi/abs/10.5465/AMBPP.2020.205">41% more likely</a> to become self-employed in the US compared to regular people, this programme clearly gives them some encouragement.</p>
<p>There have also been some smaller successful programmes in different parts of the US. For example, the <a href="https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED628207.pdf">Washington DC programme Aspire</a> saw 45 out of 125 graduates starting a business in 2021-22. </p>
<p>Meanwhile the Texas-based <a href="https://icic.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/ICIC_PEP-Impact-Analysis_final_post.pdf">Prison Entrepreneurship Programme</a>, which has been running for almost two decades, was shown in a <a href="https://www.baylorisr.org/wp-content/uploads/PEP_final_reduced-size.pdf">2013 study</a> to have reduced reoffending by around two-thirds, outperforming numerous other rehabilitation programmes in the state.</p>
<p>In the UK, around 80% of prisoners are interested in starting their own business – at least according to a <a href="https://centreforentrepreneurs.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Prison-Entrepreneurs-Report-WEB-1.pdf">2016 report</a> from the Centre for Entrepreneurs. That’s compared to about 40% of the general population. The Centre argues that ex-prisoners in the UK could be starting almost <a href="https://centreforentrepreneurs.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Prison-Entrepreneurs-Report-WEB-1.pdf">11,000 businesses</a> a year with the right support. </p>
<p>But the current provision is extremely limited. In London, Queen Mary University’s <a href="https://www.project-remake.org.uk/">Project ReMAKE</a> is an eight to 12-week programme that has been running for the past few years. It teaches the basic skills to around 15 ex-prisoners each year to become self-employed, and so far none of the graduates <a href="https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/project-remake">has reoffended</a>. </p>
<p>More broadly, the Centre for Entrepreneurs <a href="https://centreforentrepreneurs.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Prison-Entrepreneurs-Report-WEB-1.pdf">calculates that</a> a nationwide UK programme teaching entrepreneurial skills to prisoners might have a 14% reoffending rate, compared to the 46% norm. This was based mainly on the results of a charity called Startup, which taught entrepreneurialism to several thousand female ex-prisoners in the UK during the 2000s and 2010s. </p>
<p>Another previous entrepreneurship programme, this time by <a href="https://centreforentrepreneurs.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/Prison-Entrepreneurs-Report-WEB-1.pdf">the Prince’s Trust</a>, gives an indication of how successful such programmes can be. It was offered to a range of people including ex-prisoners in the mid-2010s in different parts of England. It found that 78% of businesses set up by ex-prisoners reached the two-year survival mark – similar to participants on the programme as a whole. </p>
<h2>The Scottish situation</h2>
<p>There are no entrepreneurship programmes targeted at ex-prisoners in Scotland, where I’m based. Scotland particularly needs such a programme, since it’s got <a href="https://fraserofallander.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Perspective-2-Criminal-justice-and-the-costs-of-offending.pdf">very high imprisonment rates</a> for men and women. The female prison population, which is <a href="https://www.gov.scot/binaries/content/documents/govscot/publications/statistics/2022/11/scottish-prison-population-statistics-2021-22/documents/scottish-prison-population-statistics/scottish-prison-population-statistics/govscot%3Adocument/scottish-prison-population-statistics.pdf">just under 300</a>, is <a href="https://www.parlamaid-alba.scot/api/sitecore/CustomMedia/OfficialReport?meetingId=15365">among the highest</a> in northern Europe. </p>
<p>In 2022, some researchers at Edinburgh’s Heriot-Watt University delivered a <a href="https://www.hw.ac.uk/news/articles/2022/heriot-watt-university-research-has-high.htm">three-day programme</a> to a group of women in prison. It’s not yet clear to what extent the programme was successful. It might be that delivering such training in prison isn’t the best timing, since the recipients are potentially more likely to be in a better headspace once they are released and certain basic needs such as housing have been met. The three US programmes I mentioned earlier all provide training after prisoners have been released, with only the Texas programme also offering part of the course while recipients are still in prison. </p>
<p>To the same end, I recently received just under £100,000 from the Scottish government to launch a new pilot programme, again aimed at women. One of my most basic challenges is to make the notion of entrepreneurship attractive to these women. I aim to show them that it is not only about setting up a small business. Taking an entrepreneurship course can also help them to develop skills to make them employable and reach their potential, often by surfacing skills they didn’t know they had. </p>
<p>The programme will be delivered to 30 women predominantly based in greater Glasgow over six weeks in 2024. It will include exploring their skills, understanding digital communication, and creating tangible outcomes for and with them. The programme will also pay for their travel, lunch and childcare to ensure the women do not have barriers to taking part, while there will be social events at the beginning and end to help with group bonding. </p>
<p>Hopefully if the programme is a success, it can encourage the Scottish government to roll out this kind of training more widely. There’s enough evidence by now to suggest that teaching ex-prisoners how to start businesses should be an integral part of their rehabilitation. Hopefully the day will come when it is available across the board in the UK.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218875/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Norin Arshed received funding from Leverhulme Fellowship and the Scottish Government. </span></em></p>Despite very strong results in the US, there’s very little entrepreneurship training for former prisoners in the UK.Norin Arshed, Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, University of Strathclyde Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2175582023-11-14T19:07:15Z2023-11-14T19:07:15ZNew report reveals shocking state of prisoner health. Here’s what needs to be done<p>A new Australian Institute of Health and Welfare <a href="https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/prisoners/the-health-of-people-in-australias-prisons-2022/contents/about">report</a> on the health of people in Australian prisons makes for sobering reading.</p>
<p>It reveals that compared to the general population, people in prison have higher rates of mental health conditions, chronic disease, communicable disease, and acquired brain injury. This is despite the fact the prison population is <a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/crime-and-justice/prisoners-australia/latest-release">relatively young</a>. </p>
<p>This is a problem for everyone. <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00127-020-01873-1">Research</a> shows mental health intervention and engagement helps <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32667664/">reduce offending</a> among offenders with serious mental illness. </p>
<p>Good health care in prisons, with continuity of community health care upon release, not only helps the person being treated. It also helps the community through reduced levels of offending.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/good-mental-health-care-in-prisons-must-begin-and-end-in-the-community-40011">Good mental health care in prisons must begin and end in the community</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>The new report</h2>
<p>Data were collected in 2022 from 371 people entering prison during a given two-week period, and 431 who were due to be released during the data collection period or in the following four weeks. The report includes information drawn from 73 of 87 prisons across Australia (excluding Victoria, which didn’t participate in the survey this year).</p>
<p>The researchers also collected data from 4,500 people who visited the prison health clinic and another 7,100 people who received medications while in prison.</p>
<p>According to the data, around one in two prison entrants reported a chronic physical health condition.</p>
<p><iframe id="KZMKz" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/KZMKz/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>One in two prison entrants reported having been told they had a mental health condition, with almost one in five currently taking mental health related medication.</p>
<p><iframe id="7hlVr" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/7hlVr/1/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Around one in five prison entrants reported a history of self-harm.</p>
<p><iframe id="PH3Ob" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/PH3Ob/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>Self-reported levels of distress were high:</p>
<p><iframe id="3ifaQ" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/3ifaQ/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>The report also revealed:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>two-thirds of prison entrants reported they had previously been in prison</p></li>
<li><p>around two in five younger prison entrants reported a family history of incarceration</p></li>
<li><p>around two in five prison entrants reported having dependent children in the community</p></li>
<li><p>nearly one in three prison entrants reported their highest level of schooling as year nine or under</p></li>
<li><p>nearly one in two prison dischargees expected they would be homeless on release</p></li>
<li><p>almost one in three prison entrants reported consuming at least seven standard drinks of alcohol in a typical day of drinking</p></li>
<li><p>almost three in four prison entrants reported being current smokers.</p></li>
</ul>
<h2>Shocking, though unsurprising</h2>
<p>As someone who has worked in prisons and researched prisoner health for more than three decades, I was sadly unsurprised by these grim findings. The results are largely consistent with <a href="https://www.aihw.gov.au/reports/prisoners/the-health-of-people-in-australias-prisons-2022/report-editions">previous reports</a> and confirm people in custody have particularly high health needs. </p>
<p>It’s easy for us to lose sight of the health needs of people in prison while they are locked away.</p>
<p>A high percentage of people in prison are on remand pending trial and once sentenced most are back in the community relatively soon. </p>
<p>Once sentenced, most spend a <a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/crime-and-justice/prisoners-australia/latest-release">relatively short time</a> in prison, particularly those who commit low or medium-risk offences. </p>
<p>A high proportion of people cycle back into prison after release. There is very little continuity of care between health care in prison and in the community. The failures in the system help replicate disadvantage and leave the whole community worse off.</p>
<h2>Why is the prisoner population generally in such poor health?</h2>
<p>Many prison entrants are poorly educated, impoverished, come from families with an incarceration history, and experience homelessness.</p>
<p>They are also more likely than others in the community to have poor employment skills and histories, and to have experienced child abuse. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/crime-and-justice/prisoners-australia/latest-release#aboriginal-and-torres-strait-islander-prisoners">disproportionate number</a> of people in prison are Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islanders, a group that generally experiences significantly poorer health than the general community. </p>
<p>Recent <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1186/s12889-023-16464-3">evidence</a> also shows many people in prison have poorer levels of health literacy than people in the general community. In other words, they may struggle to obtain, understand, and use information to make appropriate health decisions. </p>
<h2>Why is this a problem for all of us?</h2>
<p>Prisons are very much part of our community and most people are incarcerated temporarily. By enhancing the health care of people in prison and ensuring continuity of care to the community, we can reduce the costs associated with health care more generally. Investing early to improve the health of prisoners can save a lot of taxpayer money down the track.</p>
<p>And as some types of mental health conditions are related to a higher risk for offending, better health care can help enhance public safety.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/victorias-prison-health-care-system-should-match-community-health-care-180558">Victoria’s prison health care system should match community health care</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>What needs to be done?</h2>
<p>We need to reassess how we think of prisons and those detained in them.</p>
<p>We have an opportunity to target people entering prisons to increase their health care and health literacy. Health care, and particularly mental health care, are critical ingredients in enhancing prisoners’ wellbeing, their health literacy and their continuity of care upon release. </p>
<p>All states screen detainees upon admission for health issues. And, encouragingly, the new report on prisoner health reveals almost three-quarters of prison dischargees rated the health care they received in the prison clinic as good or excellent. </p>
<p>But as good as they are, correctional health services cannot effectively overcome systems issues. Health care in prison is not enough to address health literacy, prevention of health problems, and continuity of care upon release.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/raising-the-age-of-criminal-responsibility-is-only-a-first-step-first-nations-kids-need-cultural-solutions-186201">Raising the age of criminal responsibility is only a first step. First Nations kids need cultural solutions</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The health and mental health care service system in Australia is fundamentally flawed. </p>
<p>Prison health services are funded by state governments without federal funding enjoyed by all other Australians through the <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Ann-Claire-Larsen/publication/328250377_In_Sickness_and_in_Prison_The_Case_for_Removing_the_Medicare_Exclusion_for_Australian_Prisoners/links/5bc92b1aa6fdcc03c7939cfb/In-Sickness-and-in-Prison-The-Case-for-Removing-the-Medicare-Exclusion-for-Australian-Prisoners.pdf">Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) and Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme (PBS)</a>.</p>
<p>This funding inequity and systemic issues contribute to the overall disadvantage in health care for people in prison.</p>
<p>And in some states, the responsibility for prisoner health care rests with the department of justice rather than the department of health. </p>
<p>This contributes to a breakdown in integrated service planning and delivery, which should include prisoner health care, health care upon release, and continuing care while in the community. </p>
<p>Boosting health literacy among people detained in prisons can help. Health literacy includes health-related critical thinking, communication, and problem-solving. </p>
<p>It means equipping people with the skills they need to actively participate in their own health and wellbeing.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/they-werent-there-when-i-needed-them-we-asked-former-prisoners-what-happens-when-support-services-fail-208949">‘They weren’t there when I needed them’: we asked former prisoners what happens when support services fail</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/217558/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Ogloff has received funding from the Australian Research Council and is a Strategic Advisor for the Victorian Institute of Forensic Mental Health (Forensicare). Forensicare provides mental health services in prisons in Victoria. </span></em></p>This is a problem for everyone. Research shows mental health intervention and engagement helps reduce offending among people with serious mental illness who commit offences.James Ogloff, University Distinguished Professor of Forensic Behavioural Science & Dean, School of Health Sciences, Swinburne University of TechnologyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2145672023-11-02T19:13:03Z2023-11-02T19:13:03ZI was a ward of the state. The horrors of the Parramatta Girls’ Home were legendary<p><em>Readers are advised this article discusses sexual abuse.</em></p>
<p>In the Sydney suburb of North Parramatta sits a cluster of very old buildings known as the “<a href="https://www.dcceew.gov.au/parks-heritage/heritage/places/national/parramatta-female-factory-and-institutions-precinct">Parramatta Female Factory Precinct</a>”.</p>
<p>Built in 1821 to house and provide productive employment for the New South Wales colony’s growing population of female convicts, it was also the site of countless <a href="https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/sites/default/files/file-list/case_study_7_-_findings_report_-_parramatta_training_school_for_girls.pdf">horrors</a> – many of which occurred much more recently than you might think. </p>
<p>The Australian government recently announced it will nominate the Parramatta Female Factory in Sydney for <a href="https://whc.unesco.org/en/faq/19">World Heritage listing</a>. It is a worthy nomination; the site is deeply significant for the many wards of the state who survived institutionalisation here or in other parts of Australia.</p>
<p>This precinct is by no means merely a relic of the convict era. Only 15 years ago, part of the site was a women’s prison. And from 1887 to 1974, it housed the notorious <a href="https://www.parragirls.org.au/parramatta-girls-home">Parramatta Girls’ Home</a>.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1707291365380612099"}"></div></p>
<h2>The Parramatta Girls’ Home</h2>
<p>The Girls’ Home was also known as Parramatta Girls’ Industrial School, Girls’ Training School, and Girls’ Training Home. Each name was very much a euphemism. Whatever you call it, it was a high-security institution. That is, a jail.</p>
<p>It was a place where adolescent girls who had been removed from abusive or unfit parents, found homeless, orphaned, or mandated by the courts as wards of the state could be indefinitely detained. </p>
<p>It was among the most infamous examples of what criminologists today call “penal welfare” – the practice of locking up children and adolescents who have committed no offence other than being poor, homeless, or simply unloved.</p>
<p>It was official policy to treat welfare inmates — already highly vulnerable and having committed no offence at all — like <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/12063312211066542">hardened criminals</a>.</p>
<p>They suffered a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vT6YzaHlC5E">cruel and humiliating regime</a> of physical, psychological and sexual violence. </p>
<p>The most trivial infraction of the rules — or no infraction at all — attracted <a href="https://www.parragirls.org.au/parramatta-girls-home">punishments</a> such as forced silence, scrubbing floors (with a toothbrush), beatings, and solitary confinement in dark underground cells.</p>
<p>And aside from the trauma of being locked in a pitch-black dungeon, girls in solitary were routinely <a href="https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/sites/default/files/file-list/case_study_7_-_findings_report_-_parramatta_training_school_for_girls.pdf">raped</a> by male staff members.</p>
<p>So horrific was its record of abuses that the <a href="https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/">Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse</a> treated it as a special <a href="https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/case-studies/case-study-07-parramatta-training-school-girls">case study</a>.</p>
<p>The Commission heard testimony from former inmates who named former staff members as serial sex offenders. Many had since died, but others have been charged and received <a href="https://www.news.com.au/national/crime/noel-greenaway-to-die-behind-bars-after-appeal-dismissed/news-story/45d35c7af78fd0d2c4ee6bf5feeeac06">heavy</a> prison sentences.</p>
<p>And it should be kept in mind that the Royal Commission’s terms of reference focused narrowly on sexual abuse. No prosecutions ensued for the myriad incidents of appalling, but non-sexual, emotional and physical maltreatment.</p>
<p>The stakeholders who so passionately advocated for the preservation and commemoration of the Parramatta Female Factory Precinct were survivors of the Girls’ Home. </p>
<p>In 2006 they formed a lobby group called “<a href="https://www.parragirls.org.au/">Parragirls</a>”, and began campaigning for official acknowledgement of their experiences.</p>
<p>They called for the entire site — not just the convict-era building — to be recognised as historically significant and worthy of preservation.</p>
<h2>It wasn’t the only institution</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/12063312211066542">Parragirls</a> number a few hundred. They form a small subsection of the roughly half a million survivors of out-of-home “care” in the latter half of the 20th century, whom a 2003 Senate inquiry dubbed the “<a href="https://www.aph.gov.au/parliamentary_business/committees/senate/community_affairs/completed_inquiries/2004-07/inst_care/report/index">Forgotten Australians</a>”. </p>
<p>I was a ward of the state as a teenager and spent time in various institutions as a child. As a Victorian, I was never in danger of being locked away in Parramatta, but its horrors were legendary among state wards everywhere. </p>
<p>We had <a href="https://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/case-studies/case-study-30-youth-detention-centres-victoria">our own institutions</a>, many as brutal as Parramatta, to contend with and try to avoid.</p>
<p>Australia has not come to terms with what happened to wards of the state in the 20th century. </p>
<p>Many are still alive, but many lives have been ruined. </p>
<p>Institutions like Parramatta Girls and others investigated by various inquiries and by the Royal Commission remain relatively unknown to the general public. </p>
<p>For Forgotten Australians whose lives were not touched directly by Parramatta, the site nevertheless stands as an emblem of all the institutions that served Australia’s horrific “penal welfare” system. </p>
<p>Many of us endorse the campaign to have the entire site, not just the convict-era Female Factory, preserved and nominated for World Heritage recognition.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"930241874299727872"}"></div></p>
<h2>It has taken too long to recognise this history</h2>
<p>World Heritage Listing defines the site as being “of outstanding universal value to humanity” and ensures it will be preserved.</p>
<p>If the Parramatta Female Factory Precinct makes it onto the World Heritage List, it will be only the second female convict factory site in Australia to do so, after the <a href="https://femalefactory.org.au/history/%22%22">Cascades Female Factory</a> in Tasmania.</p>
<p>Parramatta’s nomination, however, raises questions. </p>
<p>Older and larger than Cascades, it was the prototype of all female factories around Australia, and significantly more of it survives today than any other site. Yet it took years of campaigning to draw the government’s attention to it. </p>
<p>Sydney’s <a href="https://mhnsw.au/visit-us/hyde-park-barracks/">Hyde Park Barracks</a>, a major convict prison for men, has been a tourist attraction for decades and has had World Heritage listing since 2010.</p>
<p>To overlook an even larger and equally significant site devoted to women of the same historical era is a rather glaring omission.</p>
<p><em>If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call Lifeline on 13 11 14. The National Sexual Assault, Family and Domestic Violence Counselling Line – 1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) – is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week for any Australian who has experienced, or is at risk of, family and domestic violence and/or sexual assault.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214567/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jacqueline Z. Wilson receives funding from the Australian Research Council Discovery Projects: DP210101275. "Activism & Advocacy: From Deficit Models To Survivor Narratives"</span></em></p>Built in 1821 to house and provide productive employment for the New South Wales colony’s growing population of female convicts, the Parramatta Female Factory was also the site of countless horrors.Jacqueline Z. Wilson, Adjunct Associate Professor in History, Australian Catholic UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2148442023-10-16T01:07:55Z2023-10-16T01:07:55ZHow mistaken identity can lead to wrongful convictions<p>In March 1976, American Leonard Mack was convicted of sexual assault and holding two female victims at gunpoint. In September 2023, Mack’s wrongful conviction was finally overturned by a New York judge on his 72nd birthday with the help of the <a href="https://innocenceproject.org/news/hit-in-dna-database-proves-leonard-macks-innocence-after-47-years-of-wrongful-conviction/">Innocence Project</a>, an organisation that uses DNA evidence to prove factual innocence. </p>
<p>Mack’s conviction took 47 years to overturn. He served seven-and-a-half of these years in a New York prison. His case is the <a href="https://innocenceproject.org/news/8-moving-moments-from-leonard-macks-historic-exoneration-after-47-years/">longest</a> in United States history to be overturned using DNA evidence. </p>
<p>In June 2023, a similar historic moment occurred in Australia. Kathleen Folbigg was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jun/05/kathleen-folbigg-pardoned-after-20-years-in-jail-over-deaths-of-her-four-children">pardoned and released</a> after 20 years in prison for the murder and manslaughter of her four young children. </p>
<p>Considered one of the <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/folbigg-release-would-make-chamberlain-case-pale-into-insignificance-20230307-p5cpya.html">worst miscarriages of justice</a> in Australian history, Folbigg’s release has sparked discussion over whether Australia needs a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/jun/12/not-a-rare-case-kathleen-folbigg-pardon-sparks-calls-for-new-body-to-review-possible-wrongful-convictions">formalised body</a> to deal with post-conviction appeals. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/serial-podcasts-adnan-syed-has-murder-conviction-vacated-how-common-are-wrongful-convictions-190968">'Serial' podcast's Adnan Syed has murder conviction vacated. How common are wrongful convictions?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Mack and Folbigg are only two individuals on different sides of the world who have spent decades fighting to prove their innocence. </p>
<p>Many others are still fighting. The prevalence of wrongful convictions is hard to determine. The <a href="https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/about.aspx">National Registry of Exonerations</a> in the United States has recorded 3,396 exonerations nation-wide since 1989. </p>
<p>But data on official exonerations fail to capture the many individuals whose convictions are yet to be overturned. </p>
<p>Estimates of the prevalence of wrongful convictions in the United States range from <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/08874034221106747?casa_token=DL_gPkxNcI8AAAAA:uI-en9junmLXXScDGthXAuC9JcLsxp5OF1J4QB1WdA2L2cZRcwRuwtxVmIMiKYbYaSDj_ji4EdPSLA">0.5 to 5%</a>. The exact prevalence in Australia is less clear but we do know <a href="https://search.informit.org/doi/pdf/10.3316/informit.801706351305383?casa_token=cpZBfZmh944AAAAA%3Ax_zYUlnogLjuDWl81jc38vmeOovzw44M171rP7G3ibNnU35rvWS0yeIO_Ad0eBa54nE54KxaKzIb3w4">71 cases of wrongful convictions</a> have been identified in Australia between 1922 to 2015.</p>
<p>Some have argued there could be <a href="https://search.informit.org/doi/pdf/10.3316/informit.308199161216493">350 convictions per year</a> of individuals who are factually innocent in Australia. </p>
<p>A witness mistakenly identifying an innocent suspect is common in many wrongful conviction cases.</p>
<p>Eyewitness misidentification is the leading contributing factor in wrongful convictions overturned by the <a href="https://innocenceproject.org/exonerations-data/">Innocence Project</a>, present in 64% of their successful cases. </p>
<p>In Australia, <a href="https://search.informit.org/doi/pdf/10.3316/informit.801706351305383?casa_token=cpZBfZmh944AAAAA%3Ax_zYUlnogLjuDWl81jc38vmeOovzw44M171rP7G3ibNnU35rvWS0yeIO_Ad0eBa54nE54KxaKzIb3w4">6%</a> of recorded wrongful convictions involved an eyewitness error. </p>
<p>This may be an underestimate given many applications to innocence initiatives in Australia alleging wrongful conviction, such as the <a href="https://bohii.net/">Bridge of Hope Innocence Initiative</a>, report <a href="https://bohii.net/blog/positiononestablishingccrcas">eyewitness evidence</a> as a potential contributing factor.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/kathleen-folbigg-pardon-shows-australia-needs-a-dedicated-body-to-investigate-wrongful-convictions-205645">Kathleen Folbigg pardon shows Australia needs a dedicated body to investigate wrongful convictions</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In Mack’s case, two victims misidentified him as the perpetrator. These identifications proved to be instrumental in his wrongful conviction. How did the two victims get it wrong? </p>
<h2>How problematic procedures influence eyewitnesses</h2>
<p>Eyewitness identification evidence relies on witnesses to accurately remember criminal perpetrators. Several factors affect eyewitness memory accuracy. Features of the crime can impact memory, such as whether it was light or dark, or whether the perpetrator wore a disguise. </p>
<p>Memory can also be affected by characteristics of the witness at the time of the crime, such as their stress or intoxication levels. </p>
<p>These factors are present at the time of the crime and cannot be changed. What is perhaps more crucial is that eyewitness memory can also be affected by the procedures law enforcement use to collect identification evidence.</p>
<p>In <a href="https://innocenceproject.org/news/hit-in-dna-database-proves-leonard-macks-innocence-after-47-years-of-wrongful-conviction/">Mack’s case</a>, there were serious problems with the procedures used to get the identifications from the victims. One of the victims made three separate identifications of Mack. Witnesses should only complete one identification procedure for each suspect, because the first identification will bias future identification attempts. </p>
<p>For two of the identifications the victim made, she was only shown Mack by himself surrounded by police. Showing a lone suspect without any other lineup members may <a href="https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-319-29406-3_2">increase mistaken identifications</a>, particularly when the context in which they are shown is highly suggestive. </p>
<p>Seeing Mack in handcuffs and in the presence of police may have led the victim to identify him. Mack was the only person shown to the witness in these identification attempts, so the police officers organising the process knew he was the suspect. </p>
<p>“Single-blind” administration of identification procedures – where the police officers organising the lineup know who the suspect is – increase the likelihood of <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2017-49224-002">mistaken identifications</a>.</p>
<p>For the other identification this victim made, she picked Mack out of a photo lineup containing seven images. Mack’s photo was the only photo in the lineup that contained visible clothing and the year (1975) in the background. All members of a lineup must be matched and no one lineup member <a href="https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/lhb-lhb0000359.pdf">should stand out</a>, but Mack’s photo was distinct. </p>
