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Correctional library staff are essential to fulfilling the rehabilitative mission of prisons, but their work is too often misunderstood and neglected. The Colorado Department of Corrections (CDOC) Libraries have a 