<p>With all these problematic practices combined, we can see how Mack was misidentified and convicted.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/kathleen-folbigg-is-free-but-people-pardoned-and-exonerated-of-crimes-face-unique-challenges-when-released-from-prison-207017">Kathleen Folbigg is free. But people pardoned and exonerated of crimes face unique challenges when released from prison</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In 2020, a team of eyewitness experts published <a href="https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/lhb-lhb0000359.pdf">nine evidence-based recommendations </a>for conducting identification procedures. </p>
<p>These recommendations serve to reduce mistaken identifications and enhance accurate ones. </p>
<p>The recommendations address the problematic practices in Mack’s case, but also include things like making sure there is sufficient evidence to place a suspect in a lineup, and giving appropriate instructions to witnesses during the procedure. </p>
<p>Identification procedures should also be video recorded to identify any poor practices. </p>
<p>While these recommendations will go a long way to reducing wrongful convictions resulting from faulty eyewitness identifications, they will only be effective if followed by police. </p>
<p>The next step is ensuring these recommendations are embedded into everyday policing practice.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/214844/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Hayley Cullen previously worked on a voluntary basis for Not Guilty: The Sydney Exoneration Project, an organisation that reviews cases of potential wrongful conviction. She was not involved in any of the cases discussed in this article.</span></em></p>Leonard Mack spent years in a US jail for a crime he didn’t commit. Here’s how identification procedures can, and have, led to wrongful convictions, and what can be done to prevent it.Hayley Cullen, Lecturer, Macquarie UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2103612023-08-21T12:25:17Z2023-08-21T12:25:17ZThe idea that imprisonment ‘corrects’ prisoners stretches back to some of the earliest texts in history<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543081/original/file-20230816-27-7c81zv.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C1022%2C873&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Hymn to the Goddess Nungal, on display at the Institute for the Study of Ancient Cultures at the University of Chicago.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Hymn_to_the_goddess_Nungal_by_a_scribe_accused_of_a_capital_offense_-_Oriental_Institute_Museum,_University_of_Chicago_-_DSC07107.JPG">Daderot/Wikimedia Commons</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Prisons are places of suffering. But in theory, they aim for something beyond punishment: reform.</p>
<p>In the United States, the goal of prisoner rehabilitation can be traced back, in part, to the 1876 opening of <a href="https://nyupress.org/9780814766231/benevolent-repression/">the Elmira Reformatory</a> in upstate New York. Purported to be an institution of “benevolent reform,” the reformatory aimed to transform prisoners, not just deprive them – though founder Zebulon Brockway, known as the “Father of American Corrections,” was notoriously harsh. </p>
<p>Other states soon adopted the reformatory model, and the notion that prisons are <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/prisons-in-ancient-mesopotamia-9780192849618?cc=us&lang=en&">places to “correct” people</a> has become a staple of the judicial system.</p>
<p>But the idea that imprisonment and suffering were supposedly good for the prisoner didn’t emerge in the 19th century. The earliest evidence <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/prisons-in-ancient-mesopotamia-9780192849618?cc=us&lang=en&">goes back some 4,000 years</a>: to a hymn in Mesopotamia, in modern-day Iraq, praising a prison goddess named Nungal.</p>
<p>Almost a decade ago, <a href="https://rts.academia.edu/NicholasReid">as a graduate student</a> researching <a href="https://ora.ox.ac.uk/objects/uuid:a693cd93-092e-4118-ae02-b9775bc2285e">slavery in early Mesopotamia</a>, I came across numerous texts dealing with imprisonment. Some were administrative documents dealing with everyday accounting information. Others were legal texts, literature or personal letters. I became fascinated with <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/prisons-in-ancient-mesopotamia-9780192849618?cc=us&lang=en&">imprisonment in these cultures</a>: Most of them detained suspects only briefly, but in literary and ritual texts, imprisonment was seen as a transformative, purifying experience.</p>
<h2>The ‘house of life’</h2>
<p>Around 1,800 B.C., students training as scribes at Nippur, an ancient Sumerian city, frequently copied from a selection of <a href="https://www.isdistribution.com/BookDetail.aspx?aId=17307">10 literary works</a>. Using cuneiform, these aspiring scribes would copy texts that included the exploits of the legendary hero Gilgamesh as he <a href="https://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/section1/tr1815.htm">fought the beast Huwawa</a>, the fearsome <a href="https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/W_1883-0118-AH-2598">guardian of the forest</a>. They wrote about <a href="https://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/section2/tr24201.htm">a great Mesopotamian king named Šulgi</a>, <a href="https://cdli.ox.ac.uk/wiki/doku.php?id=biography_shulgi">who claimed to be a god</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543082/original/file-20230816-46396-o65x9h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A slate-colored ancient seal has characters and an etching of a kneeling man holding a lion above his head." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543082/original/file-20230816-46396-o65x9h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543082/original/file-20230816-46396-o65x9h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543082/original/file-20230816-46396-o65x9h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543082/original/file-20230816-46396-o65x9h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=389&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543082/original/file-20230816-46396-o65x9h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543082/original/file-20230816-46396-o65x9h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543082/original/file-20230816-46396-o65x9h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=489&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A seal from around the ninth-seventh century B.C. shows Gilgamesh overpowering a lion.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/seal-depicting-a-bearded-hero-gilgamesh-kneeling-and-news-photo/152191411?adppopup=true">Werner Forman/Universal Images Group/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>And as the master scribe dictated these various texts, the students also heard about a prison goddess named Nungal.</p>
<p>Though her justice was inescapable, Nungal was also celebrated for her compassion. Her “house” brought suffering upon prisoners, whose sorrow gave rise to lament. Through that lament, however, prisoners could be purified of their sins and made right with their personal gods, who were their protectors and mediators before <a href="https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/deit/hd_deit.html">the greater gods</a>. </p>
<p>The “Hymn to Nungal,” which dates from the second <a href="https://www.harrassowitz-verlag.de/title_5565.ahtml">or third millennium B.C.</a>, details how a guilty prisoner sentenced to death was not killed, but snatched “from the jaws of destruction” and put in Nungal’s house, which she calls a “house of life” – but also a place of suffering, isolation and pain.</p>
<p>Still, the hymn describes prisoners <a href="https://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/section4/tr4281.htm">transformed by their time in prison</a>. The goddess says her house is “built with compassion, it soothes the heart of that person, and refreshes his spirits.” Eventually, she continues, they will lament and be purified in the eyes of their deity: “When it has appeased the heart of his god for him; when it has polished him clean like silver of good quality, when it has made him shine forth through the dust; when it has cleansed him of dirt, like silver of best quality … he will be entrusted again into the propitious hands of his god.”</p>
<h2>Fact vs. fiction</h2>
<p>The extent to which the ancients <a href="https://www.classics.ox.ac.uk/event/the-gods-in-literature-myth-theology-and-belief-in-ancient-near-eastern-and-greek-poetry">believed such stories about the gods</a> remains a matter of debate. Were texts like the “Hymn to Nungal” matters of sincere religion or just fairy tales that no one took seriously?</p>
<p>Since it is a literary text, it is not a reliable source about the justice system, either. Mesopotamian kingdoms during that time seem to have used prisons to detain suspects prior to punishment, similar to jails that hold suspects before trial today. They also <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/prisons-in-ancient-mesopotamia-9780192849618?cc=us&lang=en&">detained people to force them to pay a fine or debt</a>, and to coerce labor – sometimes for over three years. But punishment, which typically involved physical or financial consequences, did not include time in prison.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543108/original/file-20230816-17-g5ko5q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A faded blue tile shows tan-colored figures walking in a line." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543108/original/file-20230816-17-g5ko5q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/543108/original/file-20230816-17-g5ko5q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=285&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543108/original/file-20230816-17-g5ko5q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=285&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543108/original/file-20230816-17-g5ko5q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=285&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543108/original/file-20230816-17-g5ko5q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543108/original/file-20230816-17-g5ko5q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/543108/original/file-20230816-17-g5ko5q.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=358&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A detail from the Standard of Ur, from third-millennium B.C. Sumeria, shows prisoners of war between soldiers. (Held in the British Museum)</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Standard_of_Ur_-_War_-_Detail_Top_Right.jpg">LeastCommonAncestor/Wikimedia Commons</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Still, detainment entailed suffering, with one prisoner describing the “prison” as a “house of distresses or famine” in <a href="https://brill.com/edcollbook/title/3183">a letter written to his superior</a>. <a href="https://brill.com/display/title/297">In another text</a>, the sender says he was released but complains of beatings that another prisoner endured as part of the investigative process – although the sender does not mention the nature of the suspected offense. </p>
<p>However, scholars <a href="https://www.harrassowitz-verlag.de/title_5565.ahtml">Klaas Veenhof</a> and <a href="https://www.lesbelleslettres.com/livre/9782251446714/la-vie-meconnue-des-temples-mesopotamiens">Dominique Charpin</a> have found evidence of Nungal playing a role in the judicial process. At some temples, oaths would be taken in the presence of a throw-net, similar to what is used to cast for fish, which symbolized Nungal and inescapable justice.</p>
<p>The vision cast in the hymn was likely folded into a later ritual practice where imprisonment was used to purify the king. During <a href="http://www.islet-verlag.de/BandAmbos2.html">the New Year festival</a>, the king was stripped of his regalia and entered a makeshift prison made of reeds, where the king offered prayers to the gods for his sins. Through prayer and ritual, he was deemed purified and able to resume his royal duties.</p>
<h2>Yesterday and today</h2>
<p>While most people may not have spent long periods in Mesopotamian prisons, <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/prisons-in-ancient-mesopotamia-9780192849618?cc=us&lang=en&">they did suffer in them</a>. Perhaps it is that experience that caused a text like the “Hymn to Nungal” to be written, exploring how such an experience could be used <a href="http://www.islet-verlag.de/BandAmbos2.html">to reform the prisoner through lament</a>. </p>
<p>The notion that imprisonment can be good is pervasive, but is it accurate? How prison systems think about reform is very different today than how the “Hymn to Nungal” envisions it. Yet the powerful idea that suffering can be good for prisoners has deep historical roots – allowing incarceration systems to claim that the suffering within their walls is compassionate.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/210361/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>J. Nicholas Reid does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Mesopotamia’s prisons were built for detaining people, not punishing them. But they shaped powerful ideas about justice and reform that aren’t so different from today’s.J. Nicholas Reid, Professor Old Testament and Ancient Near Eastern Studies, Reformed Theological SeminaryLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2089492023-07-24T20:10:09Z2023-07-24T20:10:09Z‘They weren’t there when I needed them’: we asked former prisoners what happens when support services fail<p>When Geoff* left prison after his sentence ended, he was told he would be provided with help to return to the community and get on with this new chapter in life. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>They promised a lot. Like you know transitioning to housing, even help with you know finding work and that, but […] none of those promises were met.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The result was sadly predictable. Geoff was unable to access public housing due to a lengthy wait list and he soon found himself rotating between staying with friends or at hostels and living on the street. </p>
<p>Geoff’s story is not uncommon, as we discovered when we <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0955395922003413">interviewed</a> 48 people formerly incarcerated in Victoria (33 men, 15 women) for a <a href="https://www.unsw.edu.au/research/csrh/our-projects/identifying-factors-that-improve-the-health-of-people-newly-released-from-prison-who-inject-drugs">study</a> on post-release pathways among people who inject drugs. All had a history of drug use.</p>
<p>We wanted to know more about how they were supported to find housing and work, obtain medical care or, for those wanting to do so, access help to get off drugs. Getting this kind of pre- and post-release support can drastically reduce the risk of the person re-offending.</p>
<p>Our <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0955395922003413">analysis</a>, published in the International Journal of Drug Policy, reveals how services can play a crucial role in post-release success for people leaving prison.</p>
<p>Systemic failures can ultimately perpetuate the “<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-social-determinants-of-justice-8-factors-that-increase-your-risk-of-imprisonment-203661">revolving door</a>” of incarceration.</p>
<h2>System failure</h2>
<p>In 2019‑20, <a href="https://www.pc.gov.au/ongoing/report-on-government-services/2021/justice">46%</a> of prisoners released in 2017-18 had returned to prison within two years.</p>
<p>People who inject drugs are disproportionately more likely to return to prison. This suggests a systemic failure; something is going wrong in the way we provide services to this group of people.</p>
<p>For this analysis, “service providers” include actors such as:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>the state correctional authority (specifically, prison programs staff such as those responsible for pre-release planning and identifying support needs following release)</p></li>
<li><p>prison health staff</p></li>
<li><p>community service providers (such as housing providers and Centrelink)</p></li>
<li><p>mental health, alcohol and other drug services, as well as pharmacies; and </p></li>
<li><p>non-government organisations.</p></li>
</ul>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535251/original/file-20230703-146989-lezsaf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535251/original/file-20230703-146989-lezsaf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/535251/original/file-20230703-146989-lezsaf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535251/original/file-20230703-146989-lezsaf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535251/original/file-20230703-146989-lezsaf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535251/original/file-20230703-146989-lezsaf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535251/original/file-20230703-146989-lezsaf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/535251/original/file-20230703-146989-lezsaf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Systemic failures can ultimately perpetuate the revolving door of incarceration.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>We found experiences within the first day or two of release can dramatically shape a person’s post-release pathway.</p>
<p>For example, when Jidah got out of prison, he needed crucial medication for his opioid dependence. Unfortunately, his prescription was not transferred to his community pharmacy: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>When I got released, I was on the Suboxone and I thought everything was
going to be fine in regards to me going straight to my chemist and picking up my dose. And I’ve gone there and nothing was sent through. And I was that frustrated that it caused me to relapse and get back on the heroin. </p>
<p>I felt like I was just left to fend for myself and to be in a vulnerable place, especially when you get out of jail, ‘cause you are relying on these organisations. […] I done what was asked of me, but they weren’t there when I needed it, so it caused me to be in a bad position, in a bad place.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Khish told us he was given some support in getting set up for post-prison life but the help was limited.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Well, they [prison-based staff] made sure that I would be getting Centrelink payments, so they organised for that, for me to talk to people from Centrelink, so that the day of release I would have some money to get a place to stay and stuff like that. That was the only thing that they actually did, yeah.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Trust is key</h2>
<p>Being able to trust a service provider is crucial and can enable a smoother transition to community. </p>
<p>However, being honest with a service provider could be a lucky dip for many of our interviewees; in some cases it could lead to necessary support, while others felt it risked reincarceration.</p>
<p>Parole officers can play a crucial role but people’s experiences varied. Dan had a positive experience, saying: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>they just try to coach you through it and try to keep you out of jail, which is good, because that’s not helping anyone anyway.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Ben, however, didn’t find his parole officer “useful”, saying:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>They’re not really there to help you. They’re just there to discipline you and make sure you do it properly, I suppose. They’re there to watch over you, but they say they can help.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Getting the right support can be ‘life-changing’</h2>
<p>We did hear some success stories. Anthony told us:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I’ve always re-offended, relapsed quite hard and everything, but the difference this time was […] even the staff, the corrections staff, down to the magistrate, I can’t explain the level of empathy and effort they put into me is just huge. Yeah, it has been life-changing.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Overseas examples also show what’s possible. A recently adopted philosophy in the US state of Maine (referred to as <a href="https://www.maine.gov/corrections/mmc#:%7E:text=This%20operating%20philosophy%2C%20known%20as,to%20rebuild%20and%20transform%20lives.">Maine Model of Corrections</a>) has involved overhauling the way the system supports people during incarceration and preparing for release. The primary goal of the new philosophy is to “rebuild and transform lives”.</p>
<p>Under this new philosophy, Maine’s prisons focus on rehabilitation and growing respect between correctional officers and people who are incarcerated. In these prisons, the words “prisoners” and “inmates” are replaced with “<a href="https://www.maine.gov/corrections/sites/maine.gov.corrections/files/inline-files/WE%20%282022%29%20-%20Destigmatizing%20Corrections.Language%20Matters%20%28MDOC%29.pdf">residents</a>”. Drug dependence is treated as a matter of <a href="https://www.maine.gov/corrections/sites/maine.gov.corrections/files/inline-files/MDOC%20MSUD%20Year%20Three%20Report%20%282022%29.pdf">health priority</a>, with all clinically eligible residents given access to medicines for substance use disorder, regardless of their release date. </p>
<p>In contrast to Jidah’s experiences above, the Department of Corrections in Maine has a <a href="https://www.maine.gov/corrections/sites/maine.gov.corrections/files/inline-files/MDOC%20MSUD%20Year%20Three%20Report-2022.pdf">multi-disciplinary team</a> to ensure continuity of care for residents receiving medicines for substance use disorder prior to release.</p>
<p>Most people leaving prison face an uphill battle of service navigation that is too often deficit-focused, intentionally seeking out the failures of the individual and centred on punitive responses.</p>
<p>Communities of justice-involved people and people who use drugs have been clear about what they need when exiting prison: help with the <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njTVEBehDjQ">exhaustion</a> associated with re-entering the community, help to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oNT7u3vJ98">build and retain trust</a>, and help from a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70Ctgo-rkGw">competent workforce</a> that can improve people’s post-release chances.</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/njTVEBehDjQ?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">Identifying factors that improve the health of prisoners who inject drugs – Exhaustion. UNSW Community.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>A culture of respect and prioritising health needs associated with opioid dependence will help many ex-prisoners transition back into community and break the “incarceration treadmill”. </p>
<p>It can help reduce the chances the prison system is simply reproducing disadvantage and replicating the problems it is ostensibly supposed to solve.</p>
<p><em>Names have been changed to protect identities. If you or someone you know needs help with exiting prison, you can find a list of resources <a href="https://www.crcnsw.org.au/get-help/">here</a>. The NSW Users and AIDS Association (NUAA) PeerLine on 1800 644 413 may also be helpful.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/208949/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lise Lafferty does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Carla Treloar has received funding from the NHMRC.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kerryn Drysdale does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Most people leaving prison face an uphill battle of service navigation that is too often deficit-focused, intentionally seeking out the failures of the individual and centred on punitive responses.Lise Lafferty, Senior research fellow, UNSW SydneyCarla Treloar, Director, Centre for Social Research in Health, Social Policy Research Centre, UNSW SydneyKerryn Drysdale, Senior Research Fellow, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2000412023-03-02T13:23:59Z2023-03-02T13:23:59ZUnderstanding mass incarceration in the US is the first step to reducing a swollen prison population<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/513014/original/file-20230301-30-1c9olo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=238%2C157%2C2573%2C1823&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">People incarcerated at a county jail in North Dakota gather together. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/id/174524045/photo/oil-boom-shifts-the-landscape-of-rural-north-dakota.jpg?s=1024x1024&w=gi&k=20&c=FaIkb2CLNjUOxOoWX521IPpa5BfsgYTnAMVCQrDFXnI=">Andrew Burton/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/08/16/americas-incarceration-rate-lowest-since-1995/">The incarceration rate</a> in the United States fell in 2021 to its lowest levels since 1995 – but the U.S. continues to imprison a higher percentage of its population than almost every <a href="https://www.prisonstudies.org/highest-to-lowest/prison-population-total?field_region_taxonomy_tid=All">other country</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/correctional-populations-united-states-2021-statistical-tables">The U.S. incarcerates</a> 530 people for every 100,000 in its population, making it one of the world’s biggest jailers – <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/el-salvador-begins-transfers-mega-prison-amid-gang-crackdown-2023-02-24/">just below El Salvador</a>, <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/262962/countries-with-the-most-prisoners-per-100-000-inhabitants/">Rwanda and Turkmenistan.</a> </p>
<p>The U.S. actually had the greatest percentage of its population imprisoned until 2019. This followed steady growth in prison and jail populations in the 1970s, after a wave of <a href="https://www.owu.edu/news-media/from-our-perspective/tough-questions-for-tough-on-crime-policies/">“tough on crime” laws</a> and policies swept the nation. </p>
<p>While there has been a <a href="https://newjimcrow.com/,">growing recognition</a> of the need to reduce <a href="https://joebiden.com/justice/#,%20https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2015/07/15/president-obama-our-criminal-justice-system-isnt-smart-it-should-be">mass incarceration</a>, experts <a href="https://newjimcrow.com/">do not</a> agree on <a href="https://www.city-journal.org/rafael-mangual-discusses-new-book-criminal-in-justice">what caused the ballooning prison population</a> or the best path to reducing it.</p>
<p>As a former prosecutor and a researcher who studies the <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=VxvW--wAAAAJ&hl=en">criminal justice system</a>, I have found that understanding how the U.S. incarceration rate grew over the <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Mass-Incarceration-Nation-Jeffrey-Bellin/dp/1009267558/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0">last few decades</a> is the key to understanding its root causes – and what it will take to return to lower rates. </p>
<p>As I <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/us/academic/subjects/law/criminal-law/mass-incarceration-nation-how-united-states-became-addicted-prisons-and-jails-and-how-it-can-recover?format=PB&isbn=9781009267557">show in my new book</a>, “Mass Incarceration Nation, How the United States Became Addicted to Prisons and Jails and How It Can Recover,” people tend to talk past one another when they discuss crime and punishment in the U.S. I think the public debate can improve if people develop a better understanding of how mass incarceration arose – and its tenuous connection to crime. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/513012/original/file-20230301-2409-xqwaw8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A person wearing a bright orange outfit is seen walking into gates towards a beige building." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/513012/original/file-20230301-2409-xqwaw8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/513012/original/file-20230301-2409-xqwaw8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513012/original/file-20230301-2409-xqwaw8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513012/original/file-20230301-2409-xqwaw8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513012/original/file-20230301-2409-xqwaw8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513012/original/file-20230301-2409-xqwaw8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/513012/original/file-20230301-2409-xqwaw8.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">While the U.S. prison population has dipped recently, the rate remains higher than those of most countries.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/id/539898510/photo/usa-crime-overcrowding-of-california-prison-system.jpg?s=1024x1024&w=gi&k=20&c=iXtRdZscYW5liMp5Li6ez7mWwHU94JASFEYl2rO7Lus=">Ted Soqui/Corbis via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A growing prison population</h2>
<p>The growth in mass incarceration began with a crime spike. Homicides, which averaged around <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/series/sr_20/sr20_006acc.pdf">5,000 per year in the 1960s</a>, <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/187592/death-rate-from-homicide-in-the-us-since-1950/">shot up in the 1970s,</a> reaching over 24,000 in 1991. </p>
<p>The crime spike sparked a bipartisan wave of punitive laws, the hiring of <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1990/10/03/nyregion/dinkins-on-crime-dinkins-proposes-record-expansion-of-police-forces.html">thousands of police officers</a> and a <a href="https://daily.jstor.org/rethinking-prison-as-a-deterrent-to-future-crime/">“tough on crime” mindset</a> that permeated every aspect of American criminal law. The system became more punitive, generating longer sentences, especially for repeat and violent offenses, as I show in my book. </p>
<p>Over time, this led to today’s <a href="https://nicic.gov/projects/aging-prison">aging prison population</a> and many people being held long past the time they would have been released in other countries and at other times <a href="https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/2018/02/20/aging-prison-populations-drive-up-costs">in this country’s history</a>. </p>
<p>The number of people 55 or older in state and federal prisons increased 280% from 1999 to 2016, <a href="https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/articles/2018/02/20/aging-prison-populations-drive-up-costs">according to Pew research.</a> </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512999/original/file-20230301-1944-k5hl1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Men in bright orange outfits and face masks sit in what looks like an empty classroom with white bars on the windows." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512999/original/file-20230301-1944-k5hl1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/512999/original/file-20230301-1944-k5hl1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512999/original/file-20230301-1944-k5hl1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512999/original/file-20230301-1944-k5hl1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512999/original/file-20230301-1944-k5hl1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512999/original/file-20230301-1944-k5hl1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/512999/original/file-20230301-1944-k5hl1c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Men incarcerated in Washington, D.C., participate in a computer science program in September 2022.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://media.gettyimages.com/id/1243186427/photo/students-from-the-brave-behind-bars-program-an-introductory-computer-science-program-for.jpg?s=1024x1024&w=gi&k=20&c=lVKEnRJ9FBQ5GZSwwxMcHCV3HaKvXpvDudkR9vMMDWw=">Carolyn Van Houten/The Washington Post via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Different kinds of crime</h2>
<p>But longer sentences are only one factor in America’s supersized incarceration rates. </p>
<p>There has also been a <a href="https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/issue-briefs/2022/02/drug-arrests-stayed-high-even-as-imprisonment-fell-from-2009-to-2019">dramatic expansion of the kinds of crimes</a> for which U.S. courts imprison people. </p>
<p>After the 1970s, more and more people went to prison for drug crimes and other offenses that rarely used to lead to prison time. </p>
<p>Serious violent crime, meanwhile, went <a href="https://pricetheory.uchicago.edu/levitt/Papers/LevittUnderstandingWhyCrime2004.pdf">back down in the 1990s</a>. The crimes – like armed robbery and murder – that had sparked the march toward mass incarceration plummeted. </p>
<p>But prison populations didn’t drop. </p>
<p>As a prosecutor in Washington, D.C. in the early 2000s, I saw this change firsthand. Our caseloads were increasingly dominated by drug sales, drug possession and gun possession cases – cases which, not coincidentally, are typically the easiest to detect and prove. These changes were happening on a national level.</p>
<p><iframe id="A7bZk" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/A7bZk/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>The number of people incarcerated in state prisons for homicide increased by over 300% between 1980 and 2010, reflecting the temporary spike in homicides and longer sentences for those convicted of that offense. </p>
<p>But the scale of the increases for other offenses, like drug crimes, is even larger – rising 1,147% over this time frame.</p>
<h2>Speaking the same language</h2>
<p>While prison populations are finally starting to go down, progress is slow. At the current rate, it will take decades to reach the low incarceration rates the U.S. had for most of its history. </p>
<p>This dip is partially <a href="https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/impact-covid-19-state-and-federal-prisons-march-2020-february-2021">because of the COVID-19 pandemic</a>, which prompted some states to release prisoners to avoid overcrowding and health risks. It is not clear that these recent reductions in the incarcerated population will continue. </p>
<p>I think that substantially reducing prison and jail populations will require better understanding of the link between incarceration and crime. It is not simply the case that incarceration goes up because people commit crime; instead, the story is much more complicated. That is because we use incarceration for two purposes: to obtain justice on behalf of victims and to try to change people’s behavior. </p>
<p>This distinction results in two kinds of cases flowing into this nation’s criminal courts.</p>
<p>First, there are cases that involve the most serious harm to individuals, like crimes of sexual violence and murder. Second, there are cases like drug offenses and weapons possession, which are not typically about obtaining justice for victims but are supposed to further policy goals like preventing drug use.</p>
<p>Changes in how we treat both kinds of cases contributed to the nation’s sky-high incarceration rate. American mass incarceration is a result of <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/12/06/u-s-public-divided-over-whether-people-convicted-of-crimes-spend-too-much-or-too-little-time-in-prison/">increasing sentence lengths</a> for people who commit serious violent crimes. But it is also a product of a stunning expansion of the system’s reach in the form of more and more crimes leading to prison and jail. </p>
<p>Substantial progress at reducing the incarcerated population will require reversing both trends. First, returning sentence lengths for all offenses, including serious violent crime, to their historical norms. And second, resisting this country’s growing habit of relying on incarceration as a tool for achieving policy goals.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/200041/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jeffrey Bellin does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Experts still disagree about why the US prison population has grown so much over the last few decades. But crime is only one part of the problem.Jeffrey Bellin, Mills E. Godwin, Jr., Professor of Law, William & Mary Law SchoolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1997212023-02-15T13:23:10Z2023-02-15T13:23:10ZPrisoners donating organs to get time off raises thorny ethical questions<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509871/original/file-20230213-14-12rt3m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C34%2C4556%2C2998&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Prisoners at a yard at the Nebraska State Penitentiary in Lincoln, Neb.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/PrisonCrowdingNebraska/27819d626cb24aa586c3f2983975ec4b/photo?Query=prison%20u.s.%20inmates&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=4733&currentItemNo=42">AP Photo/Nati Harnik</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In January 2023 two Democratic representatives, Judith Garcia and Carlos Gonzalez, <a href="https://malegislature.gov/Bills/193/HD3822">proposed a bill</a> that would offer prisoners in Massachusetts a new way to win reduction in their sentences: by donating their bone marrow or vital organs.</p>
<p>The bill stated that the commissioner of the Department of Corrections should establish both a bone marrow and organ donation program within the department and a committee focused on bone marrow and organ donation that would set eligibility standards for inmates interested in the program. While forbidding commissions or monetary payments for donors, it stated that prisoners could “gain not less than 60 and not more than 365 day reduction in the length of their committed sentence” if they donated bone marrow or an organ. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/boston/news/massachusetts-bill-prisoners-donate-organs-reduced-sentences/">The legislators claimed</a> that their proposal would respect the bodily autonomy of incarcerated people by letting them decide what to do with their vital organs. It also would <a href="https://doi.org/10.1097/MOT.0b013e3283447b1c">address racial disparities</a> by helping to expand the pool of donors.</p>
<p>Recently, however, Garcia and Gonzalez <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/massachusetts-bill-allowing-prisoners-donate-organs-reduced-time/story?id=96989325">have walked back their proposal</a> and are planning to introduce a version without the promise of a sentence reduction. </p>
<p>Still, the idea of giving sentence reductions in return for organ donation <a href="https://apnews.com/article/organ-donation-massachusetts-state-government-health-a11a7f93dd13ad018bbb1899dbb4623a">raises serious ethical issues</a>. As someone who <a href="https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=20093">has studied punishment and imprisonment</a>, including the conditions of confinement in American prisons, I’m aware that some states have allowed prisoners to donate organs without any external incentives. But the question is whether prison inmates can ever consent freely to organ donation.</p>
<h2>The history of organ donation</h2>
<p>The idea of transplanting organs as a medical cure <a href="https://doi.org/10.1101/cshperspect.a014977">is quite old</a>. In 600 B.C., skin flaps were used for replacing missing noses, and 16th -century surgeons considered taking grafts of a patient’s tissue for another patient. But the practice of organ donation and transplantation began in earnest only in 1954, when Joseph Murray <a href="https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.1956.02960390027008">carried out the first successful kidney transplant</a>. Other donated organs, including livers and hearts, were transplanted a decade later. However, it <a href="https://doi.org/10.1101/cshperspect.a015685">has always been an ethically fraught area</a>, as the need for donated organs far outstrips the supply.</p>
<p>In 2022, 6,466 people <a href="https://unos.org/news/2022-organ-transplants-again-set-annual-records/">became living organ donors</a> in the United States, and another 14,903 people became posthumous organ donors. Yet, as of early 2023, more than 100,000 men, women and children <a href="https://www.donors1.org/learn-about-organ-donation/who-can-donate/get-the-facts/">are waiting for an organ donation so they can have a transplant</a>. The MIT Technology Review <a href="https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/02/03/1067768/massachusetts-bill-prisoners-swap-organs-freedom/">notes</a> that it is even harder for racial and ethnic minorities to get the organs they need. And thousands of people will die before the organ they need becomes available.</p>
<p>Altruism and the generosity of donors have <a href="https://journalofethics.ama-assn.org/article/organ-donation-altruism-vs-incentive/2002-08">neither closed the gap between the supply of donated organs</a> and the demand nor addressed the issue that <a href="https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/26364/realizing-the-promise-of-equity-in-the-organ-transplantation-system">people of color struggle to find a match</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509882/original/file-20230213-3866-ejcubu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Two health care professionals working on a procedure with a patient lying on a bed." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509882/original/file-20230213-3866-ejcubu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/509882/original/file-20230213-3866-ejcubu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509882/original/file-20230213-3866-ejcubu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509882/original/file-20230213-3866-ejcubu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509882/original/file-20230213-3866-ejcubu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509882/original/file-20230213-3866-ejcubu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/509882/original/file-20230213-3866-ejcubu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Two organ procurement coordinators work on the body of a potential organ donor at Mid-America Transplant Services in St. Louis.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/OrganTransplants/c44be320e3434762b75923c5f8207890/photo?Query=subjects.code:97b84b58814a1004819ddf092526b43e&mediaType=photo&sortBy=&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=260&currentItemNo=39">AP Photo/Whitney Curtis</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Recognizing these facts, various organizations and advocacy groups <a href="https://optn.transplant.hrsa.gov/professionals/by-topic/ethical-considerations/ethical-principles-in-the-allocation-of-human-organs/">have developed codes of ethics for donating organs</a>. For example,
according to the American Medical Association, organ donation is acceptable only if <a href="https://journalofethics.ama-assn.org/article/ama-code-medical-ethics-opinions-organ-transplantation/2012-03">donors give their informed consent</a>. Additionally, donors <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10561-012-9303-7">must be provided with</a> information regarding the purpose and risks associated with tissue donation. They must also be made familiar with any alternatives to donation and the right to withdraw consent. </p>
<p>Congress <a href="https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/STATUTE-98/pdf/STATUTE-98-Pg2339.pdf">passed the National Organ Transplant Act</a> in 1984 and established the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network to maintain a national system to match organs and individuals. The organ transplant law intended to make sure that organs are not treated as commodities to be bought and sold. </p>
<h2>Inmates as organ donors</h2>
<p>Garcia and Gonzalez are not the first state officials to propose turning to prisoners to help with the organ supply problem in recent years.</p>
<p>Some of those cases are quite unusual. For example, in 2010, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour suspended <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/12/30/mississippi.sisters.prison.release/index.html">the life sentences of two sisters</a>, Gladys and Jamie Scott, on the condition that Gladys donate one of her kidneys to Jamie. Her dialysis treatment was costing the state almost US$200,000 per year, and Barbour wanted to save money by <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/01/opinion/01herbert.html">facilitating the organ donation</a>. </p>
<p>In 2013, another governor, Ohio’s John Kasich, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/ef3c4e4fbd3540e29cac52cfadd5a8e0">took executive action</a> to explore the feasibility of allowing death row inmate Ronald Phillips to donate a kidney and other organs to sick relatives before he was put to death. But ultimately the state refused his request because of logistical and security issues involved in having the needed medical procedure done at an outside medical facility.</p>
<p>That same year, Utah became the first state <a href="https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2015/jan/13/utah-first-explicitly-allow-organ-donation-prisoners/#">to enact legislation authorizing prisoners to donate organs</a>. It permits voluntary, posthumous organ donations by prisoners who die while they are behind bars. But, unlike the Massachusetts proposal, the Utah law <a href="https://www.ksl.com/article/23914638/inmates-donating-organs-bill-would-formalize-the-process">does not offer incentives or rewards to inmates</a> who sign up for the program.</p>
<p>Since 2016 Texas <a href="https://www.tdcj.texas.gov/divisions/cmhc/docs/cmhc_policy_manual/E-31.02.pdf">has had a policy similar to Utah’s</a>. That policy allows inmates who die in custody to arrange to donate organs after their death. The Texas policy states: “The inmate will receive no award or compensation of any kind for his donation, including but not limited to preferred treatment by the [Texas Department of Criminal Justice] or improved opportunity for parole.”</p>
<p>In 2018, South Carolina joined Utah and Texas <a href="https://law.justia.com/codes/south-carolina/2018/title-24/chapter-1/section-24-1-285/">in writing permission for inmate organ donation into state law</a>.</p>
<p>But they are exceptions. Today <a href="https://www.law.com/ctlawtribune/2022/12/14/the-ethics-and-politics-of-death-row-organ-donations/?slreturn=20230109213801">most states do not allow prisoners to donate organs at all</a>. And federal prison inmates cannot make posthumous organ donations – but they can make living donations to immediate family members so long as they freely consent to do so.</p>
<h2>Consent in a coercive environment</h2>
<p>Some scholars do not think that prison inmates can <a href="https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/experimentation-prisoners-inadequacy-voluntary-consent">freely consent to organ donation</a> while being in the coercive environment of a prison. They regard inmate organ donation as <a href="https://optn.transplant.hrsa.gov/professionals/by-topic/ethical-considerations/the-ethics-of-organ-donation-from-condemned-prisoners/">exploiting a vulnerable population</a>.</p>
<p>And even some who believe that inmates should be allowed to donate organs were troubled by the initial proposal from Garcia and Gonzales. As the journalist Matthew Cunningham-Cook <a href="https://jacobin.com/2023/02/massachusetts-democrats-prisoner-organ-bone-marrow-donation">noted</a>, their original bill asked prisoners to “choose between their organs and their freedom” and was probably “not even … legal.” </p>
<p>While Rep. Gonzales <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/massachusetts-bill-allowing-prisoners-donate-organs-reduced-time/story?id=96989325">recently told</a> ABC News that “he was amending the language to remove the incentives,” he also noted that he would continue to push for legislation to allow inmate organ donation. Such legislation would, in his view, ensure that when it comes to the choice of whether to donate organs, inmates would “have the same basic rights as every citizen has in Massachusetts.”</p>
<p>In my view, this is a worthwhile goal, which, as Garcia and Gonzales now recognize, is best achieved without linking organ donation and sentence reductions.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/199721/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Austin Sarat does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A scholar who has studied imprisonment explains why the promise of sentence reductions in return for organ donation raises ethical issues about whether inmates can ever consent freely.Austin Sarat, William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science, Amherst CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1977012023-01-23T11:05:35Z2023-01-23T11:05:35ZKenyan prisoners on death row weren’t deterred by the threat of the death penalty: new research findings<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/504876/original/file-20230117-18-n09lor.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Kenya last executed a prisoner in 1987 but continues to hand down the death sentence.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/african-american-in-prison-royalty-free-image/88461052?phrase=prison%20black%20man&adppopup=true">Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Kenya’s <a href="https://deathpenaltyproject.org/knowledge/kenya-part-one-a-public-ready-to-accept-abolition/">last execution</a> of a prisoner was in 1987. But the country still hosts a death row population of nearly 600. Almost all were sentenced to death for murder or robbery with violence. New sentences are handed down every year.</p>
<p>Kenya is an “abolitionist de facto” state: the death penalty is still present in law and people are sentenced to death, but they aren’t executed. Currently, 17 of the African Union’s 54 member states are abolitionist de facto – they haven’t carried out an execution of a prisoner for at least 10 years. Just 11 are fully retentionist, meaning that they sentence people to death and have carried out executions.</p>
<p>Advocates for the death penalty will often argue that it <a href="https://deathpenaltyproject.org/knowledge/kenya-part-one-a-public-ready-to-accept-abolition/">deters potential offenders</a> from committing serious crime – even when a country has not executed anyone for years. </p>
<p>But our <a href="https://deathpenaltyproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Living-with-a-Death-Sentence-in-Kenya-Prisoners-Experiences-of-Crime-Punishment-and-Death-Row.pdf">recent research</a>, Living with a Death Sentence in Kenya: Prisoners’ Experiences of Crime, Punishment and Death Row, suggests this isn’t true. </p>
<p>We spoke to 671 inmates who had been sentenced to death in Kenya. Just over a quarter had had their sentences commuted to life. Most said they had no idea that their crimes might attract a death sentence. </p>
<p>Our findings support research done in other countries: that the threat of being sentenced to death appears to have little bearing on how people behave. They also support the argument that abolishing the death penalty wouldn’t lead to a spike in violent crime in Kenya.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-has-kenya-not-abolished-the-death-penalty-habit-and-inertia-189955">Why has Kenya not abolished the death penalty? Habit and inertia</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p><a href="https://deathpenaltyproject.org/knowledge/deterrence-policy-position-paper/">According to deterrence theorists</a>, potential offenders will be deterred by the death penalty because they make rational choices about whether to offend. They use knowledge about the relevant laws and punishments, and then weigh up the costs and benefits of offending. They will be deterred if they think it’s likely they will be caught and convicted, and that the possible punishment outweighs the rewards.</p>
<p>Our study found that in most cases, these preconditions for being deterred from committing capital crimes were not met.</p>
<h2>The research</h2>
<p>We studied the experiences of prisoners serving death sentences in Kenya. The work was done through the Death Penalty Project, working with Oxford University’s <a href="https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/death-penalty-research-unit">Death Penalty Research Unit</a>. Our colleagues at the <a href="https://www.knchr.org/">Kenya National Commission on Human Rights</a> carried out interviews with 671 prisoners (33 were women) sentenced to death for murder (44% of the total) and robbery with violence (56%). </p>
<p>Most of the prisoners were poorly educated. Participants mainly used local languages. They might not have been able to understand information distributed in Kenya’s national languages: English and Swahili. This may explain why most didn’t know that the death penalty was the likely punishment for their offence. Our study found that just 1% of our sample said they knew the death penalty was a punishment available for their offence in law. </p>
<p>In addition, only 4% of those convicted of robbery and 8% of those convicted of murder said they had thought about the possibility of being sentenced to death. However, 48% of murderers and 69% of robbers said they had contemplated being sent to prison before committing the crime.</p>
<p>The study also challenged the claim that offenders make rational choices about whether to offend, at least in cases of homicide. For example, the most common reasons given by participants for committing murder were anger (27%), provocation (23%), self-defence (17%) and extreme emotional situations (13%). </p>
<p>Less than a third of participants said knowledge of the law and possible punishments had affected their behaviour at all. Overall, few prisoners who committed crimes that resulted in a sentence of death had, at the time of the offence, considered this potential outcome.</p>
<h2>Shifts across Africa</h2>
<p>In 2022, three sub-Saharan countries abolished the death penalty: the <a href="https://worldcoalition.org/2022/06/26/central-african-republic-abolishes-the-death-penalty/">Central African Republic</a> in June, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/sep/19/equatorial-guinea-abolishes-death-penalty-state-television-reports">Equatorial Guinea</a> in September and <a href="https://www.lusakatimes.com/2022/12/24/hh-announces-the-abolition-of-the-death-penalty-and-defamation-of-the-president-crime/">Zambia</a> in December. </p>
<p>In Zambia in 2016, Cornelius Mweetwa – a former lawyer and police officer who is now minister for the country’s Southern Province – <a href="https://www.parliament.gov.zm/node/5137">argued that deterrence did not “work”</a>. </p>
<p>He noted three assumptions that deterrence theorists use: that people know the penalties for crimes; that they can control their actions; and that people make decisions to commit a crime based on logic not passion.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>However, the three assumptions usually are not true. Therefore … people still commit these crimes. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Mweetwa made another argument that also came through in our research. That the harsh, socially deprived death row regime, coupled with condemned prisoners’ “<a href="https://www.parliament.gov.zm/node/5137">constant awareness of their impending execution</a>” meant they were being subjected to cruel and inhuman punishment as defined by the <a href="https://legal.un.org/avl/ha/catcidtp/catcidtp.html">UN Convention Against Torture</a>.</p>
<p>While there may be some differences between Zambia and Kenya, most countries in the region will have similar levels of relative deprivation, both material and educational. Therefore, the rationales applied in Zambia leading to abolition would equally apply to Kenya.</p>
<h2>Next steps</h2>
<p>Kenya has been equivocal on its position on the death penalty. While various attempts have been made to move towards abolition, and mass commutations have taken hundreds of prisoners off death row, the country continues to sentence people to death. </p>
<p><a href="https://deathpenaltyproject.org/knowledge/kenya-part-one-a-public-ready-to-accept-abolition/">Our report</a> reflects on the histories, decision-making and prison experiences of those subject to the death penalty in Kenya. It provides an opportunity to better understand the lives fractured by this system. </p>
<p>And our findings are clear: abolition of the death penalty in Kenya won’t lead to a rise in violent crime. The country should, therefore, take the <a href="https://deathpenaltyproject.org/knowledge/kenya-part-one-a-public-ready-to-accept-abolition/">obvious step forward</a> and abolish the death penalty in law.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/197701/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Carolyn Hoyle receives funding from the UK Economic and Social Research Council. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Parvais Jabbar receives funding from the European Union and the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office.</span></em></p>Research finds that the threat of being sentenced to death has no bearing on how people contemplate violent crime.Carolyn Hoyle, Director of the University of Oxford Death Penalty Research Unit, Centre for Criminology, Faculty of Law, University of OxfordParvais Jabbar, Co-Founder and Co-Executive Director of the Death Penalty Project, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1953812022-11-30T13:43:40Z2022-11-30T13:43:40ZCOVID deepened inequalities in HIV treatment: what we learnt in Nigeria<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/498217/original/file-20221130-12-u3ona4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/closeup-woman-hand-holding-red-ribbon-hiv-world-royalty-free-image/1219095637?phrase=HIV%2FAIDS%20in%20Nigeria&adppopup=true">Suriyawut Suriya/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The 2022 World AIDS Day theme is <a href="https://www.who.int/europe/news-room/events/item/2022/12/01/default-calendar/world-aids-day-2022--equalize#:%7E:text=On%201%20December%20WHO%20joins,under%20the%20theme%20%E2%80%9CEqualize%E2%80%9D.">Equalize</a>. The reason for this focus is that HIV reflects economic and social inequity. People with low socio-economic status <a href="https://www.apa.org/pi/ses/resources/publications/hiv-aids#:%7E:text=A%20lack%20of%20socioeconomic%20resources,et%20al.%2C%202013">are worst affected</a> by the epidemic. Also, the worst impacts of <a href="https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_protect/---protrav/---ilo_aids/documents/publication/wcms_120468.pdf">the HIV epidemic are found</a> in the least developed countries and the most impoverished neighbourhoods. </p>
<p><a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/01/1110192">In West Africa</a>, the proportion of people living on less than $1.90 a day jumped from 2.3% in 2020 to 2.9% in 2021 and more than 25 million across the region are struggling to meet their basic food needs. </p>
<p>Nigeria has the <a href="https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-022-12865-y#:%7E:text=Nigeria%2C%20the%20most%20populous%20country,burden%20%5B9%2C%2010%5D.">third highest burden</a> of HIV in the world. <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/1127055/people-living-with-hiv-receiving-treatment-in-nigeria/#:%7E:text=As%20of%202021%2C%201.9%20million,growing%20in%20the%20past%20years.">As of 2021</a>, 1.9 million people in Nigeria were infected with HIV. About 90% of them were receiving antiretroviral therapy. </p>
<p>The country seems to be moving successfully towards <a href="https://www.pedaids.org/2014/11/20/unaids-issues-new-fast-track-strategy-to-end-aids-by-2030/">the 95-95-95 target for ending AIDS by 2030</a>. This means 95% of people living with HIV knowing their HIV status; 95% of people who know their status on treatment; and 95% of people on treatment with suppressed viral loads. The target was launched by UNAIDS in November 2014. </p>
<p>But COVID-19 has threatened the progress that’s been made so far.</p>
<p>We explored this in two studies. <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35901294/">One was about</a> access to health services in Nigeria for women and girls living with HIV during the pandemic. It sought to know how easily they could access HIV, tuberculosis, sexual and reproductive health services. <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36189755/">The second</a> was about food insecurity, financial vulnerability and housing insecurity among women and girls living with – or at risk of – HIV in Nigeria. It set out to assess the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on those likely to be worst affected by the multiple epidemics: vulnerable and stigmatised women. </p>
<p>Both pieces of research show that the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted access to essential health services. </p>
<h2>Poor access to HIV services during COVID-19</h2>
<p>For the first research, we recruited 2,076 adolescent girls and women living with HIV in different parts of Nigeria. We then assessed their ease of access to HIV, tuberculosis, sexual and reproductive health services during the pandemic. </p>
<p>We found that over 6 in 10 women and girls living with HIV had limited access to HIV services during the COVID-19 pandemic. Almost 2 in 10 had limited access to TB services. And almost 4 in 10 had limited access to sexual and reproductive health services.</p>
<p>Our study showed that because of the closure of HIV services and sexual and reproductive health service points during the pandemic, pre-existing financial and non-financial barriers to accessing services increased significantly. Having no money, having to pay additional unofficial fees and the lack of security on the road to the health facility were the barriers with the greatest impact on access to health services. </p>
<p>Transgender women, women who engaged in sex work and women who injected or used illegal drugs were severely affected. </p>
<p>Our findings suggest that some vulnerable populations may have fallen through the cracks despite efforts to improve access to HIV services during the pandemic in Nigeria. </p>
<h2>COVID increases vulnerability of people living with HIV</h2>
<p>Our second <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36189755/">study</a> sought to assess how the pandemic had further created differential food, financial and housing insecurity among vulnerable and stigmatised women in Nigeria. </p>
<p>Women and girls with disability, transgender women, sex workers, persons engaged in transactional sex, substance users and people on the move are all vulnerable. We found that a significantly high proportion of the study population had to deal with food insecurity (76.1%), financial vulnerability (83.6%) and housing insecurity (36.2%). Some women were particularly badly affected by the pandemic: women and girls who transacted sex were more than four times as likely to face housing insecurity and more than twice as likely to face food insecurity and financial vulnerability compared with other vulnerable women and girls who did not transact sex. </p>
<p>This suggests the need to monitor and plan better to avert negative impacts and increased HIV infection.</p>
<h2>The way out</h2>
<p>The results of both studies suggest that people who are affected by inequity may be the worst affected by pandemics like COVID-19. Emergency preparedness needs to happen well ahead of emergencies. It should include mapping out which populations are most likely to need care. </p>
<p>For Nigeria, it’s critical to plan ahead so that people living with HIV – as well as others – can get essential life-saving services. The combined effect of the disruption of access to HIV services and other essential services may have had an overall negative impact on the HIV response in Nigeria. </p>
<p>Emergency preparedness efforts include improving the access of vulnerable women and girls to essential service access. This can be done through active engagement of civil society organisations working with the target populations worst affected by the pandemic. Also, HIV programming in Nigeria needs to include housing, economic and financial insecurity mitigation measures for women and girls living with HIV.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/195381/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Morenike Oluwatoyin Folayan received funding from the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) for this research. </span></em></p>Some vulnerable populations may have fallen through the cracks despite efforts to improve access to HIV services during the pandemic in Nigeria.Morenike Oluwatoyin Folayan, Professor of Paediatric Dentistry, Obafemi Awolowo UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1940992022-11-24T18:46:21Z2022-11-24T18:46:21ZWorking prisoners are entitled to employment and safety standards just like anybody else<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495728/original/file-20221116-12-6oaixy.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3000%2C1985&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A view of the Collins Bay Institution in Kingston, Ont. Prisoner work is meant to aid in rehabilitation, not provide private businesses with cheap labour.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN/Lars Hagberg</span></span></figcaption></figure><iframe style="width: 100%; height: 100px; border: none; position: relative; z-index: 1;" allowtransparency="" allow="clipboard-read; clipboard-write" src="https://narrations.ad-auris.com/widget/the-conversation-canada/working-prisoners-are-entitled-to-employment-and-safety-standards-just-like-anybody-else" width="100%" height="400"></iframe>
<p>The Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) recently <a href="https://www.thewhig.com/news/local-news/abattoir-at-joyceville-institution-now-closed">ended its longstanding relationship</a> with the meatpacking company, Wallace Beef. </p>
<p>This means that federal prisoners incarcerated in the Joyceville Institution near Kingston will no longer provide slaughterhouse labour for the private firm. </p>
<p>The announcement comes after years of campaigning by animal rights and prison farm activists. Groups like <a href="https://www.thewhig.com/news/local-news/prison-farm-group-critical-of-joyceville-institution-abattoir">Evolve Our Prison Farms have long criticized the Joyceville abattoir operation</a> as cruel to animals and exploitative of prisoners. They also <a href="https://evolveourprisonfarms.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Bloody-Bad-Business-Report-on-the-Joyceville-Institution-Abattoir-2022.pdf">raised a number of concerns</a> about the operation’s lax oversight and poor environmental practices. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1577729472975048732"}"></div></p>
<p>CSC has yet to announce if it will seek a new contractor, but regardless of what happens to the abattoir at Joyceville, it is long past the time for Canada to reconsider its approach to prison labour. </p>
<p>As Halifax lawyer Asaf Rashid and I argue in our new book, <em><a href="https://fernwoodpublishing.ca/book/solidarity-beyond-bars">Solidarity Beyond Bars: Unionizing Prison Labour</a></em>, there is no good legal or moral argument for denying prisoners their rights as workers.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1541488904662032384"}"></div></p>
<h2>Work as rehabilitation</h2>
<p>According to the law and to correctional policy, prisoners in Canada work as part of their rehabilitation, not as punishment. This labour takes two main forms. </p>
<p>The first is institutional maintenance — prisoners perform much of the cooking, cleaning, clerical and other work necessary for the day-to-day functioning of the prisons in which they are incarcerated. Some also work in prison industries, designed to give prisoners “work-like” experience. </p>
<p>Federal prison industries are operated by <a href="https://www.csc-scc.gc.ca/corcan/002005-index-en.shtml">CORCAN</a>, a special operating agency of the Correctional Service of Canada. Among other activities, <a href="https://www.csc-scc.gc.ca/corcan/002005-0001-eng.shtml">prisoners working for CORCAN produce office furniture and textiles, run construction, printing and laundry services</a> and work on Canada’s <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/prison-farms-comeback-ontario-1.5247129">few remaining prison farms</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-correctional-service-of-canadas-goat-plans-wont-help-inmates-153183">The Correctional Service of Canada's goat plans won't help inmates</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>The problems with prison labour in this country are well known by the government. The Office of the Correctional Investigator (OCI), Canada’s federal prison watchdog, <a href="https://www.oci-bec.gc.ca/cnt/rpt/annrpt/annrpt20122013-eng.aspx">routinely</a> <a href="https://www.oci-bec.gc.ca/cnt/rpt/annrpt/annrpt20172018-eng.aspx">admonishes</a> CSC’s employment programming. In the most recent report, Correctional Investigator Ivan Zinger <a href="https://www.oci-bec.gc.ca/cnt/rpt/annrpt/annrpt20212022-eng.aspx">highlighted employment and pay discrimination against Black prisoners</a> in particular.</p>
<p>The year before, Zinger honed in on CORCAN’s inadequate programming for women, <a href="https://www.oci-bec.gc.ca/cnt/rpt/annrpt/annrpt20202021-eng.aspx">noting that</a> “jobs for women are often grounded in gendered roles and expectations, offering few marketable skills.”</p>
<p>The OCI’s 2019-2020 report <a href="https://www.oci-bec.gc.ca/cnt/rpt/annrpt/annrpt20192020-eng.aspx">starkly states</a>: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Few CORCAN-run industries provide training or teach skills that are job-relevant or meet labour market demands. The service has continued to maintain obsolete infrastructure and technological platforms for such an extended period of time that these problems now appear insoluble.” </p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Wage clawbacks</h2>
<p>Pay is another significant issue. In 2013, Stephen Harper’s Conservative government implemented new room and board and other fees that amounted to a 30 per cent <a href="https://www.oci-bec.gc.ca/cnt/rpt/annrpt/annrpt20132014-eng.aspx">wage clawback</a> and eliminated incentive pay for CORCAN work. </p>
<p>In announcing the new fees, the government ignored the fact that pay scales for federal prisoners, implemented in 1981, already accounted for room and board deductions. The maximum pay for federal prisoners is $6.90 per day, minus mandatory fees. </p>
<p>According to the OCI, since these changes, the <a href="https://www.oci-bec.gc.ca/cnt/rpt/annrpt/annrpt20152016-eng.aspx#fn20-rf">average pay for prisoners working full time is around 30 cents an hour</a>. Meanwhile, the cost of living in prison has skyrocketed as more and more expenses — including the cost of basic hygiene items — have been downloaded onto prisoners.</p>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495735/original/file-20221116-25-7rafjp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A prison phone booth" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495735/original/file-20221116-25-7rafjp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/495735/original/file-20221116-25-7rafjp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495735/original/file-20221116-25-7rafjp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495735/original/file-20221116-25-7rafjp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495735/original/file-20221116-25-7rafjp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495735/original/file-20221116-25-7rafjp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/495735/original/file-20221116-25-7rafjp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Prison phone calls require prisoners to spend money.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Piqsels)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Money is also required for the letters and phone calls prisoners need to maintain community relationships, which are viewed favourably when parole boards make decisions. What’s more, scholars — and prisoners themselves — have warned that <a href="https://www.thestar.com/opinion/editorialopinion/2012/05/14/plan_to_cut_inmates_pay_will_accomplish_nothing.html">low pay hinders prisoners’ ability to successfully reintegrate post-release</a> (like avoiding committing crimes out of financial necessity), which ultimately reduces public safety.</p>
<p>Prison labour, like other work, <a href="https://www.canlii.org/en/ca/fct/doc/2008/2008fc1047/2008fc1047.html?searchUrlHash=AAAAAQAGQ09SQ0FOAAAAAAE&resultIndex=22">can also be dangerous</a> <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/contractor-in-fight-with-public-works-after-asbestos-exposure-1.1336575">and unhealthy</a>. </p>
<h2>No labour rights</h2>
<p>However, just as they are excluded from employment standards and labour laws, prisoners are generally excluded from health and safety laws designed to protect workers. </p>
<p>There is no public safety justification, let alone a moral one, for the exclusion of working prisoners from normal employment and health and safety protections. There’s no reason at all to curtail prisoners’ labour rights.</p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1297002764363497479"}"></div></p>
<p>A union for prisoners may seem far-fetched, but there is historical precedent. In 1977, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1353/llt.2018.0035">provincial prisoners working in a privately managed abattoir at Ontario’s Guelph Correctional Centre unionized</a>, winning full rights as workers. The union lasted nearly two decades before the operation was moved off the prison grounds as part of a corporate merger.</p>
<p>As the OCI and other critics have made clear, federal prison labour schemes are failing prisoners and the public. In looking to the future, CSC should seriously consider this success from the past. All workers deserve full rights and protections.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/194099/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jordan House does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>There is no good legal or moral argument for denying prisoners their rights as workers. Canada must overhaul how it deals with prison labour.Jordan House, Assistant Professor, Labour Studies, Brock UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1908672022-10-14T12:21:03Z2022-10-14T12:21:03ZWe talked to 100 people about their experiences in solitary confinement – this is what we learned<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489439/original/file-20221012-18-tkslmw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C5751%2C3837&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Living conditions in a solitary cell at New York's Rikers Island jail.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/Solitary-Confinement-New-York/73d3f8de299e4d2eabdc78d507b7f4b7/photo?Query=solitary%20confinement&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=386&currentItemNo=32">AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The United States <a href="https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2014.302205">leads the world</a> in its use of solitary confinement, locking away in isolation more of its population than any other country.</p>
<p>Every day, <a href="https://law.yale.edu/centers-workshops/arthur-liman-center-public-interest-law/liman-center-publications/time-cell-2021">up to 48,000</a> inmates – or around 4% of the incarcerated population – are locked in some form of solitary confinement in detention centers, jails and prisons across the U.S.</p>
<p>Some spend months – or even years – at a time in isolation, only being allowed out a few times a week for a 10-minute shower or a short exercise period in an outdoor dog run. And it doesn’t only affect prisoners. Up to <a href="https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes333012.htm#nat">20,000 other people</a> are affected as well – working as correctional staff or providing mental health services or other programming.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="The black cover of a book with 'Way Down in the Hole' written on it." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489440/original/file-20221012-11-olheqr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489440/original/file-20221012-11-olheqr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489440/original/file-20221012-11-olheqr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489440/original/file-20221012-11-olheqr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=902&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489440/original/file-20221012-11-olheqr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1134&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489440/original/file-20221012-11-olheqr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1134&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489440/original/file-20221012-11-olheqr.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1134&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Interviews with guards and prisoners in solitary are collected in the book ‘Way Down in the Hole’</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://smithandhattery.com/books/">Cover image by James D. Fuson</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Over three summers, we interviewed people who were confined or employed in solitary confinement units to better understand what it is like from both sides of the bars. The interviews form the basis of “<a href="https://smithandhattery.com/">Way Down in the Hole</a>,” a book published on Oct. 14, 2022.</p>
<p>In the course of our research, we spent hundreds of hours in solitary confinement units in facilities in a mid-Atlantic Rust Belt state. We conducted in-depth interviews with 75 prisoners and 25 staff members – including both civilian staff and prison officers.</p>
<p>This is what we learned from the interviews. Names have been changed to protect identities.</p>
<h2>Solitary confinement is dehumanizing</h2>
<p>Everyone we interviewed, both prisoners and officers alike, told us that solitary confinement is like being locked away out of sight, out of mind, and that the consequences on their physical and mental health were significant, and often stripped away their humanity.</p>
<p>Locked in a cell about the size of a mall parking space, prisoners are confined 23 hours a day with virtually no human interaction other than to be subjected to strip searches and have their hands cuffed and their feet shackled. They eat, sleep, meditate, study and exercise just inches away from where they defecate.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Blue pained doors with numbers in white paint on them are seen along a barren prison corridor." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489614/original/file-20221013-24-k39g8i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/489614/original/file-20221013-24-k39g8i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489614/original/file-20221013-24-k39g8i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489614/original/file-20221013-24-k39g8i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489614/original/file-20221013-24-k39g8i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489614/original/file-20221013-24-k39g8i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/489614/original/file-20221013-24-k39g8i.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Numbered doors in a solitary wing at New York’s Rikers Island.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/TransgenderInmateDeath/93adebf09e954202a52a3aa17f9e9032/photo?Query=solitary%20confinement&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=386&currentItemNo=46">AP Photo/Seth Wenig</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One prisoner, an avid reader we will call Scholar, spoke to us nine months into his stay in solitary confinement. “All human privileges are gone; they treat you like a dog. They bring you food, they throw it to you, you shower in a cage, you exercise in a cage. Just because I’m wearing orange [the color of the jumpsuit for incarcerated people confined in solitary] doesn’t mean I’m not human.”</p>
<p>His experience isn’t an isolated one. Marina, who has been confined in solitary for more than a decade, remarked: “I’m treated like I’m in a zoo … I’m being treated like an animal. I feel lost and forgotten.”</p>
<p>Correctional officer Travis, who has worked in solitary confinement for 12 years, expresses a similar sentiment. “You don’t realize how stressful it is inside the walls,” he said. “You feel like an inmate. Inmates are running institutions and you have to do things to take care of them, and no one is taking care of us.” </p>
<h2>Solitary confinement breeds racial resentment</h2>
<p>Prisons are disproportionately filled with Black and Hispanic people, and solitary confinement is even more intensely racialized. </p>
<p>Black men comprise <a href="https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/US/PST045221">around 13% of the male population</a>, yet make up <a href="https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_race.jsp">nearly 40% of the incarcerated population</a> and <a href="https://law.yale.edu/centers-workshops/arthur-liman-center-public-interest-law/liman-center-publications/time-cell-2021">45% of those locked in solitary confinement</a>.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, in many states, including where we conducted our research, most prisons are <a href="https://www.prisonpolicy.org/racialgeography/incarcerated_in_disproportionately_white_counties.html">built in rural communities that are overwhelmingly white</a>. As a result, many corrections staff members – who tend to be drawn from the local population – are white. In hundreds of hours of observation in seven different prisons, we did not see more than a handful of corrections staff who were nonwhite. Yet the majority of people we saw in solitary confinement and whom we interviewed were Black or Hispanic. </p>
<p>In our conversations, guards certainly spoke to the resentment they felt toward prisoners in general and those in solitary in particular.</p>
<p>From their perspective, prisoners have better living conditions than the victims of their crime or the people who staff prisons.</p>
<p>“Inmates get TVs, tablets, kiosks, email; victims get nothing. They don’t get their family member back,” corrections officer Bunker said. “I lived in a bunker in Iraq for a year, and these guys have a better commode … not made of wood that they don’t have to burn.” </p>
<p>Because prisoners in solitary are <a href="https://law.yale.edu/centers-workshops/arthur-liman-center-public-interest-law/liman-center-publications/time-cell-2021">locked up 23 hours a day</a>, every daily need must be met by an officer. Officers hand deliver and pick up meal trays three times a day. Toilet paper is dispensed twice a week. Prisoners must be escorted to showers and the yard and even to therapy sessions. And before each and every movement out of cell, they must be strip searched, handcuffed and shackled. We watched officers do this for hundreds of hours, and it’s exhausting for the guards. Under these circumstances – and given the <a href="https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes333012.htm#nat">relatively low pay guards receive</a> – it is easy to see how resentment builds up.</p>
<p>An officer we call Porter said: “I have an elderly family member who had to give up their house to get a medical procedure, and the inmates get the best medical care for US$5. I knew a guy on death row that got chemo. Imagine that … paying to keep a guy alive just to kill him!”</p>
<p>And, because staff members are almost all white and the prisoners are disproportionately Black, this resentment becomes racialized. Scholar told us the prison he is incarcerated in is “one of the most racist prisons. [The guards] have no problem calling us ‘n*****.’”</p>
<h2>And yet, some prisoners choose solitary</h2>
<p>Despite the dehumanizing conditions of solitary confinement and the resentment it breeds, we met many prisoners who actively sought out solitary – and staff members who opted to guard those prisoners.</p>
<p>Many corrections staff preferred to work in solitary confinement units for a variety of reasons. Some preferred the pace of the work; some lived for the adrenaline rush of a cell extraction. Others told us that compared to other jobs available in their community, working in solitary was more interesting.</p>
<p>An officer we call Bezos who worked at an Amazon fulfillment center before starting at the prison summed it up: “I could warehouse boxes or warehouse people; people are more interesting.”</p>
<p>Perhaps more surprising, many prisoners also told us they chose solitary. </p>
<p>Some requested solitary confinement for their own safety, to avoid gang violence or the threat of sexual assault by other prisoners or retaliation for debts they owed on the inside or on the outside. Those placed in “administrative custody” – that is, they are placed in solitary not for punishment but for safety – said they experienced fewer restrictions than those who were sent to solitary confinement as punishment.</p>
<p>But many prisoners we interviewed deliberately committed misconducts, such as refusing a guard’s order, as a way of deliberately getting sent to solitary confinement by way of punishment. It was seen by some as a way to control one aspect of their lives. </p>
<p>Others endured the dehumanization of solitary confinement simply to be moved from one housing unit to another or to another prison all together. They did this to be closer to home – which would allow their families more opportunities to visit – or to a prison that had more programming, such as education classes or treatment.</p>
<p>A prisoner we call Fifty committed a misconduct that he knew would get him sentenced to the supermax facility in the state, despite it being known as one of the most racist prisons in the system and one of the hardest places to do time. </p>
<p>The reason, as Fifty explained, was that it kept him isolated from the man who killed his brother. Fifty worried that if tempted, he might kill the man and spend the rest of his life in prison. </p>
<p>The move was successful. Fifty was paroled just a few months after we met him, directly from solitary confinement to the streets of a major U.S. city. </p>
<h2>A system in which no one wins</h2>
<p>The picture that emerges from the interviews is one of a system that doesn’t serve the prison population or those employed to guard them.</p>
<p>People who spend time in solitary confinement are more likely to die <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2752350">sooner after their release</a> – as are <a href="https://pdf4pro.com/view/florida-mortality-study-florida-state-fop-1ca76b.html">officers</a>, who also have one of the highest <a href="http://policepsychologyblog.com/?p=4245">rates of divorce</a>. There is also no evidence that confinement acts as a deterrent or is in any way rehabilitative. </p>
<p>Any amount of time in solitary confinement can cause declines in mental health. Many people <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9125.12241">placed in solitary confinement find they end up back in prison</a> after they are released because they are unable to function or because they haven’t learned tools that help them stay out of trouble. </p>
<p>And, because of the prisoner to staff ratios and individual cells, the cost of holding someone in solitary confinement is <a href="https://scholars.org/brief/root-americas-over-use-solitary-confinements-prison-and-how-reform-can-happen#:%7E:text=Solitary%20confinement%20is%20not%20only,cost%20of%20public%20university%20tuition">around three times that</a> of the general prison population. </p>
<p>From our interviews, the overarching takeaway is it is a system in which no one wins and everyone loses.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/190867/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Every day, tens of thousands of American prisoners are locked up in solitary confinement. This is how that looks for those behind bars, and those guarding them.Angela Hattery, Professor of Women & Gender Studies/Co-Director, Center for the Study & Prevention of Gender-Based Violence, University of DelawareEarl Smith, Professor of Women and Gender Studies, University of DelawareLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1910832022-09-23T02:38:28Z2022-09-23T02:38:28Z‘No body, no parole’ laws could be disastrous for the wrongfully convicted<p>The New South Wales government is set to <a href="https://www.nsw.gov.au/media-releases/nsw-to-introduce-no-body-no-parole-laws">introduce</a> new “no body, no parole” laws, which will deny parole for homicide offenders who refuse to provide information or assistance to locate their victim’s remains.</p>
<p>This follows Chris Dawson’s murder conviction of Lynette Dawson, whose remains have yet to be found. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1571977464272031744"}"></div></p>
<p>Such laws offer prisoners an incentive to give up information about the location of their victims’ remains. Similar laws have already been introduced in Northern Territory, Queensland, South Australia, Victoria and Western Australia.</p>
<p>In general, “no body, no parole” laws mandate that parole authorities should deny parole unless they are satisfied about the level of cooperation provided by the prisoner to identify remains, including how early the information was provided.</p>
<p>These laws are designed to provide closure to friends and families of homicide victims, allowing them to bury their loved ones. However, there’s scant evidence they are effective. And they could prove disastrous for people in Australian prisons who have been wrongfully convicted.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/true-crime-entertainment-like-the-teachers-pet-can-shine-a-light-on-cold-cases-but-does-it-help-or-hinder-justice-being-served-189787">True crime entertainment like The Teacher's Pet can shine a light on cold cases - but does it help or hinder justice being served?</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>What is parole and why is it important?</h2>
<p>Parole is the conditional early release of prisoners, allowing them to serve a part of their sentence in the community. </p>
<p>When given a prison sentence, a judge will determine how long an offender must remain in custody (a non-parole period) and at what point they can become eligible to serve the rest of their sentence in the community.</p>
<p>Parole recognises that aims of rehabilitation may be best served by providing opportunities for prisoners to transition back into the community. The courts decide whether a person is eligible for parole, but state parole authorities decide whether or not to release them when the time comes. </p>
<p>Evidence suggests offenders who complete some period of parole before the end of their sentence are <a href="https://www.aic.gov.au/sites/default/files/2020-05/tandi485.pdf">less likely to re-offend</a>.</p>
<p>While completing their sentence in the community, parolees also must comply with parole conditions. This can include reporting conditions and mandatory behavioural programs that <a href="https://www.bocsar.nsw.gov.au/Pages/bocsar_publication/Pub_Summary/CJB/CJB245-Summary-The-effect-of-parole-supervision-on-recidivism.aspx">reduce the risk of re-offending</a>.</p>
<p>Tightening parole exacerbates the issue of <a href="https://www.pc.gov.au/research/completed/prison-dilemm">overcrowded prisons</a>
with offenders capable of being managed in the community being housed at the public expense in correctional facilities. </p>
<p>There is considerable concern in Australia over prisoners “maxing out” their custodial sentence, either by choosing <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-09-09/victoria-parole-laws-backfiring-more-prisoners-max-out-sentence/7826940">not to apply for parole</a> to avoid conditions upon release, or because of restrictions on parole eligibility such as “no body, no parole” laws.</p>
<h2>The effectiveness of ‘no body’ laws</h2>
<p>We recently <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/26338076221087458">looked into</a> the effectiveness of Queensland’s “no body, no parole” laws, which were passed in 2017. </p>
<p>As our work with RMIT University’s <a href="http://www.bohii.net/">Bridge of Hope Innocence Initiative</a> often involves working with people serving terms of imprisonment while claiming their innocence, evaluating the effectiveness of such laws and their risk for the wrongfully convicted is of considerable interest.</p>
<p>Most Australian jurisdictions don’t publish their parole decisions. However Queensland <a href="https://www.pbq.qld.gov.au/no-body-no-parole/decisions-of-the-board/">does</a> – specifically for “no body” law outcomes. </p>
<p>Our analysis showed that of the ten cases that came before the parole board during our collection period, six involved cooperation by the applicant but none resulted in remains being found.</p>
<p>The Queensland case of Graeme Evans, who was convicted of manslaughter over the death of his former partner Leeann Lapham in 2018, has been <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-09-21/convicted-murderer-sue-neill-fraser-no-body-no-parole-laws/101457110">cited in the media</a> as an example of “no body” laws working effectively.</p>
<p>However, Evans pleaded guilty to the offence and was not eligible for parole at the time when he helped investigators find Lapham’s remains. </p>
<p>This example is only related to “no body” laws because the detective in charge of the case has claimed he used the threat of those laws to convince Evans to cooperate.</p>
<p>We believe “no body” laws lack evidence to support their use and may offer false hope to victims’ families if remains cannot be found. They rely on many assumptions about how crimes occur, how offenders may cooperate, and effective policing investigations post-disclosure.</p>
<p>They may also prove disastrous for the wrongfully convicted.</p>
<h2>What about the wrongfully convicted?</h2>
<p>We have no idea how many people have been wrongfully convicted in Australia. An estimate based on research from the United States indicates <a href="https://www.unswlawjournal.unsw.edu.au/article/wrongful-convictions-appeals-and-the-finality-principle-the-need-for-a-criminal-cases-review-commission">up to 3%</a> of all convictions may be wrongful. But the reality is we have no way of finding out. </p>
<p>A person can be found guilty of a crime they didn’t commit for <a href="https://innocenceproject.org/causes-wrongful-conviction./#:%7E:text=Contributing%20causes%20confirmed%20through%20Innocence,government%20misconduct%20and%20bad%20lawyering.">a variety of reasons</a>, including eyewitness misidentification, improper forensic evidence, coerced or otherwise false confessions, or police misconduct.</p>
<p>Wrongful convictions remain a persistent risk within our criminal justice system, even when high standards of procedural justice are upheld. </p>
<p>Wrongfully convicted prisoners face what is referred to as “<a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=960125">the innocent prisoner’s dilemma</a>” when they become eligible for parole. If they maintain their innocence and refuse to admit responsibility or express remorse, they may be denied parole. If they do accept responsibility for a crime they did not commit, they may limit options in the future of having their conviction overturned. </p>
<p>“No body” laws add a further complication for the wrongfully convicted. The factually innocent are clearly unable to provide information to authorities about the location of the victim as they did not commit the crime and would not know where the body is. </p>
<p>A well known example is Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton, who was wrongfully convicted in 1982 for murdering her daughter Azaria. </p>
<p>Chamberlain was demonised publicly for not admitting guilt and for not leading investigators to Azaria’s body. A 2012 inquest later found Azaria was <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/dingo-took-azaria-chamberlain-coroner-finds-20120612-206wt.html">killed by a dingo</a>. </p>
<p>“No body” laws may at first appear to be acting in the public interest in ensuring families can bury their loved ones. But the lack of evidence of real outcomes and the very real risk it may disproportionately penalise the wrongfully convicted should give us pause before expanding this policy further.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/191083/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jarryd Bartle works for RMIT University's Bridge of Hope Innocence Initiative which examines cases of wrongful conviction that may be subject to no body, no parole laws.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Greg Stratton works for RMIT University's Bridge of Hope Innocence Initiative which examines cases of wrongful conviction that may be subject to no body, no parole laws.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michele Ruyters works for RMIT University's Bridge of Hope Innocence Initiative which examines cases of wrongful conviction that may be subject to no body, no parole laws.
</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Monique Moffa works for RMIT University's Bridge of Hope Innocence Initiative which examines cases of wrongful conviction that may be subject to no body, no parole laws.</span></em></p>‘No body, no parole’ laws may at first appear to be in the public interest. But there’s a lack of evidence they work and a risk they may disproportionately penalise the wrongfully convicted.Jarryd Bartle, Associate Lecturer, RMIT UniversityGreg Stratton, Lecturer - Criminology and Justice Studies, RMIT UniversityMichele Ruyters, Associate Dean, Criminology and Justice Studies, RMIT UniversityMonique Moffa, Associate Lecturer, Criminology & Justice, RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1869352022-07-25T13:53:48Z2022-07-25T13:53:48ZNigeria’s jailbreaks point to a prison system out of step with reality<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/475866/original/file-20220725-16-ryjkx6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Smoke from the Ikoyi prison that was set on fire in central Lagos on October 22, 2020. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Photo by Sophie Bouillon/AFP via Getty Images</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>On the night of 5 July 2022, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-07-06/jihadis-attack-jail-in-nigeria-s-capital-600-inmates-escape">879 inmates escaped from the Kuje correctional facility</a> in Abuja, Nigeria after an attack by suspected Boko Haram terrorists. Prior to this, the largest jailbreak <a href="https://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/headlines/453335-how-gunmen-attacked-owerri-prison-freed-1844-inmates-official.html">was on 5 April 2021</a> when gunmen attacked Owerri correctional centre, Imo State and freed 1,844 inmates. There have been <a href="https://www.thecable.ng/timeline-14-times-jailbreak-happened-under-buharis-watch">14 jailbreaks</a> since President Muhammadu Buhari assumed office in May 2015. The Conversation Africa asked sociologists Lanre Ikuteyijo and James Olabisi Ayodele how Nigeria can better secure its correctional facilities.</em> </p>
<h2>What do you think is responsible for the jailbreaks?</h2>
<p>Nigeria’s criminal justice system inadvertently facilitates jailbreaks because of under-funding, shortage of personnel, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23311886.2021.1956035#:%7E:text=Abstract,-Abstract&text=In%20recent%20years%2C%20one%20of,the%20health%20of%20the%20inmates.">overcrowding</a>, use of antiquated techniques and other challenges. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.cambridgescholars.com/resources/pdfs/978-1-4438-0198-0-sample.pdf">In our research</a>, we have advocated for changes to the thinking behind the prison system. First with a change of name from prisons to correctional facilities. This will emphasise rehabilitation and reform as against retribution, which the former system rested on. Then the system needs rehabilitative programmes, recreational and vocational training, and training and retraining of officers. Collaboration between educational, health and other security agencies is also required to bring about a change of philosophy.</p>
<p>Second, the re-categorisation of correctional facilities is long overdue, especially with the threats of terrorism, banditry and kidnappings.
This will ensure that criminals are kept in proportion to their threat to the society. We might have to build and equip facilities that can cater for different categories of inmates. The present arrangement allows recidivists and hardened inmates to be kept with minor and first time offenders. This is dangerous. </p>
<p>Inmates are classified in terms of their risks and the seriousness of the crimes they committed, based on <a href="https://www.unodc.org/documents/dohadeclaration/Prisons/HandBookPrisonerClassification/20-01921_Classification_of_Prisoners_Ebook.pdf">the United Nations’</a> system. Suspected and convicted terrorists are kept in medium security facilities. This is a huge mistake: all the jailbreaks in the past seven years have been from medium security facilities. </p>
<p>It costs society a lot of money to apprehend criminals and jail them. Attempts to break them free are undermining the criminal justice system and truncating inmates’ reformation process. This surely has consequences for rates of crime. </p>
<h2>What can we learn from the jailbreaks?</h2>
<p><a href="https://guardian.ng/saturday-magazine/cover/reforming-nigeria-prisons-beyond-name-change/">Prison congestion</a> is a major challenge to correctional facilities in Nigeria. Also, the over-reliance on imprisonment as a form of punishment in Nigeria is not helping matters. <a href="https://www.unodc.org/pdf/criminal_justice/Handbook_of_Basic_Principles_and_Promising_Practices_on_Alternatives_to_Imprisonment.pdf">Alternatives to imprisonment</a> include fines, probation, parole, community service, restitution and early release.</p>
<p>The justice system is inefficient. Currently, <a href="https://www.corrections.gov.ng/statistics_summary">71% of the 74,675 inmates</a> in Nigeria’s correctional centres are awaiting trial. This is very high by international standards, especially the <a href="https://www.penalreform.org/issues/prison-conditions/standard-minimum-rules/#:%7E:text=The%20Nelson%20Mandela%20Rules,-The%20122%20Rules&text=The%20Rules%20give%20guidance%20on,as%20well%20as%20disciplinary%20sanctions.">Mandela Rules</a>, which guide prison conditions globally.</p>
<p>Moreover, the nature of jailbreaks in recent years reflects the political economy of the country. They have been traced to activities of <a href="https://www.thecable.ng/prison-official-killed-minna-jail-break">terrorists</a>, insurgents and <a href="https://www.thecable.ng/breaking-ipob-behind-imo-prison-police-command-attack-says-igp/amp">secessionists</a>. Most of the incidents have been influenced by <a href="https://www.ijhumas.com/ojs/index.php/kiuhums/article/view/1400/1472">ideological</a>, religious and <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03056244.2022.2042800">political motives</a>.</p>
<p>The immediate implication is the need to dispense justice as quickly as possible and reduce the traffic in prisons. Alternatively, establish separate facilities to hold special categories of inmates who are a grave danger to the security of the country. The correctional facilities in Nigeria should reflect the dynamic climate of crime and criminality in the country.</p>
<p>Correctional facilities also contribute to the peace and tranquillity of any society because they keep the “trouble makers” out of circulation. They also endeavour to reform, rehabilitate and reintegrate offenders. </p>
<h2>How can Nigeria make its prisons more secure?</h2>
<p>They will be more secure when they are not overcrowded and neglected. <a href="https://www.nigeriarights.gov.ng/files/publications/PRISON-REPORT-min.pdf">For instance</a>, Makurdi medium security prison in Benue State, north central, built in 2002 with a capacity for 240, housed 866 in 2018. Kaduna Convict Prison, north west, built in 1915 with a capacity for 547, had 1,217 inmates in the same <a href="https://www.nigeriarights.gov.ng/files/publications/PRISON-REPORT-min.pdf">audit report</a>. Port Harcourt prison in the southern part, built in 1925, had a capacity for 804 but housed 3,827 in 2018. Most of the facilities are deteriorating and require face-lifts. </p>
<p>There is a need to invest more in modern technology in the facilities. Surveillance systems and alarm systems should be installed. The records of inmates should be biometric and stored in the cloud. This will serve as a disincentive and facilitate the recapture of any escapee. Inmates should be properly classified and placed in accordance to their level of risk and need for rehabilitation. </p>
<h2>What should be done to prevent further jailbreaks?</h2>
<p>First, reclassify correctional facilities. </p>
<p>Second, the correctional facilities must be properly funded, given their rising importance in the management of crime and criminality in the country. The allocation to Nigeria Correctional Service <a href="https://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/headlines/499264-analysis-why-jailbreaks-have-become-commonplace-in-nigeria.html">has increased steadily</a> under the Buhari administration. The impact, however, is yet to show as overcrowding persists. <a href="https://www.premiumtimesng.com/news/headlines/499264-analysis-why-jailbreaks-have-become-commonplace-in-nigeria.html">A total of N613 billion was allocated to the agency in 10 years</a> (2010-2019). N17 billion (about US$16.851 million) is spent every year to feed inmates in 244 correctional centres but inmates still live in a terrible environment. Currently <a href="https://www.corrections.gov.ng/">there are 74,191 inmates </a>in correctional centres across Nigeria. </p>
<p>Prison staff must also be trained and retrained in line with the latest trends of criminality. The first training school for prison staff <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/249716295_Prison_officer_training_and_practice_in_Nigeria_Contention_contradiction_and_re-imagining_reform_strategies">was established in Enugu</a>, south east Nigeria in 1947 and there are training courses after employment too. But there is room for improvement. Some non governmental organisations <a href="https://pmnewsnigeria.com/2021/05/25/pfn-begins-training-of-566-nigerian-correctional-service-officials/">are involved</a> in training prison staff too.</p>
<p>Prison managers should be equipped to deal with the most violent and extremist prisoners, as well as with incidents of violence in prisons. Efforts should be made to decongest the prisons and improve the living conditions of inmates. Lastly, staff of correctional facilities should be well motivated to enhance job commitment and improve performance.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/186935/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Jailbreaks in Nigeria point to the need to reform the justice system.Lanre Ikuteyijo, Senior lecturer, Obafemi Awolowo UniversityJames Olabisi Ayodele, Associate Professor, Obafemi Awolowo UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1848992022-06-13T18:16:22Z2022-06-13T18:16:22Z‘Show’ trial of foreign fighters in Donetsk breaks with international law – and could itself be a war crime<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/468519/original/file-20220613-14-76asy5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C53%2C6000%2C3601&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">British citizens Aiden Aslin and Shaun Pinner and Moroccan Saaudun Brahim.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/PicturesoftheWeek-Global-PhotoGallery/949e456f0ae84a16a334e03adfce24e0/photo?Query=Aiden%20Aslin&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=7&currentItemNo=0">AP Photo</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/09/world/europe/ukraine-army-death-sentence-russia.html">sentencing to death of three foreign fighters</a> captured by Russian troops and handed over to authorities in a breakaway region in Ukraine presents a serious deviation from international law – one that in itself represents a war crime.</p>
<p>Sentencing came on June 9, 2022, at the end of what has been <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jun/09/britons-sentenced-to-death-russian-occupied-ukraine-aiden-aslin-shaun-pinner">dismissed by observers in the West as a “show trial”</a> involving the three – two British citizens and a Moroccan national in Ukraine fighting alongside the country’s troops.</p>
<p>In many ways, proceedings like those the three were subjected to were inevitable. Indeed, in <a href="https://theconversation.com/war-crimes-trial-of-russian-soldier-was-perfectly-legal-but-that-doesnt-make-it-wise-183586">an earlier article</a> questioning the wisdom of Ukraine’s conducting its own war crimes trials of Russian prisoners of war during ongoing hostilities, I suggested that it might incentivize the Russians to do likewise. And now the Russians have responded in kind, but with a cynical twist I hadn’t then contemplated: outsourcing the dirty work.</p>
<p>Russia handed over the men captured while they were fighting in the besieged port city of Mariupol to a court of the <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-backed-donetsk-republic-will-consider-joining-russia-leader-2022-03-29/">self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic</a>, a part of Eastern Ukraine that Russia has effectively occupied since 2014.</p>
<p>As a <a href="https://www.wcl.american.edu/community/faculty/profile/goldman/bio">scholar of the law of war</a> – that is, the international legal protocols and conventions that set out the rules of what is allowed during conflicts – I know that this move does not insulate Moscow from culpability. By delivering the men to a nonstate authority, Russia committed a very serious violation of the <a href="https://www.icrc.org/en/war-and-law/treaties-customary-law/geneva-conventions">Geneva Conventions</a>, the set of treaties and additional protocols that establish accepted conduct in wars and the duties to protect civilians – and prisoners.</p>
<h2>Dodgy jurisdiction</h2>
<p>The conventions are clear on what is and is not acceptable when it comes to the treatment of captured combatants. <a href="https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/ihl/WebART/375-590016">Article 12 of the Third Convention</a> categorically states that the “detaining power” – in this case, Russia – can transfer a prisoner of war only to a another state that is a party to the convention.</p>
<p>And the Donetsk People’s Republic is not a party to the convention. The region was <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-europe-60470900">recognized by Russia as an independent state</a> only days before its invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022. More to the point, it has not been recognized by any other U.N. member state. Instead, it is regarded as a part of Ukraine. </p>
<p>As such, the Donetsk People’s Republic is quite simply a separatist region of Ukraine engaged in an <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/2/21/donetsk-and-lugansk-heres-what-we-know-about-rebel-jregions">ongoing rebellion against the government</a> in Kyiv since 2014. In that time, it has enjoyed the direct support of Russian forces.</p>
<p>But crucially, it does not qualify as a state under international law and is ineligible to be a party to the Third Geneva Convention. </p>
<h2>‘Mercenaries’ and ‘terrorists’?</h2>
<p>The three men sentenced to death were accused by prosecutors of <a href="https://finance.yahoo.com/news/no-pardon-britons-sentenced-death-140724309.html">trying to overthrow the separatist government</a> of the Donetsk People’s Republic.</p>
<p>But if these three soldiers committed war crimes, then they should have been tried by the courts of the detaining power. Russian President Vladimir Putin cannot simply wash his hands of responsibility for the trials and fate of these soldiers.</p>
<p>Having illegally transferred these soldiers to the rump courts of a breakaway Ukrainian region, Russia should have ensured that they were tried fairly. As a detaining power, it was compelled to do so not only by the <a href="https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/documents/atrocity-crimes/Doc.32_GC-III-EN.pdf">Third Geneva Convention</a> and an <a href="https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/ihl/INTRO/470">additional protocol agreed to in 1977</a>but also under the <a href="https://www.echr.coe.int/documents/convention_eng.pdf">European Convention on Human Rights</a> and the <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/international-covenant-civil-and-political-rights">International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights</a>, both of which apply in the Russian-occupied Donetsk region.</p>
<p>But Russia has failed to protect its prisoners from an unfair prosecution.</p>
<p>Parroting <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/18/world/europe/russia-ukraine-captives.html">statements from the Kremlin</a>, the Donetsk authorities accused the three foreign fighters of being “<a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-61745556">terrorists” and “mercenaries</a>” – a deliberate label intended to result in the men’s being denied POW status.</p>
<p>Simply put, both charges are bogus. In armed conflicts, there are only two categories of persons: <a href="https://casebook.icrc.org/law/combatants-and-pows">civilians and combatants</a>. There is no third category of “terrorist.”</p>
<p>While treaties addressing the law of war such as the Geneva Conventions proscribe terrorism, they do not define that term.</p>
<p>However, it is understood that intentional attacks directed against legally protected individuals, such as civilians, POWS, the wounded and the sick, are forms of terrorism amounting to war crimes.</p>
<p>The Third Convention and its additional protocol make crystal clear that members of the armed forces who commit war crimes <a href="https://casebook.icrc.org/law/combatants-and-pows">do not forfeit POW status</a>. As attested to by the Ukrainian government, these three foreigners were active-duty members of Ukraine’s armed forces when captured by Russian soldiers and accordingly were unconditionally entitled to POW status. </p>
<p>In my view, charging and convicting these POWs as “terrorists” is at odds with international law.</p>
<p>Likewise there are problems with labeling the men “mercenaries.” <a href="https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/ihl/WebART/470-750057">Article 47 of the Additional Protocol</a> states that a mercenary does not have the right to be a combatant or granted POW status upon capture. But to qualify as a mercenary, a person must satisfy six very specific criteria listed in that article. For example, a person who is a member of the armed forces of a party to the conflict is not considered to be a mercenary. Such is the case with these three soldiers.</p>
<h2>Summary law</h2>
<p>The issues under international law do not end with the charges the men faced. There are also serious grounds for concerns about the conduct of the trial itself. </p>
<p>The Geneva Conventions mandate that POWs be <a href="https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/customary-ihl/eng/docs/v2_rul_rule100_sectionb">tried by independent and impartial courts</a> with procedures ensuring the accused due process of law, including access to competent legal counsel.</p>
<p>Based on<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jun/10/trial-donetsk-precedent-conflict-21st-century"> published reports</a>, the trial seems to have woefully fallen short of these requirements. Little is known of the qualifications of the judges and defense counsel. Moreover, the trial was conducted in a summary fashion, with all three soldiers pleading guilty to all the charges less than 24 hours before they were convicted and sentenced to death.</p>
<p>It is difficult to believe that these soldiers confessed to being terrorists and mercenaries without having been coerced, which is <a href="https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/applic/ihl/ihl.nsf/Article.xsp?action=openDocument&documentId=2D8538058860C1FCC12563CD0051ABBE#:%7E:text=No%20physical%20or%20mental%20torture,disadvantageous%20treatment%20of%20any%20kind.">absolutely prohibited under the Geneva Conventions</a>. </p>
<p>This, in turn, raises questions about the competence of their legal representatives, who seem not to have rebutted the charges of their being terrorists and mercenaries. It is also unclear whether counsel had access to the soldiers before they pleaded guilty or was able to call and confront witnesses.</p>
<p>The three soldiers have a month to appeal their sentences, which could result in their receiving life or a 25-year prison term instead of the death penalty.</p>
<p>But the haste and timing of the prosecutions give credence to suggestions that the trial was undertaken to humiliate Britain – which has been a <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/britain-one-putins-fiercest-critics-politicians-still-get-millions-rus-rcna22906">very vocal critic of Russia’s invasion</a> – and force Ukraine to eventually <a href="https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/06/10/kdtx-j10.html">exchange these prisoners for Russian soldiers</a> convicted of war crimes by its courts.</p>
<p>Whatever the motive for these trials, the convictions may not be the end of the matter. And it is worth noting that denying a POW the right to a fair trial is a serious war crime.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/184899/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Robert Goldman does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The prosecution and death sentences handed out to two British and one Moroccan national fighting alongside Ukrainian troops contravenes the Geneva Conventions.Robert Goldman, Professor of Law, American UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1805702022-04-25T20:02:11Z2022-04-25T20:02:11ZGetting ID after exiting prison is harder than you might think. So we built a chatbot to help<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458536/original/file-20220419-26-q5yz3z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C36%2C6006%2C3971&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">oatawa/Shutterstock</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Getting out of prison is often assumed to be cause for celebration and a new beginning. However, many women exiting prison face profound <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1462474511422174">disadvantage</a>, isolation, poor mental and physical health and struggle finding housing. </p>
<p>Further complicating return to civil society is the fact some women are released from prison without formal identification.</p>
<p>We worked alongside members of a not-for-profit group called <a href="https://seedsofaffinity.org/">Seeds of Affinity</a> – all women with lived experience of prison – to consider how a technology-based solution may ease the transition from prison to community life.</p>
<p>We then developed a prototype messenger chatbot that helps women in South Australia through the steps involved in acquiring ID after exiting prison.</p>
<h2>Getting ID may seem simple. It’s not</h2>
<p>Formal identification is necessary to create a bank account and to enable Centrelink payments. Neither entity accepts prison paperwork as formal ID, so a piece of official ID is crucial.</p>
<p>While it is possible for support workers in the prison to organise ID prior to a woman’s release, often this does not happen. </p>
<p>Getting ID post-release is especially difficult if a woman has never had a driver’s license or passport, and is even more complicated if she was born interstate. </p>
<p>Getting a proof of age card – through, in the South Australian context, Service SA – is not easy either. It requires a copy of a birth certificate, which can set you back A$50 and can take weeks. The process can be highly confusing, as this flow chart outlining the process shows.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458988/original/file-20220421-14-f3ap63.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A flowchart showing the complicated process of getting formal ID in South Australia." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458988/original/file-20220421-14-f3ap63.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458988/original/file-20220421-14-f3ap63.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=1427&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458988/original/file-20220421-14-f3ap63.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=1427&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458988/original/file-20220421-14-f3ap63.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=1427&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458988/original/file-20220421-14-f3ap63.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1793&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458988/original/file-20220421-14-f3ap63.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1793&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458988/original/file-20220421-14-f3ap63.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1793&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A flowchart showing the complicated process of getting formal ID in South Australia.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Some women exit prison without stable friendship and family networks on which they can rely to help them through this <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/2158379X.2016.1191161">Kafkaesque</a> process, or may not have access to the internet or phone data. They often need workers like Linda to help them.</p>
<h2>‘Leave no woman behind’: the challenges of freedom</h2>
<p>As researchers, we are interested in the ways technology can be leveraged to address social problems and promote social change. </p>
<p>In our pilot project, we partnered with <a href="https://seedsofaffinity.org/">Seeds of Affinity</a> in South Australia.</p>
<p>Guided by their ethos of “leaving no women behind”, this organisation provides caring and judgement-free support to criminalised women.</p>
<p>This is important because many models of service available to criminalised women are rarely helpful or nurturing, and often add to women’s distress. This leaves many criminalised women reluctant to trust others. </p>
<p>In our co-design workshops, women with lived experience of prison shared glimpses into their first few weeks following their release from prison.</p>
<p>Every setback a woman faces when negotiating demands after release significantly impacts on upon her mental health; it can lead some women to believe it would be easier to give up and return to prison.</p>
<p>The cost to keep a person in prison varies across states in Australia, but <a href="https://www.pc.gov.au/research/completed/prison-dilemma/prison-dilemma.pdf">ranges between A$294 - $559 per day</a>. This money would be better spent in the community. Any intervention is worthwhile if it helps women navigate post-release demands, creates a sense of achievement and steers them away from “giving up” and returning to prison.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/number-of-women-on-remand-in-victoria-soars-due-to-outdated-bail-laws-165301">Number of women on remand in Victoria soars due to outdated bail laws</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Can co-designed technology help?</h2>
<p>Before working with Seeds of Affinity women, we had envisaged an app as being the the best tech-based tool to use.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458752/original/file-20220420-13-z12os4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458752/original/file-20220420-13-z12os4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458752/original/file-20220420-13-z12os4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=746&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458752/original/file-20220420-13-z12os4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=746&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458752/original/file-20220420-13-z12os4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=746&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458752/original/file-20220420-13-z12os4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=938&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458752/original/file-20220420-13-z12os4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=938&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458752/original/file-20220420-13-z12os4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=938&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Lindabot in action.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But after analysing how they engaged with technology, we identified Facebook’s Messenger service as the best solution. </p>
<p>We developed a prototype messenger chatbot named “Lindabot” - named after Seeds of Affinity’s community coordinator, Linda Fisk. </p>
<p>We did this because we saw that it was the <em>way</em> information and support was delivered that mattered most to criminalised women seeking help.</p>
<p>For this reason, our “Lindabot” prototype does not just provide information. Instead, we have programmed it to use positive, nurturing language based upon the approach used by Seeds of Affinity volunteers. </p>
<h2>Testing the tech</h2>
<p>To evaluate our prototype, we took Lindabot back to the women for testing and feedback. </p>
<p>Encouragingly, they found it easy to navigate the familiar tech platform of Messenger. Women also responded positively to being actively involved in designing an intervention.</p>
<p>As one participant said:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Usually, we are told what we need, it was nice to be asked for a change.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-left zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458989/original/file-20220421-25-p4tm2b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458989/original/file-20220421-25-p4tm2b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/458989/original/file-20220421-25-p4tm2b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=640&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458989/original/file-20220421-25-p4tm2b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=640&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458989/original/file-20220421-25-p4tm2b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=640&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458989/original/file-20220421-25-p4tm2b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=804&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458989/original/file-20220421-25-p4tm2b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=804&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/458989/original/file-20220421-25-p4tm2b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=804&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Linda bot at work.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Lindabot is still at the prototype stage. However, the development process has shown us more possibilities for Lindabot to help criminalised women meet other needs. </p>
<p>We fully acknowledge technology-based solutions cannot replace human interaction, or undo the harms of imprisonment.</p>
<p>But technology-based solutions informed by end-user’s experiences have the potential to enhance and support the work of human service workers (like Linda). </p>
<p>That leaves them more time for advocacy and the face-to-face work needed to support women to transition out of the criminal justice system.</p>
<p><em>Seeds of Affinity community coordinator, Linda Fisk, contributed to this article.</em></p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/women-in-prison-histories-of-trauma-and-abuse-highlight-the-need-for-specialised-care-68668">Women in prison: histories of trauma and abuse highlight the need for specialised care</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/180570/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michele Jarldorn is affiliated with Seeds of Affinity as a volunteer. This story is part of The Conversation's Breaking the Cycle series, which is about escaping cycles of disadvantage. It is supported by a philanthropic grant from the Paul Ramsay Foundation.
</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Susannah Emery does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>We developed a prototype messenger chatbot that helps women in South Australia through the steps involved in acquiring ID after exiting prison.Michele Jarldorn, Lecturer, University of South AustraliaSusannah Emery, Lecturer, University of South AustraliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1704342021-11-09T15:30:19Z2021-11-09T15:30:19ZMore than a million prisoners have been released during COVID-19, but it’s not enough<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429863/original/file-20211103-15-1dxgg6k.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=388%2C0%2C4604%2C3794&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Female prsioners wave goodbye to their fellow inmates following their release from Chikurubi prison on the outskirts of Harare in Zimbabwe in April 2021. Zimbabwe released about 3,000 prisoners due to COVID-19. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi) </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>COVID-19 has had a devastating impact on prisoners. By March 2021, <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/03/1086802.">an estimated 527,000</a> prisoners globally had contracted the virus, a number that has continued to grow as the pandemic goes on.</p>
<p>This, unfortunately, is not surprising. </p>
<p>There are <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/05/27/covid-19-prisoner-releases-too-few-too-slow">longstanding issues</a> <a href="https://ccla.org/our-work/criminal-justice/prisons-jails/">within prisons</a> — overcrowding, inadequate medical treatment and a lack of ventilation to name just a few — that make them spaces where viruses can easily spread.</p>
<p>Many prisoners — who often come from the most marginalized groups in societies — also have <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpub/article/PIIS2468-2667(20)30231-0/fulltext">underlying medical conditions.</a> Finally, prisoners have <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/advocate-call-for-decarceration-more-vaccines-1.5957949">not been prioritized</a> when it comes to accessing personal protective equipment <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/covid-vaccinations-in-jails-1.6066293">or vaccines</a> during the pandemic.</p>
<h2>Releasing prisoners during the pandemic</h2>
<p>Recognizing these issues, the World Health Organization and other United Nations agencies <a href="https://www.who.int/news/item/13-05-2020-unodc-who-unaids-and-ohchr-joint-statement-on-covid-19-in-prisons-and-other-closed-settings">issued a statement</a> in May 2020 calling on governments around the world to release prisoners who were “at particular risk of COVID-19” and those who “could be released without compromising public safety.”</p>
<p>Since the start of the pandemic, <a href="https://www.dlapiper.com/en/canada/news/2021/03/swift-targeted-action-to-reduce-prison-population-during-covid-19/">over a million prisoners have reportedly</a> been released worldwide. <a href="https://cdn.penalreform.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/Global-prison-trends-2021.pdf">The largest-scale releases</a>, according to <a href="https://www.penalreform.org/">Penal Reform International</a>, have been reported in Turkey (more than 114,000 prisoners), Iran (104,000), the Philippines (82,000), India (68,000), Iraq (62,000) and Ethiopia (40,000).</p>
<p>Some European countries, including France and Norway, reportedly released more than <a href="http://www.antoniocasella.eu/nume/Aebi_Tiago_10nov20.pdf">15 per cent of their prison populations</a>. Jordan released 30 per cent, Penal Reform International statistics show. Releases also occurred in the United States, but prison populations <a href="https://www.prisonpolicy.org/virus/virusresponse.html#prisonreleases">did not decrease significantly</a>, despite the fact that COVID-19 cases were at times <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpub/article/PIIS2468-2667(20)30231-0/fulltext">5.5 times higher in prisons</a> than the general population.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Protesters hold up a banner that says No Execution by COVID-19 outside a prison." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429864/original/file-20211103-23-wlm51t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429864/original/file-20211103-23-wlm51t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429864/original/file-20211103-23-wlm51t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429864/original/file-20211103-23-wlm51t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429864/original/file-20211103-23-wlm51t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429864/original/file-20211103-23-wlm51t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429864/original/file-20211103-23-wlm51t.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In this July 2020 photo, people hold up a banner outside San Quentin State Prison in San Quentin, Calif., urging the release of prisoners due to the COVID-19 pandemic.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Eric Risberg)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In Canada, prisoners were freed across the country during the first wave, mainly from provincial jails, including the release of <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-jails-coronavirus-1.5527677">2,300 prisoners in Ontario</a> by April 2020.</p>
<p>This is unprecedented. While governments throughout history
have granted prisoners early release en masse, including <a href="https://theconversation.com/coronavirus-a-history-of-pandemics-in-prison-136776">during pandemics</a> or in pursuit of various political agendas, it has never happened on such a large scale.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-politics-have-played-a-big-role-in-the-release-of-prisoners-139371">How politics have played a big role in the release of prisoners</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Problems with pandemic prisoner releases</h2>
<p>These releases have had a positive impact on prisoners who have been freed and their families. However, new research, including ongoing work by lawyer and global governance graduate student <a href="https://www.balsillieschool.ca/ashley-mungai/">Ashley Mungai</a> and me, reveals significant issues.</p>
<p>Many governments promised releases, but were slow to follow through. <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/05/27/covid-19-prisoner-releases-too-few-too-slow">The United Kingdom announced</a> that up to 4,000 prisoners would be considered for release in April 2020, but only 57 were released by May of that year.</p>
<p>Often, there is little publicly available data on releases, making it difficult to hold governments accountable.</p>
<p>For many prisoners, being released did not lead to freedom. Globally, an estimated <a href="https://www.dlapiper.com/en/canada/news/2021/03/swift-targeted-action-to-reduce-prison-population-during-covid-19/">42 per cent of prisoners</a> were granted conditional releases. Some were released temporarily, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-iran-idUSKBN20W1E5">including in Iran</a>. </p>
<p>In the U.S., some of the approximately <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/thousands-low-level-us-inmates-released-pandemic-could-be-headed-back-prison-2021-04-11/">23,000 prisoners released to home confinement</a> — which is itself a restriction on one’s freedom — may be sent back to prison after receiving vaccinations. </p>
<p>In Thailand, prisoners were <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-04/prisoners-put-to-work-in-thai-factories-desperate-for-labor">sent to work in factories</a>.</p>
<p>In Myanmar, <a href="https://www.voanews.com/a/covid-19-pandemic_southeast-asia-speeds-prison-releases-stave-coronavirus/6187910.html">releases occurred</a> as part of an annual New Year’s amnesty. Historically, many countries have had annual amnesties, such as during <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6282274.stm">Bastille Day</a> in France. But prisoners shouldn’t have to wait for holidays to be freed amid an infectious disease pandemic. </p>
<p>Many categories of prisoners were also excluded from pandemic releases. <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/04/17/twenty-four-rights-groups-call-turkey-release-all-those-arbitrarily-detained-now">In Turkey</a>, for example, political prisoners and those awaiting trial were not considered.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Men wearing masks and plastic gloves sit in a bus. One gives the thumb's up sign." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429865/original/file-20211103-15-1nx0pvl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/429865/original/file-20211103-15-1nx0pvl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429865/original/file-20211103-15-1nx0pvl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429865/original/file-20211103-15-1nx0pvl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=385&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429865/original/file-20211103-15-1nx0pvl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429865/original/file-20211103-15-1nx0pvl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/429865/original/file-20211103-15-1nx0pvl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=483&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Released prisoners sit in a bus in Sincan outside Ankara, Turkey, in April 2020 after Turkish prisons released tens of thousands of inmates due to COVID-19.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Incarceration rates rising</h2>
<p>The release of prisoners also appears to be a short-lived response to COVID-19. Since the first wave, when <a href="https://www.penalreform.org/global-prison-trends-2021/releases-in-response-to-covid-19/">an estimated 475,000</a> prisoners were released worldwide, far fewer have been freed. </p>
<p>The incarcerated population has actually increased in many countries. While the prison population initially went down by <a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/daily-quotidien/200812/dq200812a-eng.htm?CMP=mstatcan">15 per cent</a> in Canada — including a decrease of 41 per cent in Nova Scotia — <a href="https://ccla.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/2021-03-19-Prison-COVID-report-FINAL-REVISED.pdf">it was going up by September 2020</a>, despite the fact that <a href="https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/csc-prisoners-covid19-second-wave-1.5923707">COVID-19 has continued to</a> <a href="https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2021/09/30/covid-19-outbreak-declared-at-toronto-east-detention-centre-province.html">spread in prisons.</a></p>
<p>Finally, the number of people released from prison is often much lower than the number being arrested. In <a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/05/27/covid-19-prisoner-releases-too-few-too-slow">Sri Lanka</a>, for example, only 3,000 prisoners have been granted early release, whereas approximately 40,000 have been arrested for violating pandemic curfews.</p>
<p>One of the common concerns raised about releasing prisoners is that it will undermine public safety. Yet research has shown this <a href="https://www.aclu.org/news/smart-justice/decarceration-and-crime-during-covid-19">hasn’t been the case</a>. Instead, it’s clear that governments <a href="https://www.djno.ca/post/cops-out-of-care-work-panel-ft-el-jones-souheil-benslimane-cyree-jarelle-and-megan-linton">can release prisoners</a> safely and effectively when there is the political will to do so.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/if-canada-is-serious-about-confronting-systemic-racism-we-must-abolish-prisons-141408">If Canada is serious about confronting systemic racism, we must abolish prisons</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>This discussion about public safety also overlooks the fact that prisons do <a href="https://www.saltwire.com/prince-edward-island/opinion/national-perspectives/martha-paynter-why-some-canadian-prisoners-should-be-released-during-the-coronavirus-pandemic-426139/">not make communities safer</a>, <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0022146512453928">but rather perpetuate harm</a>. The pandemic has <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/S2468-2667(20)30231-0">made this more obvious than ever</a> and has also put a spotlight on longstanding problems within prisons. </p>
<p>Instead of being a temporary response to COVID-19, early releases should be one of many decarceration measures implemented to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/17/magazine/prison-abolition-ruth-wilson-gilmore.html">build a future without prisons</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/170434/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Katherine Bruce-Lockhart receives funding from the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation and has previously received funding from SSHRC. She volunteers with the following community organizations: Toronto Prisoners' Rights Project and SURJ (Showing Up for Racial Justice) Toronto.</span></em></p>During the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, governments around the world released many prisoners, but this has now slowed or stopped. Here’s why those releases should continue.Katherine Bruce-Lockhart, Assistant Professor, History, University of WaterlooLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1675912021-09-08T20:03:56Z2021-09-08T20:03:56ZOn 50th anniversary of Attica uprising, 4 essential reads on prisoners’ rights today<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420095/original/file-20210908-26-nvlelu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=26%2C58%2C2965%2C1992&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Some of the demands by prisoners in 1971's Attica rebellion still resonate today.</span> </figcaption></figure><p>On Sept. 9, 1971, nearly 1,300 incarcerated men at Attica Correctional Facility in New York state <a href="https://www.wbfo.org/heritage-moments/2018-09-10/heritage-moments-the-attica-prison-uprising-43-dead-and-a-four-decade-cover-up">took control of the facility</a>, prompting a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1996/09/10/nyregion/the-lessons-of-attica-25-years-later.html">multiday standoff</a> with authorities that ended in a massacre.</p>
<p>The incident resulted in the deaths of 43 people, many of them inmates, and marked an important moment in the <a href="https://www.aclu.org/blog/prisoners-rights/attica-every-prison-and-every-prison-attica">prisoners’ rights movement</a> in the United States. The men behind what has variously been described as a “riot,” “rebellion” and “uprising” at Attica <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0306396811414338">were demanding improvements</a> to medical and food supplies behind bars, greater visitation rights and an end to insanitary conditions and guard brutality.</p>
<p>The uprising took place before the <a href="https://www.upi.com/Archives/1991/05/16/US-prison-population-exploded-in-1980s/4744674366400/#:%7E:text=But%20during%20the%201980s%2C%20the,at%20the%20end%20of%201990.">huge increase in America’s prison population</a> in the 1980s and 1990s. But as The Conversation’s authors have explained in recent months, many of the grievances raised by the Attica prisoners – health care, visitation rights, brutality and neglect – remain a concern for today’s incarcerated men and women. Here are four essential reads:</p>
<h2>Behind bars and suffering from dementia</h2>
<p>America’s prisons are facing a growing aging population. Research shows that by 2030, almost <a href="https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/30aa/ac3ae03558fe6b9d92598de4cafe85fafdf9.pdf">one-third of all incarcerated people</a> will be over the age of 55. Rachel Lopez, <a href="https://drexel.edu/law/faculty/fulltime_fac/Rachel%20Lopez/#:%7E:text=Rachel%20L%C3%B3pez%20is%20an%20Associate,at%20the%20Harvard%20Kennedy%20School.">a law professor at Drexel University</a> and former commissioner on Pennsylvania’s Sentencing Commission, explains how the aging population will <a href="https://theconversation.com/prisoners-in-us-suffering-dementia-may-hit-200000-within-the-next-decade-many-wont-even-know-why-they-are-behind-bars-138236">place an additional burden on authorities</a>: Research has shown that by the end of this decade, up to <a href="https://www.ncchc.org/filebin/images/Website_PDFs/24-2.pdf">210,000 elderly prisoners</a> will have dementia. The cost of their medical upkeep will fall on taxpayers.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="A prisoner sips water as he stands in a room at the hospice wing of California Medical Facility." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420097/original/file-20210908-27-c7wk4g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/420097/original/file-20210908-27-c7wk4g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420097/original/file-20210908-27-c7wk4g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420097/original/file-20210908-27-c7wk4g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420097/original/file-20210908-27-c7wk4g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420097/original/file-20210908-27-c7wk4g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/420097/original/file-20210908-27-c7wk4g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A prisoner on the hospice wing of California Medical Facility.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/john-gillis-age-73-a-hospice-care-patient-diagnosed-with-news-photo/457461857?adppopup=true">Andrew Burton/Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Moreover, keeping someone with dementia behind bars is, Lopez argues, an affront to human dignity and may even violate the United States Constitution’s prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment.</p>
<p>“Forcing those who cannot understand their punishment to live the remainder of their days behind bars appears to be exactly the type of excessive and cruel punishment that the Eighth Amendment was meant to protect against,” Lopez writes.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/prisoners-in-us-suffering-dementia-may-hit-200-000-within-the-next-decade-many-wont-even-know-why-they-are-behind-bars-138236">Prisoners in US suffering dementia may hit 200,000 within the next decade – many won't even know why they are behind bars</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Prisoners with intellectual disabilities</h2>
<p>The elderly are not the only vulnerable population being kept behind bars. In March 2021, the Bureau of Justice Statistics <a href="https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/drpspi16st.pdf">revealed that around a quarter</a> of the 24,848 incarcerated people it surveyed across 364 prisons had an intellectual, developmental or cognitive disability. Across the entire prison and jail network, that would equate to some 550,000 people. Jennifer Sarrett <a href="http://catalog.college.emory.edu/department-program/faculty.php?YToxOntzOjI6ImlkIjtzOjM6Ijc5MyI7fQ==">of Emory University</a> conducted in-depth interviews with several adults within the criminal justice system who have intellectual and developmental disabilities.</p>
<p><iframe id="aZQHB" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/aZQHB/3/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<p>“Prisoners with these disabilities are at greater risk of serving longer, harder sentences,” <a href="https://theconversation.com/us-prisons-hold-more-than-550-000-people-with-intellectual-disabilities-they-face-exploitation-harsh-treatment-158407">Sarrett notes</a>.</p>
<p>They also run the <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14789949.2015.1062994">risk of exploitation and abuse</a> – both from other incarcerated people and from prison staff. As one man explained to Sarrett, officers look to see who only watches TV and never reads, marking them out for exploitation: “Some of the corrections officers … they’ll slide up onto the disability boy and use him, you know, making him feel like ‘This is my dog. This is my boy right here. Come and do this for me.’”</p>
<p>Meanwhile, needing extra time to process instructions – particularly in high-stress situations – can be interpreted as obstinacy by prison officers. In turn this can lead to prisoners with intellectual disabilities being written up for disciplinary issues, which can result in time added to a person’s sentence, removal of certain privileges or solitary confinement. A 2018 study found that over 4,000 people with serious mental health concerns were <a href="https://www.nyaprs.org/e-news-bulletins/2018/11/30/study-over-4-000-prisoners-w-serious-mental-illness-are-held-in-solitary-confinement">being held in solitary confinement</a> in the U.S.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/us-prisons-hold-more-than-550-000-people-with-intellectual-disabilities-they-face-exploitation-harsh-treatment-158407">US prisons hold more than 550,000 people with intellectual disabilities – they face exploitation, harsh treatment</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Guard brutality still an issue</h2>
<p>Between 2012 and 2016, <a href="https://bjs.ojp.gov/content/pub/pdf/msfp0116st.pdf">128 state and federal prisoners died as a result of homicide or accident</a>, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Those were the most recent figures available to Heather Schoenfeld of Boston University when she <a href="https://theconversation.com/people-are-dying-in-us-prisons-and-not-just-from-covid-19-141358">wrote an article for The Conversation</a> in July 2020 looking at violence by corrections officers. Another problem with the data other than it not being up to date: The agency does not distinguish in the figures between incidents involving prison staff and prisoner-on-prisoner violence.</p>
<p>“In the absence of detailed and reliable data, what we do have are accounts of sadistic and retaliatory violence by prison guards against people in prison,” Schoenfeld writes.</p>
<p>She describes an “ongoing humanitarian crisis” in U.S. prisons of excessive force by corrections officers that has only been made worse by understaffing and overcrowding. “Studies show that officers who <a href="https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139649681">work in chaotic and hostile work environments</a> are more likely to adopt an ‘us vs. them’ mentality and resort to retaliatory violence,” she writes.</p>
<p>She adds: “Similar to excessive police force, brutality by prison officers is part of systemic state violence against people of color, and Black people specifically.”</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/people-are-dying-in-us-prisons-and-not-just-from-covid-19-141358">People are dying in US prisons, and not just from COVID-19</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>COVID-19 and visitation rights</h2>
<p>Brutality and neglect are not the only things killing America’s incarcerated population. Prisoners have been particularly vulnerable during the coronavirus pandemic. Incarcerated men and women living in cramped indoor conditions with only basic sanitation and poor ventilation are at <a href="https://eji.org/news/covid-19s-impact-on-people-in-prison/">higher risk of infection and death</a> from the virus.</p>
<p>They have also face being isolated from their families for extended periods as a result of lockdown measures. <a href="https://hcap.utsa.edu/directory/alexander-testa-ph-d/">Alexander Testa</a> and <a href="https://hcap.utsa.edu/directory/chantal-fahmy-ph-d/">Chantal Fahmy</a> at The University of Texas at San Antonio <a href="https://theconversation.com/no-visits-and-barely-any-calls-pandemic-makes-separation-even-scarier-for-people-with-a-family-member-in-prison-158592">looked at the effect this has had</a> on the prisoners’ families.</p>
<p>The two scholars surveyed 500 people with a loved one serving time behind bars in Texas during the summer of 2020. What they found was a high level of concern.</p>
<p>“My son has been locked in a cell with temperatures over 100 degrees for up to 23-plus hours a day for weeks on end now due to COVID,” one 74-year-old woman told Testa and Fahmy. “I fear he will either perish from the conditions or somehow take his own life.”</p>
<p>The concern was not only of the risk of infection but also the sudden removal of visitation rights.</p>
<p>During the pandemic Texas prisons <a href="https://www.wfaa.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/coronavirus-texas/269-38e0b2c8-3cdc-4afd-acfb-5ab12ca39566">severely limited all types of contact</a> with the outside world – including video and phone calls. Visitation was barred completely on March 13, 2020, and only resumed a year later.</p>
<p>Reflecting on the this, alongside other grievances including “deplorable” living conditions “and lack of medical and dental care,” one mother of an incarcerated person commented: “We don’t incarcerate, we torture.”</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/no-visits-and-barely-any-calls-pandemic-makes-separation-even-scarier-for-people-with-a-family-member-in-prison-158592">No visits and barely any calls – pandemic makes separation even scarier for people with a family member in prison</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>[<em>Get the best of The Conversation, every weekend.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/weekly-highlights-61?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=weeklybest">Sign up for our weekly newsletter</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/167591/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
The Attica uprising marked a milestone in the prisoners’ rights movement. Many of the grievances aired in 1971 are still relevant to today’s incarcerated population.Matt Williams, Senior International EditorLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1647412021-08-18T12:12:25Z2021-08-18T12:12:25ZCorrectional officers are driving the pandemic in prisons<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415045/original/file-20210806-90838-180utg2.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C2995%2C1994&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">While prison may isolate people from the larger community, it does not isolate them from COVID-19.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/people-wearing-protective-masks-leave-the-cook-county-jail-news-photo/1217875901">Scott Olson/Staff/Getty Images News</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Prisons and jails have hosted some of the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/covid-cases.html">largest COVID-19 outbreaks in the U.S.</a>, with <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/covid-cases.html">some facilities approaching 4,000 cases</a>. In the U.S., which has some of the highest COVID-19 infection rates in the world, 9 in 100 people have had the virus; in U.S. prisons, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/04/10/us/covid-prison-outbreak.html">the rate is 34 out of 100</a>.</p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=l3emkpsAAAAJ">I study public health issues around prisons</a>. My colleagues and I set out to <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18136873">understand why COVID-19 infection rates were so high</a> among incarcerated individuals. </p>
<p>Using data from the Federal Bureau of Prisons, we discovered the infection rate among correctional officers drove the infection rate among incarcerated individuals. We also found a three-way relationship between the infection rate of officers, incarcerated individuals and the communities around prisons.</p>
<h2>No stranger to outbreaks</h2>
<p>Prisons, jails and other correctional facilities routinely deal with infectious diseases. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/521910">Hepatitis B</a> <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.idc.2018.02.014">and C</a> as well as <a href="https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2016.303423">tuberculosis</a> are all incredibly common in prison populations.</p>
<p>Because of that, prisons have established policies and procedures for handling infectious diseases. Many of those policies are the same as those for preventing the spread of COVID-19 – such as medical isolation of individuals with active infections, increased cleaning and surveillance of the disease. </p>
<p>Public health experts have <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/521910">encouraged prisons to think about the role of correctional officers in infection spread</a> for years and more recently have warned that <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm6919e1">correctional officers are a weak link for COVID-19</a> infections in prisons.</p>
<p>Even though prisons have policies for disease control, many of which include guidelines for correctional officers, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/521910">prisons are at a disadvantage</a> in stopping the spread of COVID-19. Current prison conditions – including <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.amepre.2021.01.018">poor ventilation</a>, <a href="https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2020/12/21/overcrowding/">overcrowding</a> and a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11606-020-05968-y">lack of space for social distancing and isolation</a> – make respiratory diseases like COVID-19 very difficult to control. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415054/original/file-20210806-17-19y86fs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Prisoners populate a yard surrounded by razor wire." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415054/original/file-20210806-17-19y86fs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415054/original/file-20210806-17-19y86fs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415054/original/file-20210806-17-19y86fs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415054/original/file-20210806-17-19y86fs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415054/original/file-20210806-17-19y86fs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415054/original/file-20210806-17-19y86fs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415054/original/file-20210806-17-19y86fs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Nebraska Department of Correctional Services was forced to declare an overcrowding emergency on July 1, 2020. Capacity in the state’s 10 prisons was at 151%, exceeding the 2015 mandated 140% threshold.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/PrisonCrowdingNebraska/581139315b654cf786085fa5d02693bb">AP Photo/Nati Harnik</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For instance, before the start of the pandemic, the Federal Bureau of Prisons, along with nine state prison systems, has been <a href="https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2020/12/21/overcrowding/">operating at over 100% capacity</a>. During the pandemic, even with massive early release and home confinement programs, <a href="https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2020/12/21/overcrowding/">many states remain at 100% prisoner capacity – or more</a>. </p>
<p>Additionally, U.S. <a href="https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/workforce-issues-corrections">prisons have been facing chronic staffing shortages</a>. In the federal system, the issue is so severe that staff not trained as prison guards – including nurses – <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/federal-prisons-forced-use-cooks-nurses-guard-inmates-due-staff-n1268138">are being reassigned to guard the prison population</a>. Short staffing makes the daily business of running a prison difficult during the best of times, not to mention during a pandemic. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.bop.gov/coronavirus/overview.jsp#bop_emergency_response">As early as March 2020</a>, many prisons attempted to mitigate these conditions by granting early release and home confinement. Some also blocked all visitors and outside contractors. While <a href="https://madison.com/ct/news/local/govt-and-politics/early-research-shows-fewer-inmates-flattened-covid-19-curve-at-dane-county-jail/article_7fd4ebb9-59fa-56c2-8952-3668f5d61ad2.html">helpful in some cases</a>, ultimately these actions did little to stop outbreaks. </p>
<h2>Responding to COVID-19</h2>
<p>Initially, public health organizations such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention <a href="https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2021-07-27/timeline-cdc-mask-guidance-during-covid-19-pandemic">went back and forth on the need for masks</a>. Then mask mandates became a partisan issue. By midsummer 2020, <a href="https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2020/08/14/masks-in-prisons/">30 states mandated masking for correctional officers, prisoners or both</a>. The Bureau of Prisons <a href="https://www.bop.gov/foia/docs//Mandatory_Use_Face_Coverings_for_Staff_08242020.pdf">adopted a masking policy in late August</a>, requiring correctional officers to mask when social distancing was not possible.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415894/original/file-20210812-20-1ixq4w5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Wearing a protective mask and gloves, a correctional officer sanitizes an inmate transport van." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415894/original/file-20210812-20-1ixq4w5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/415894/original/file-20210812-20-1ixq4w5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415894/original/file-20210812-20-1ixq4w5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415894/original/file-20210812-20-1ixq4w5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=447&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415894/original/file-20210812-20-1ixq4w5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415894/original/file-20210812-20-1ixq4w5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/415894/original/file-20210812-20-1ixq4w5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=561&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Masking seems to slow the spread in prisons but not halt it.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/wearing-a-protective-mask-and-gloves-elijah-johnson-a-news-photo/1209294310">David L. Ryan/The Boston Globe via Getty Images</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>As the second and third waves of COVID-19 swept through the nation and the federal prison system, the <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18136873">mask mandate made only a small dent</a> in slowing the uptick of infections among prisoners. </p>
<p>Additionally, <a href="https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2021/04/22/vaccinerefusal/">vaccine adoption rates among correctional officers</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/22/us/covid-prison-vaccine.html">incarcerated people</a> are low, weakening this line of defense. Across all states, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0253208">incarcerated people have not been prioritized for the vaccine</a>. Even when the vaccines are available, many incarcerated people are <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/22/us/covid-prison-vaccine.html">skeptical about receiving them due to mistrust</a> of prison officials. </p>
<h2>Two-way vectors</h2>
<p>We found the relationship between COVID-19 infections among correctional staff and incarcerated individuals is also shaped by the <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18136873">incidence of COVID-19 in the community</a> surrounding the prison. Because correctional officers move between the prison and the community at the beginning and end of each shift, they can carry COVID-19 between these two spaces. </p>
<p>Even when correctional officers test negative for COVID-19, they can still drive COVID-19 rates both inside and outside the prison via asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic spread. <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18136873">Our data shows</a> that when COVID-19 rates in the outside community get worse, so too do rates among the incarcerated population.</p>
<p>Prison policies aimed at stopping the spread of COVID-19 should be designed with an eye toward controlling the disease in the prison population, among correctional officers and in the community around the prison. </p>
<p>For example, prison systems should be just as concerned with vaccination rates in the communities around prisons as they are with vaccination rates among correctional officers. Both rates will have an impact on the spread of COVID-19 within a prison.</p>
<p>[<em>Over 110,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletter to understand the world.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=100Ksignup">Sign up today</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/164741/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Danielle Wallace received funding from the National Science Foundation, surrounding this work, specifically, Award #2032747, “Estimating the Reciprocal Relationship between COVID-19 Infections of Prisoners and Staff and Infections in the Surrounding Communities.”</span></em></p>New research shows correctional officers are vectors of infection, driving COVID-19 rates both inside prisons and in their communities.Danielle Wallace, Associate Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Arizona State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1605242021-05-14T04:57:10Z2021-05-14T04:57:10ZArt by Indigenous prisoners can forge links with culture and a future away from crime<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/400488/original/file-20210513-18-1fr2xfe.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C14%2C4902%2C2325&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Torch artist and Barkindji man Trevor Mitchell at work on a painting. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://thetorch.org.au/exhibitions/7844456/">The Torch</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Featuring over 350 artworks created by more than 320 artists, <a href="https://thetorch.org.au/">The Torch</a>’s annual exhibition, <a href="https://thetorch.org.au/exhibitions/7844456/">Confined 12</a>, is its largest to date. All of the artists in the Victorian not-for-profit organisation’s show are Indigenous and either in prison or recently released. </p>
<p>The exhibition and the program that precedes it allows them to be seen not as “criminals” or “offenders”, but as people of value, proud Indigenous men and women, citizens and artists. </p>
<p>Bringing about this <a href="https://study.sagepub.com/system/files/Maruna%2C_Shadd_-_Redemption_Scripts_and_Desistance.pdf">identity change</a> is critical for exiting the cycle of crime and prison. It’s a difficult and challenging process, but people willing to engage with the art produced can make a big difference. </p>
<h2>Teaching art inside</h2>
<p>In 2011, artist and The Torch CEO, Kent Morris, started visiting Indigenous men and women in the Victorian prison system to teach art. </p>
<p>He found students who felt disconnected from family, country and culture. They wanted to know just as much about how to paint as who they were and where they were from. </p>
<p>Since then, the organisation has been supporting Indigenous people in Victoria’s prison system to learn about and (re)connect with their cultural heritage, develop their artistic skills and practice, and learn about the arts industry. </p>
<p>Participants are then able to exhibit and sell their artwork through The Torch’s <a href="https://thetorch.org.au/shop-2/">online shop</a> and the annual <a href="https://thetorch.org.au/exhibition/confined-12/">Confined</a>, <a href="https://thetorch.org.au/exhibition/banj-banj-nawnta/">and other</a>, exhibitions. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/400491/original/file-20210513-18-stxi1x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Indigenous artwork" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/400491/original/file-20210513-18-stxi1x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/400491/original/file-20210513-18-stxi1x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=459&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400491/original/file-20210513-18-stxi1x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=459&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400491/original/file-20210513-18-stxi1x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=459&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400491/original/file-20210513-18-stxi1x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=576&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400491/original/file-20210513-18-stxi1x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=576&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/400491/original/file-20210513-18-stxi1x.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=576&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Zac (Wadawurrung peoples) Overseeing Bunjil 2021.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.instagram.com/p/CNbQXv0BwC0/">The Torch/Instagram</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In his classic <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv14164hw">1958 ethnographic study</a> of New Jersey State Prison, Gresham M. Sykes outlined a number of fundamental deprivations that feature in daily prison life which he termed the “pains of imprisonment”. They include the loss of liberty, autonomy and security. </p>
<p>Art has the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/22/not-everyones-an-artist-but-all-prisoners-would-benefit-from-practising-art">power to buffer</a> the damaging psychological impacts of prison, which Sykes pointed out, should be minimised or eliminated if efforts at rehabilitation are to be effective. Art-making and viewing is good for emotional regulation, psychological <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/238602084_A_Place_for_Art_in_Prison_Art_as_A_Tool_for_Rehabilitation_and_Management">health and well-being</a>.</p>
<p>Similar art programs for people in prison include the annual <a href="https://fremantleprison.com.au/whats-on/insider-art/">Insider Art</a> exhibition in WA, <a href="https://www.koestlerarts.org.uk/">Koestler Arts</a> in the UK and the <a href="https://lsa.umich.edu/pcap">University of Michigan Creative Arts Project</a>. But these programs and organisations don’t leverage the power of art to maximise individual and community change like The Torch and there are no other programs specifically for Indigenous artists in prison or recently released.</p>
<p>The Torch produces and distributes texts and images to educate participants about Indigenous nations, languages, country, stories, technologies and aesthetic traditions. </p>
<p>One artist involved in The Torch exhibition <a href="https://www.indigenousjustice.gov.au/wp-content/uploads/mp/files/resources/files/evaluation-torch-report16mar2019final1.pdf">described</a> the powerful effect art practice had on them: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>When I do my art it’s like a mood stabiliser. It helps me stay focused and I feel more settled. I’d rather do my art than see a counsellor.</p>
</blockquote>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/399751/original/file-20210510-18-zuszfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/399751/original/file-20210510-18-zuszfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399751/original/file-20210510-18-zuszfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399751/original/file-20210510-18-zuszfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399751/original/file-20210510-18-zuszfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399751/original/file-20210510-18-zuszfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/399751/original/file-20210510-18-zuszfi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Confined 10. Photo by James Henry.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/life-sentences-what-creative-writing-by-prisoners-tells-us-about-the-inside-130783">Life sentences – what creative writing by prisoners tells us about the inside</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>A different path</h2>
<p>Reducing the number of people returning to prison after release is one of Corrections Victoria’s <a href="https://www.corrections.vic.gov.au/corrections-victoria">strategic priorities</a>. Efforts to reduce reoffending can include clinical treatment programs (for instance to <a href="https://www.corrections.vic.gov.au/release/transitional-programs">treat mental health conditions or addiction</a>) alongside practical support to find housing, welfare support and if possible, employment after release. </p>
<p>Long-term abstinence from criminal behaviour, called “desistance”, can be a difficult, <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1748895816634812">painful</a> and <a href="https://academic.oup.com/bjc/article-abstract/57/5/1041/2624018?redirectedFrom=fulltext">fragile</a> process. After the social rejection of prison, it involves successful community integration, self and social acceptance. </p>
<p>It can also involve becoming someone different, someone new. As criminologist Fergus McNeil <a href="https://bpspsychub.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.2044-8333.2011.02039.x?casa_token=XpILm0wKAqMAAAAA%3AVLmxkxsiLwIY2C4xbGNLeNce0GSg_D7XaJXOOYeOv_N5X5a-HgRz5i_MNExnmnCvZiAC9KTvDaHGBnl5VA">has pointed out</a>, “people do not simply desist, they desist into something”. </p>
<p>Artist Chris Austin (Gunditjmara) explains how the program helped him: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>In the past I was a crook, you know, a jail bird but now I am an artist. My daughter is so very proud of that. I never used to think of myself that way. </p>
</blockquote>
<p><div data-react-class="InstagramEmbed" data-react-props="{"url":"https://www.instagram.com/p/COY7OCVjOqg","accessToken":"127105130696839|b4b75090c9688d81dfd245afe6052f20"}"></div></p>
<h2>Audience participation</h2>
<p>By embracing participants as artists rather than ex-offenders, The Torch provides an avenue to change. This part of the process involves audience participation — a partnership with the wider community. </p>
<p>The annual exhibitions allow others to celebrate and accept the artists whose work is on show. Selling a work of art provides validation and a source of income. Artist <a href="https://thetorch.org.au/artists/0037f000018z3qjqac/">Flick Chafer-Smith</a> (Ngarrindjeri) says:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>I love the idea that someone has seen my painting and loved what I’ve done and paid their money, and have it on display in their home. It gives me so much pride.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In this way, identity is co-created. Participants who exhibit and sell their work with The Torch receive 100% of the sale price. This income can foster independence and lessen reliance on welfare, family and friends. In 2020, sales from The Torch’s exhibitions topped more than <a href="https://www.indigenousjustice.gov.au/wp-content/uploads/mp/files/resources/files/evaluation-torch-report16mar2019final1.pdf">$250,000</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://thetorch.org.au/wp-content/uploads/EVALUATION_Torch-Report16Mar2019FINAL1.pdf">The Torch reports</a> that of 66 participants in 2017–18 only 11% returned to prison. This is in stark comparison to the <a href="https://www.sentencingcouncil.vic.gov.au/statistics/sentencing-trends/released-prisoners-returning-to-prison">44.2% of Victorian prisoners</a> who returned to prison within two years of release (the rate of recidivism <a href="https://www.aboriginaljustice.vic.gov.au/the-agreement/aboriginal-over-representation-in-the-justice-system/aboriginal-cohorts-under-justice">rises to 53.4%</a> for Victorian Indigenous prisoners).</p>
<p>Indigenous Australians are incarcerated <a href="https://theconversation.com/factcheck-qanda-are-indigenous-australians-the-most-incarcerated-people-on-earth-78528">at the highest rate</a> of any people in the world. The art exhibited by The Torch — and the people who engage with it as creators and viewers — can transform lives and light a new way forward. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/not-criminals-or-passive-victims-media-need-to-reframe-their-representation-of-aboriginal-deaths-in-custody-158561">Not criminals or passive victims: media need to reframe their representation of Aboriginal deaths in custody</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p><em>The Torch’s <a href="https://thetorch.org.au/exhibitions/7844456/">Confined 12</a> exhibition is on from 13 May until 6 June at Glen Eira City Council Gallery.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/160524/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jeremy Ryder does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>With 350 artworks created by 320 Indigenous artists who are in or recently released from prison, The Torch is making a difference to how people are seen and how they see themselves.Jeremy Ryder, Research Assistant, Law and Criminal Justice Tutor, Flinders UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1581732021-04-13T15:34:26Z2021-04-13T15:34:26ZWhy deaf prisoners have been in a state of lockdown since well before COVID-19<p>The pandemic has worsened already dire conditions for prisoners since the UK Prison Service locked down the prison estate last year. Following drastic changes to the regime, most imprisoned people have since spent <a href="https://www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/publications/psj/prison-service-journal-253">between 22 and 23 hours</a> in their cells every day. Since then, there have been <a href="https://www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/publications/psj/prison-service-journal-253">wide reports</a> of severe isolation, despair, frustration and worsening mental wellbeing. </p>
<p>As part of these measures, face to face visits from family, access to education classes and offending behaviour programmes, and use of facilities such as the gym and library <a href="https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmiprisons/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2021/02/What-happens-to-prisoners-in-a-pandemic.pdf">were all suspended</a>. In seeking to minimise the spread of COVID-19, the Prison Service has created a scenario where prisoners are largely unable to meet the conditions of their sentence plans, see their loved ones or socially interact. </p>
<p>While the pandemic has had devastating consequences for prisoners, many of their experiences were already characterised by pain and deprivation. That’s largely because <a href="https://www.compen.crim.cam.ac.uk/system/files/documents/Revisitingthepainsofimprisonment.pdf">prison is an inherently harmful environment</a> in part due to uncertainty, dehumanisation, routine surveillance and a lack of autonomy. </p>
<p>However, for individuals who differ from the sort of person most prisons in the UK were originally intended to contain – <a href="http://clok.uclan.ac.uk/18620/1/cjp%20laura%20kelly%20for%20ref.PDF">young able-bodied, English-speaking, hearing, males</a> – these pains are amplified. Groups like <a href="https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9780230576681">women</a> and <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/edit/10.4324/9781315797779/handbook-prisons-yvonne-jewkes-ben-crewe-jamie-bennett">older people</a>, for example, have experienced significant issues in prisons for years.</p>
<h2>The d/Deaf prisoner experience</h2>
<p>These pains are particularly acute for prisoners who are deaf or Deaf. Those who are Deaf with a capital D are users of British Sign Language (BSL) - a visual language structured differently to written and verbal English. These individuals are <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/constructing-deafness-9780826461254/">considered part of the Deaf community</a>, where Deafness is valued as part of their identity. Whereas deaf people are those who have difficulties in hearing, who often use spoken and written English and view their deafness as an impairment. </p>
<p>Many prisons are ruled by sounds like <a href="https://www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/publications/psj/prison-service-journal-234">tannoys, bells, alarms and voices</a>. Without access to sound adjusting equipment, the provision of <a href="https://bda.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/BDA-Deaf-Prisoners-Report-2016.pdf">which is inconsistent and sometimes non-existent</a>, d/Deaf prisoners can become very isolated and confused, commonly feeling like they have <a href="https://www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/publications/psj/prison-service-journal-234">little option but to withdraw</a> from social life and prison more broadly. What’s more, without being able to hear, incarcerated d/Deaf people often <a href="https://howardleague.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Not_hearing_us.pdf">have difficulty</a> in meaningfully engaging in education, training or rehabilitative programmes that rely on English (written and spoken) for communication.</p>
<p>Similarly, important information (such as prison rules) is provided in a written format which cannot easily be understood <a href="http://clok.uclan.ac.uk/18620/1/cjp%20laura%20kelly%20for%20ref.PDF">by many Deaf prisoners</a> because BSL is visual and structurally different to verbal and written English. This can lead to confusion about how they’re expected to behave. This combined with a lack of access to relevant programmes and courses can result in increases to the length of prison sentences, as it leaves Deaf people unable to fulfil the requirements <a href="http://clok.uclan.ac.uk/18620/1/cjp%20laura%20kelly%20for%20ref.PDF">of their sentence plans</a>.</p>
<h2>Navigating the prison system</h2>
<p>One way for d/Deaf prisoners to attempt to manage formal aspects of prison like form filling is to seek help from their loved ones during visits. However, without adjustments such as BSL interpreters or hearing aids, d/Deaf prisoners often have difficulties communicating during visits. Issues with contacting loved ones are more fundamental though, <a href="http://clok.uclan.ac.uk/18620/1/cjp%20laura%20kelly%20for%20ref.PDF">given that a key way of maintaining contact is via the prison phone</a>, and without equipment such as minicoms (a phone that allows people to transmit typed messages down the phoneline), <a href="https://bda.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/BDA-Deaf-Prisoners-Report-2016.pdf">phonecalls are often unviable for d/Deaf prisoners</a>.</p>
<p>It’s also common for imprisoned people to use social interaction and engagement with other prisoners to make prison life more manageable. Yet a lack of access to hearing aids can also lead <a href="http://clok.uclan.ac.uk/18620/1/cjp%20laura%20kelly%20for%20ref.PDF">deaf prisoners to withdraw</a>. </p>
<p>For Deaf prisoners, a lack of access to others who can communicate in BSL can lead to almost complete isolation, something which clearly chimes with the experience for many prisoners during COVID-19. This can become akin to a form of enforced solitary confinement, creating an <a href="http://clok.uclan.ac.uk/18620/1/cjp%20laura%20kelly%20for%20ref.PDF">eerily lonely existence</a>.</p>
<p>Exclusion, isolation and loneliness all characterise d/Deaf people’s typical experiences of prison. The consequences of dealing with these issues can be fatal, as highlighted by the suicide of Tyrone Givans, who was deaf, in HMP Pentonville in 2018. Tyrone did not have access to his hearing aids during his sentence, which was found to be a contributing factor <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-47002051">to his death</a>.</p>
<p>Adjustments to help d/Deaf prisoners to access all aspects of the prison environment are possible, but they require <a href="http://clok.uclan.ac.uk/18620/1/cjp%20laura%20kelly%20for%20ref.PDF">awareness, resources and will</a> on an individual, organisational and political level, of which there is often little. Access to BSL interpreters is often <a href="https://www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/publications/psj/prison-service-journal-234">underwhelming and inconsistent in prisons</a>, despite how much it could help to combat exclusion for Deaf prisoners. Placing multiple Deaf people together could also have <a href="https://www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/publications/psj/prison-service-journal-234">significant benefits</a>, including communicating freely with others. </p>
<p>However, these benefits are only meaningful if staff are sufficiently Deaf aware, which is a challenge given that <a href="https://www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/publications/psj/prison-service-journal-234">evidence suggests Deaf awareness among prison officials is uncommon</a>. Without this knowledge, staff may fail to understand why it’s important for Deaf prisoners to interact and be around each other. This lack of understanding also carries the danger of treating Deaf behaviours like signing as problematic. It’s an issue that can provoke suspicion that Deaf prisoners are plotting against staff and other prisoners, which in some contexts may lead to attempts to <a href="https://www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/publications/psj/prison-service-journal-234">prevent signing altogether</a>.</p>
<p>The devastating impact that COVID-19 has had on imprisoned people across the prison estate is likely to lessen a little as lockdown restrictions ease (as began in a very limited way on 29 March, with plans to allow <a href="https://www.gov.uk/guidance/coronavirus-covid-19-and-prisons">social visits to restart</a>). However, without meaningful change the isolation, loneliness, and exclusion that characterise the pandemic prison will likely remain for d/Deaf prisoners not only beyond lockdown, but indefinitely.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/158173/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr Laura Kelly-Corless works for the University of Central Lancashire as a Lecturer in Criminology.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dr Daniel McCulloch has previously received funding from the Howard League for Penal Reform for his MA, the research for which explored the experiences of d/Deaf prisoners.</span></em></p>While the pandemic has had devastating consequences for imprisoned people, many of their experiences were already characterised by pain and deprivationLaura Kelly-Corless, Lecturer in Criminology, University of Central LancashireDaniel McCulloch, Lecturer in Criminology and Social Policy, The Open UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1510662020-12-08T16:06:21Z2020-12-08T16:06:21ZGood for business and good for society: how organisations can hire more ex-offenders<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373613/original/file-20201208-17-g2nl7g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">shutterstock ex cons working</span> </figcaption></figure><p>Walk down any high street in the UK and chances are you’ll find a Timpson key-cutting and shoe-repair outlet – and the person behind the counter may well be a former offender, as are 10% of its 4,500 employees.</p>
<p>“The reason why we recruit people from prison is because I’ve learned that it’s a really good way of finding amazing people,” chief executive James Timpson said in a <a href="https://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/insight/2020/key-business-ideas/">recent podcast</a>. “We’ve now got to the stage where 10% of my colleagues are people with prison experience. They are treated like everyone else: if they work really hard and do the right things they get promoted.”</p>
<p>These policies of the family-owned business, which calls its employees “colleagues” rather than “staff”, signal everyone’s equal importance. It also shows that finding “real” jobs, meaningful and sustained employment – not training courses, internships or work experiences without payment can reduce reoffending among people released from prison. Additionally, it can boost their self-esteem and benefit the firms that hire them.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, there aren’t enough companies like Timpson willing to go into what seems like completely new territory. <a href="https://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/insight/2020/when-phd-research-generates-timely-impact/">My ongoing research</a>, in which I have conducted over 50 interviews with employers and ex-offenders, looks into the practices of companies. It finds that this reluctance often reflects both misconceptions about hiring ex-offenders and misguided concerns that the process will be onerous.</p>
<h2>Misconceptions about hiring ex-offenders</h2>
<p>As with any group, some ex-offenders may lack the skills or qualifications for some jobs they want to pursue after prison. However, the much greater challenge is often employer misconception of why they should not hire people with a criminal past. My research revealed several misconceptions that posed barriers to hiring former prisoners.</p>
<p>The first was that hiring ex-offenders is “something very radical to do”. Employers implied that actively hiring people who had been to prison would be something out of the ordinary. However, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/aug/13/david-lammy-ex-offenders-should-have-the-chance-of-a-clean-slate">11 million people across the UK have a criminal conviction</a>, so working to provide jobs for this group should not be seen as an unusual activity.</p>
<p>The second misconception among employers was that hiring ex-offenders would be “very risky”, particularly for the company’s reputation. However, companies such as Timpson, Virgin Trains, Greggs and Pret a Manger who hire ex-offenders have been praised and are often evaluated favourably for this. <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/unlock-opportunity-employer-information-pack-and-case-studies/employing-prisoners-and-ex-offenders">A recent survey by the Ministry of Justice</a> showed that 92% of companies who actively hired former offenders saw their reputation rise because of it.</p>
<p>And the third was that employers often feel that hiring ex-offenders will be an extra burden. However, in practice, there are several relatively easy pathways to hire ex-offenders.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="Man wearing working boots standing in front of jail bars with work bag" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373615/original/file-20201208-21-1e43go5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/373615/original/file-20201208-21-1e43go5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373615/original/file-20201208-21-1e43go5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373615/original/file-20201208-21-1e43go5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373615/original/file-20201208-21-1e43go5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373615/original/file-20201208-21-1e43go5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/373615/original/file-20201208-21-1e43go5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">shutterstock jail working.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Ex-offenders entering into the workplace</h2>
<p>One pathway focuses on collaborations between employers and “re-entry organisations”. These can be charities or social enterprises that ease the transition of ex-offenders back into society through counselling, training and supporting the employment process. Organisations like <a href="https://www.cleansheet.org.uk">Clean Sheet</a>, <a href="https://www.offploy.org/">Offploy</a>, or <a href="https://tempusnovo.org/">Tempus Novo</a> act as agents for people with a criminal conviction, and some focus on particular industries. For employers new to hiring ex-offenders, re-entry organisations can help guide the process and advise on how to manage it, while also answering questions after the hiring process. </p>
<p>A second pathway is through working directly with prisons. Several of the companies I studied, often those that wanted to hire more frequently and employ larger numbers of staff (in construction, for example) mostly collaborated directly with their local prisons. Some prisons have dedicated staff responsible for interacting with employers by setting up interviews or entire job fair days. This pathway allows companies to directly meet a number of candidates face to face and provides a job from day one of leaving prison for ex-offenders.</p>
<p>A third pathway to hiring ex-offenders is for employers to redesign their hiring policies in a way that ex-offenders feel welcomed to apply, through normal means such as online job search and recruiting websites. Often, this involves a few simple tweaks: communicating on the company website that applications from ex-offenders are highly welcomed and that candidates will be judged on their skills alone, and not directly asking about criminal convictions during the hiring process.</p>
<p>Overall, the companies that I worked with have had overwhelmingly positive experiences with hiring ex-offenders, who often bring both skills and unique personalities to their new employers. Ex-offenders are usually also relieved to find employment, making them very committed to their new work. This leads them to, in many cases, stay longer than the average employee, resulting in higher retention rates and retention periods and in turn reduces recruitment costs for the employer. </p>
<p>For 2021, I would encourage more companies to get on board this movement and to reduce reoffending rates through life-changing opportunities for people with a criminal past. Hiring people with convictions is good for business, and good for society.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/151066/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jan Lodge receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council. </span></em></p>Hiring ex-offenders is good for business, and good for society.Jan Lodge, PhD Candidate in Organizational Theory, University of CambridgeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1513582020-12-03T18:38:48Z2020-12-03T18:38:48ZTrump plan to revive the gallows, electric chair, gas chamber and firing squad recalls a troubled history<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/372834/original/file-20201203-13-xkghzw.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=4%2C0%2C2991%2C2083&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Empty, but for how long?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/ExecutionAccess-History/84abe222995444d19e70c21723c311ca/photo?Query=electric%20AND%20chair&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=295&currentItemNo=95">AP File Photo</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The way the federal government can kill death row prisoners will soon be expanded to ghoulish methods that include hanging, the electric chair, gas chamber and the firing squad.</p>
<p>Set to take effect on Christmas Eve, the new regulations <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/doj-allows-firing-squad-execution/2020/11/27/a9b65e38-30eb-11eb-860d-f7999599cbc2_story.html">authorizing</a> an alternative to lethal injections – the method <a href="https://www.bop.gov/about/history/federal_executions.jsp">currently used in federal executions</a> – were announced by the Justice Department on Nov. 27.</p>
<p>The federal move follows the example of several states, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/5175a3250b0443eeb05071ef5a25b465">including Oklahoma and Tennessee</a>, that have revived alternative methods in the face of challenges to their lethal injection protocols and <a href="https://www.themarshallproject.org/2016/04/12/how-the-drug-shortage-has-slowed-the-death-penalty-treadmill">problems in the supply of drugs</a> needed in the process.</p>
<p>It is not clear whether the administration actually intends to employ the newly announced methods. It may only want to have them in reserve if any of the individuals scheduled for execution before January’s inauguration – five, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/25/politics/barr-trump-federal-executions/index.html">according to the Department of Justice</a> – should succeed in challenging the current execution protocol. </p>
<p>What is clear is that these new regulations send a message about the lengths the administration will go to kill as many death row inmates as possible before Joe Biden takes office and, as expected, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-prisons-inaugurations-coronavirus-pandemic-executions-365258989e6be8d7077b2f67d8c3e190">halts the federal death penalty</a>. </p>
<p>If the president and Department of Justice succeed in their plan, the period from July 14, 2020, the date of the first of Trump’s federal executions, through January 20, 2021 will be <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/25/us/politics/executions-firing-squads-electrocution.html">the deadliest</a> in the history of federal capital punishment in nearly a century.</p>
<p>As someone who has studied <a href="https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=23979">execution methods in the U.S.</a>, I see in the new regulations echoes of a troubled history of less-than-perfect execution methods. </p>
<p>To grasp their full significance, it is necessary to look at the record of hanging, the electric chair, the gas chamber and firing squads. Each of them has been touted as humane only to be sidelined because its use was found to be gruesome and offensive. Given that history, there are questions over whether the administration’s plans serve any purpose other than continuing a death penalty system deemed to be a cruel outlier among modern societies.</p>
<h2>The noose and the chair</h2>
<p>Let’s start with hanging.</p>
<p>Hanging was the execution method of choice throughout most of American history, and it was used in America’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rr67aYbaHzQ">last public execution</a> in 1936, when Rainey Bethea was put to death in Owensboro, Kentucky. When done correctly, the noose <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/06/a-brief-history-of-american-executions/392270/">killed by severing the spinal column</a>, causing near instantaneous death.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/372829/original/file-20201203-21-11r1ask.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/372829/original/file-20201203-21-11r1ask.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372829/original/file-20201203-21-11r1ask.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372829/original/file-20201203-21-11r1ask.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=455&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372829/original/file-20201203-21-11r1ask.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=572&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372829/original/file-20201203-21-11r1ask.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=572&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372829/original/file-20201203-21-11r1ask.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=572&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Crowds watch as attendants adjust a black hood over Rainey Bethea.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/ExecutionAccess-History/77a90efd8d0447a18168e93ebaf6789b/photo?Query=Rainey%20AND%20Bethea&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=8&currentItemNo=1">AP File Photo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But, all too often, hanging resulted in a slow death by strangulation and sometimes even a beheading. Given this gruesome record and <a href="https://www.legendsofamerica.com/ah-lynching/">hanging’s association with the lynching of mainly Black men</a>, by the end of the 19th century the search for other execution methods began in earnest.</p>
<p>The first of those alternatives was the electric chair. At the time it was adopted, it was regarded as a truly modern instrument of death, a technological marvel in the business of state killing. Hailed by penal reformers as a humane alternative to hanging, the electric chair was first <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/116966/executioners-current-by-richard-moran/">authorized</a> in 1888 by New York state following the <a href="https://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/a25689/gerry-commission-report-methods-of-execution/">report of a commission</a> that <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/983796?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents">concluded</a>, “The most potent agent known for the destruction of human life is electricity…The velocity of the electric current is so great that the brain is paralyzed; it is indeed dead before the nerves can communicate a sense of shock.”</p>
<p>Yet, right from the start, electrocution’s potency was a problem. Its first use in the 1890 execution of convicted murderer William Kemmler <a href="https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/news/125-years-ago-first-execution-using-electric-chair-was-botched">was horribly botched</a>. <a href="https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/stories/botched-executions-in-american-history#:%7E:text=On%20August%206%2C%201890%2C%20New%20York%20executed%20William%20Kemmler.&text=Then%20Kemmler%20let%20out%20a,2%20of%20the%20witnesses%20fainted.">Reports of the execution</a> say that “After 2 minutes the execution chamber filled with the smell of burning flesh.” Newspapers called the execution a “historic bungle” and “disgusting, sickening and inhuman.” </p>
<p>In spite of the Kemmler debacle, the electric chair <a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/116966/executioners-current-by-richard-moran/">quickly became popular</a>, being seen as more efficient and less brutal than hanging. From the start of the 20th century until the 1980s, the number of death sentences carried out by this method far outstripped those of any other method.</p>
<p>But electrocutions continued to go wrong, and eventually several dramatic botched executions in Florida helped turn the tide. Included were two executions, one in 1990, the other in 1997, in which the condemned inmates <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1999/11/18/us/florida-s-messy-executions-put-the-electric-chair-on-trial.html">caught fire</a>.</p>
<h2>The gas chamber</h2>
<p>By the start of the 21st century, states all over the country were abandoning the electric chair. As Justice Carol W. Hunstein of the Supreme Court of Georgia <a href="https://caselaw.findlaw.com/ga-supreme-court/1216340.html">explained</a>, “Death by electrocution, with its specter of excruciating pain and its certainty of cooked brains and blistered bodies,” was no longer compatible with contemporary standards of decency.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/372831/original/file-20201203-13-g4vm1w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/372831/original/file-20201203-13-g4vm1w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=591&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372831/original/file-20201203-13-g4vm1w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=591&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372831/original/file-20201203-13-g4vm1w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=591&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372831/original/file-20201203-13-g4vm1w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=743&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372831/original/file-20201203-13-g4vm1w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=743&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372831/original/file-20201203-13-g4vm1w.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=743&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A gas chamber at San Quentin prison from 1959.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/SanQuentinGasChamber1959/cff0724541f6411f9381056ce9b9a5c4/photo?Query=gas%20chamber%20prison&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=51&currentItemNo=48">AP Photo/Clarence Hamm</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>One alternative to electrocution was the gas chamber, but it too has its own <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Last-Gasp-Rise-American-Chamber/dp/0520271211">history of problems</a>. First adopted in Nevada in 1922, executions using lethal gas were to take place while the condemned slept. Death row inmates were supposed to be housed in airtight, leak-proof prison cells, separate from other prisoners. On the day of the execution, valves would be opened that would fill the chamber with gas, killing the prisoner painlessly.</p>
<p>This plan was soon abandoned because officials decided it would be impractical to implement it, and states constructed special gas chambers fitted with pipes, exhaust fans and glass windows on the front and back walls for witness viewing. But deaths by lethal gas were never pretty or easy to watch.</p>
<p>Inmates regularly fought against breathing the gas as it entered the chamber. They convulsed, jerked, coughed, twisted and turned blue for several minutes before they died.</p>
<p>Far from solving the problems associated with hangings or electrocutions, lethal gas introduced its own set of horrors to the institution of capital punishment. In fact, by the end of the 20th century, <a href="https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=23979">5% of executions by lethal gas had been botched</a>. </p>
<p>As a result, states used gas as the sole method of execution only from 1924 to 1977, and it was last used in 1999. By then, the gas chamber had become a relic of the past because of its <a href="https://news.law.fordham.edu/blog/2016/02/21/return-of-the-gas-chamber/">inability to deliver on its promise to be “swift and painless”</a> and its association with the Nazi use of gas to kill millions during the Holocaust.</p>
<h2>The firing sqaud</h2>
<p>Finally, the firing squad. Of all of America’s methods of execution, it has been least often used. From 1900 to 2010, only 35 of America’s 8,776 executions were carried out using this method, and since 1976 just <a href="https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/executions/methods-of-execution">three people have faced a firing squad</a>, with the last one carried out in Utah in 2010.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/372832/original/file-20201203-21-4vl6ns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/372832/original/file-20201203-21-4vl6ns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372832/original/file-20201203-21-4vl6ns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372832/original/file-20201203-21-4vl6ns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372832/original/file-20201203-21-4vl6ns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372832/original/file-20201203-21-4vl6ns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/372832/original/file-20201203-21-4vl6ns.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The execution chamber at Utah State Prison used in the U.S.’s last firing squad execution.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/FiringSquad-Appeal/607069faa7ea4355b6a0646ff1f0efdd/photo?Query=firing%20squad%20prison&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=197&currentItemNo=11">AP Photo/Trent Nelson, Pool, File</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Critics point out that because death by guns evokes images of raw, frontier justice in a society awash in gun violence, this method mimicked something that the law wished to discourage. Nonetheless, Utah <a href="https://www.npr.org/2015/04/05/397672199/utah-brings-back-firing-squad-executions-witnesses-recall-the-last-one">revived the firing squad</a> in 2015 due to challenges to the state’s lethal injection protocol.</p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>While it has some <a href="https://repository.law.umich.edu/mjlr/vol49/iss4/1/">contemporary proponents</a> who claim it is the least cruel of all execution methods, the history of the firing squad is marked by <a href="https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/stories/botched-executions-in-american-history">gruesome mistakes when marksmen missed their target</a>. In the 1951 execution of Eliseo Mares, for example, four executioners all shot into the wrong side of his chest, and he died slowly from blood loss.</p>
<h2>A cruel history, revived</h2>
<p>While Trump’s Department of Justice is now holding out the prospect of using these previously discredited methods of execution, it cannot erase the cruelty that marks their history. That history stands as a reminder of America’s failed quest to find a method of execution that is safe, reliable and humane.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/151358/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Austin Sarat does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The Justice Department has approved alternatives to lethal injections for federal executions. But no method of capital punishment has been without gruesome stories of what went wrong.Austin Sarat, Associate Provost and Associate Dean of the Faculty and Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science, Amherst CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1455132020-09-15T11:54:04Z2020-09-15T11:54:04ZDisaster work is often carried out by prisoners – who get paid as little as 14 cents an hour despite dangers<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/357746/original/file-20200912-24-1oc0vvk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C3494%2C2326&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Prisoners clearing vegetation to prevent the spread of a wildfire in Yucaipa, California</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/inmate-firefighters-from-oak-glen-conservation-camp-clear-news-photo/860663322?adppopup=true">David McNew/AFP via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Efforts to beat back wildfires <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/09/12/912304025/wildfires-latest-helpful-weather-oregon-official-warns-of-mass-fatality-incident">ravaging Western states in the U.S.</a> have been hampered this year by depleted numbers of “<a href="https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2015/09/28/firefighting-inmates-in-california-fill-a-void-gain-a-lot/">orange angels</a>” – incarcerated workers deployed as firefighters.</p>
<p>Their lower numbers coincide with the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/22/us/california-wildfires-prisoners.html">early release for eligible prisoners</a> and the quarantining of others to combat the spread of COVID-19.</p>
<p>The potential impact that having fewer prisoners to draw upon highlights the crucial role that incarcerated workers play in disaster response. While many people are aware that prisoners work to <a href="http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/11/25/fire-and-punishmentinmatefirefightersonthefrontlines.html">help contain wildfires in California and elsewhere</a>, less well known is the role incarcerated workers play as a labor source across a variety of disasters throughout the country.</p>
<p>As a social scientist, I study the impact of disasters on incarcerated populations. I recently <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/rhc3.12191">co-authored a study</a> on the role of incarcerated workers in state emergency operations plans – the primary emergency planning documents for state governments. We found that 30 out of the 47 states analyzed, including California, Texas and Florida, had explicit instructions to use prisoners for emergencies and disasters. Furthermore, we identified at least 34 disaster-related tasks that states assign to incarcerated workers. Delaware, New Jersey and Tennessee were not included in our analysis as their plans were not publicly available.</p>
<p>These include work that requires minimal training such as making sandbags, clearing debris, handling supplies and caring for pets for evacuees. But it also includes roles that require specialized training like fighting fires, collecting and disposing contaminated animal carcasses and cleaning up hazardous materials.</p>
<p>Some of these tasks put incarcerated workers at risk of injury or ill health.</p>
<h2>14 cents an hour</h2>
<p>Prison systems have long championed the work of incarcerated persons in emergencies and disasters as a demonstration of the value of prisons to local communities and the state. </p>
<p>State prison systems often have internal policies that guide the use of incarcerated persons to assist with disaster operations. For example, the Alabama Department of Corrections’ <a href="http://www.doc.alabama.gov/docs/AdminRegs/AR010.pdf">administrative regulations</a> dictate that in the event of a disaster, “the major support of the [department] will be manpower” including the use of “inmate labor.”</p>
<p>In addition, state laws across the U.S. often specifically state that incarcerated workers may be assigned to work in disaster conditions. </p>
<p>For example, Georgia allows for incarcerated workers to be <a href="http://rules.sos.state.ga.us/GAC/125-3-5-.04?urlRedirected=yes&data=admin&lookingfor=125-3-5-.04">required to work in conditions that may jeopardize their health</a> if an emergency threatens the lives of others or of public property. Meanwhile Colorado passed legislation in 1998 that created the <a href="https://www.colorado.gov/pacific/cdoc/news/canon-city-swift-responds-wyoming-fire">Inmate Disaster Relief Program</a> under which the state can “form a labor pool” to “fight forest fires, help with flood relief, and assist in the prevention of or clean up after other natural or man-made disasters.”</p>
<p>As with wildfire programs, incarcerated workers are looked to in times of disaster primarily because they are a low-cost substitution for civilian workers. Incarcerated workers are <a href="https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2017/04/10/wages/">paid very low wages</a> averaging between US$0.14 and $0.63 an hour. And some states, including Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia and Texas, don’t pay incarcerated workers at all. </p>
<p>The cost of inmate labor is offset through federal subsidies. FEMA’s <a href="https://www.fema.gov/sites/default/files/2020-06/fema_public-assistance-program-and-policy-guide_v4_6-1-2020.pdf">public assistance program</a> provides states with “funding for prisoner transportation to the worksite and extraordinary costs of security guards, food and lodging.” This provides a significant financial incentive to use incarcerated workers for disaster labor. After Hurricane Michael in 2018, FEMA awarded the Florida Department of Corrections $311,305 for <a href="https://www.fema.gov/news-release/20200220/fema-awards-more-2m-public-assistance-grants">debris removal</a>.</p>
<h2>Forced labor</h2>
<p>Not all disaster work is voluntary for incarcerated persons. The <a href="https://www.history.com/news/13th-amendment-slavery-loophole-jim-crow-prisons">13th Amendment</a> to the U.S. Constitution allows for incarcerated persons to be compelled to participate in labor without their consent as part of their punishment. That applies to disaster work too.</p>
<p>The Constitution’s <a href="https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-constitution/amendment/amendment-viii">Eighth Amendment</a> “forbids knowingly compelling an inmate to perform labor that is beyond the inmate’s strength, dangerous to his or her life or health, or unduly painful.” However, in the context of disasters, it is challenging to know whether or not the situation or the environment is truly safe. And little is known about the training prisoners receive.</p>
<p>If incarcerated persons refuse to participate, they <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/09/prison-labor-in-america/406177/#:%7E:text=With%20few%20exceptions%2C%20inmates%20are,hour%2C%20if%20anything%20at%20all.">may face serious consequences</a>, such as being sent to solitary confinement, the loss of earned time off their sentences or the loss of family visitation. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.nfpa.org/%2F-%2Fmedia/Files/News-and-Research/Fire-statistics-and-reports/Emergency-responders/osFFF.pdf">Deaths of incarcerated firefighters are reported</a> alongside those of civilian firefighters, and there is no way to accurately track the number of prisoners who have died or been injured during disaster-related work. However, there are known examples of fatalities. In 2003, the South Dakota Department of Corrections <a href="https://doc.sd.gov/adult/work/emergency.aspx">“Emergency Response Inmate Work Program”</a> was scrutinized after a 22-year-old man, Neil Ambrose, was <a href="https://rapidcityjournal.com/news/state-and-regional/family-of-electrocuted-inmate-sues/article_823fa55d-68a5-56ce-b3fa-4cbf9288b245.html">electrocuted</a> by a downed power line while cleaning up debris after a storm.</p>
<p>[<em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>.]</p>
<p>Ambrose <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/rhc3.12191">reportedly expressed prior concerns</a> about the hazardous work but was told he would be charged with “disrupting a work zone” and would be sent to solitary confinement if he did not participate. Later, the correctional officer in charge of Ambrose and those on the work crew was <a href="https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-8th-circuit/1035052.html">found responsible</a> for his death in that he knew the downed power line was a safety threat. It was also later shown that the only training Ambrose had received was a short video on safely operating chainsaws.</p>
<h2>Exploitation and harm</h2>
<p>Some advocates for prisoners’ rights have begun drawing attention to the vulnerability of incarcerated workers in disasters. After Hurricane Harvey in 2017, the NAACP Environmental and Climate Justice program published a guidebook called <a href="https://naacp.org/climate-justice-resources/in-the-eye-of-the-storm/">“In the Eye of the Storm”</a> to help communities make disaster response and recovery processes more equitable. The guidebook includes suggestions for how to advocate specifically for worker protections for incarcerated persons. Community members are encouraged to ask about whether the incarcerated workers have received relevant training and adequate protective equipment and if their participation in the work is voluntary.</p>
<p>Incarcerated workers are deeply embedded throughout emergency management in the United States. Yet so much attention remains focused on the most visible and well-known programs, their role – and the potential for exploitation and harm – in many other disasters remains overlooked.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/145513/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>J. Carlee Purdum does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Relying on incarcerated workers in emergencies such as the wildfires ravaging parts of the US is a cheap alternative for states. But what protections are there for prisoners?J. Carlee Purdum, Research Assistant Professor, Texas A&M UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1451412020-08-28T11:00:24Z2020-08-28T11:00:24ZHurricane Katrina gave former prisoners a fresh start in new cities – how to give more people this route out of crime<p>Hurricane Laura’s landfall on the coasts of Louisiana and Texas came just as New Orleans prepared to mark the 15th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, and with the region already reeling from the coronavirus pandemic. For many, the wounds of the COVID-19 disaster and now Hurricane Laura are all too reminiscent of the way the US handled the devastation of Katrina. </p>
<p>Just as we are now, in 2005 we reimagined the future of society. As my <a href="https://global.oup.com/academic/product/home-free-9780190841232?cc=gb&lang=en&">15-year study</a> of post-Katrina New Orleans shows, Katrina offered lessons about how to design a more just and effective criminal justice system. We would be wise to finally heed them. </p>
<p>Because of the focus on investing in police and prisons to address the problem of crime in the US, to the neglect of housing, job training, and mental health and addiction treatment, the country has largely set former prisoners up to fail. Unsurprisingly, for decades, roughly 50% of formerly incarcerated individuals have been sent back to prison within just three years of release and almost <a href="https://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=pbdetail&iid=4986">70% are rearrested</a>. Prisons are overflowing not so much with first-time offenders, but with people who return again and again.</p>
<p>At the point of release, because of limited housing options and restrictive parole policies, the formerly incarcerated tend to funnel right back to their old neighbourhoods. Returning home often means returning to the same environment with the same criminal opportunities and criminal peers that proved so detrimental prior to incarceration. </p>
<p>This was the story of numerous people I interviewed as part of my study, including one man from New Orleans named Vernon. He’d go to prison and eventually exit with a sincere intention to change. After the third of his four imprisonments, he found God, devoted himself to religion, attended drug treatment, and made a legitimate commitment to change. But just like the times before, he fell victim to the temptations of his old environment, relapsed into active addiction, and ended up back in prison. He followed a similar pattern after his fourth incarceration.</p>
<p>Hurricane Katrina then struck, and Vernon was forced to leave New Orleans behind. He has avoided crime and drugs ever since. </p>
<h2>A fresh start</h2>
<p>One prominent strand of thought in criminology is that crime is <a href="https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/full/10.1146/annurev-criminol-032317-092421">situational</a>: certain situations and social contexts are more likely to breed it. Change someone’s situation, and the outcome may be different.</p>
<p>To test this idea and to make sense of why Vernon’s life changed, I compared reincarceration rates of every prisoner originally from the New Orleans metropolitan area who was released in the first six months after Hurricane Katrina to every New Orleans prisoner released a few years prior to Katrina. Because the tragedy of Katrina forced many people to move to new cities who otherwise would not have moved, we got a glimpse into the alternate reality of their lives – a natural experiment for social scientists.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355163/original/file-20200827-20-1o2rino.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Map of severe damage caused by Hurricane Katrina to New Orleans." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355163/original/file-20200827-20-1o2rino.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/355163/original/file-20200827-20-1o2rino.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355163/original/file-20200827-20-1o2rino.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355163/original/file-20200827-20-1o2rino.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355163/original/file-20200827-20-1o2rino.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355163/original/file-20200827-20-1o2rino.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/355163/original/file-20200827-20-1o2rino.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Map of severe damage caused by Hurricane Katrina to New Orleans.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">US Department of Housing and Urban Development</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It turns out that those people who were forced to move elsewhere because of the hurricane were much less likely to be subsequently reincarcerated than their pre-Katrina counterparts who went back home. In the first eight years after their release, an estimated 46% of the people who moved to a different parish were reincarcerated at some point, still a high percentage but much less than the staggering 59% reincarcerated among those who returned home. </p>
<p>Distance was key in order to provide a true change in circumstances. Moving a short distance to the next neighbourhood over did not reduce reoffending nearly as effectively as moving to an entirely different city or parish. </p>
<p>In a later study, I sought to replicate the results of my Katrina study, without a hurricane. I ran an experimental pilot housing programme in the Maryland prison system called MOVE <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s11292-017-9317-z">(Maryland Opportunities through Vouchers Experiment)</a>. </p>
<p>We provided six months of free housing, privately funded through a research grant, to people who had been newly-released from prison, with the housing located in a different county from their former home. They were free to live alone or with family members, and we increased the value of support for people living with dependent children in order to offset the cost of a larger dwelling. </p>
<p>The combination of free and stable housing and a new environment had a substantial effect. Only 25% of our participants were rearrested within one year of their release from prison, compared to 57% in a control group who returned to their former counties without any kind of housing assistance.</p>
<h2>How to pay for rehousing</h2>
<p>But how could we pay for housing programmes for former prisoners? Even before the current financial crisis, only <a href="https://www.cbpp.org/research/housing/chart-book-federal-housing-spending-is-poorly-matched-to-need">about a quarter</a> of all families eligible for federal rental assistance, such as housing vouchers or public housing, actually received it. </p>
<p>One answer is a long-discussed criminal justice strategy: <a href="https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-criminol-011419-041407">justice reinvestment</a>. The idea is simple – redirect a portion of the savings from the reduced use of incarceration to pay for housing for newly released prisoners. </p>
<p>It turns out that it is much cheaper to house someone on the outside than it is on the inside. It costs well over <a href="https://www.vera.org/publications/price-of-prisons-2015-state-spending-trends">US$100 a day</a> in many states to incarcerate someone. In contrast, according to the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, the fair market rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Baltimore, the site of my MOVE programme, is <a href="https://www.huduser.gov/portal/datasets/fmr/fmrs/FY2020_code/select_Geography.odn">US$1,105 per month</a>. At around US$37 per day that’s about a third of the cost of prison. The savings could also pay for support services such as drug treatment, cognitive behavioural therapy and job counselling.</p>
<p>As the movement to defund the police <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2020/08/13/austin-city-council-cut-police-budget-defund/">progresses</a> and alternative strategies to address public safety are being considered besides the police and prisons, investment in housing should be a key priority. At a time when cost-beneficial public spending is essential for the recovery from the pandemic, over-reliance on costly and, in many cases, unjust criminal justice practices is not sound policy.</p>
<p><em>* Names have been changed in this article to protect the anonymity of the research participants.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/145141/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Kirk received funding from the US National Institutes of Health for the purposes of this research. Findings and conclusions expressed are solely the author's. </span></em></p>Research shows supporting newly released prisoners to move to a new area can slash reincarceration rates.David Kirk, Professor of Sociology, University of OxfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.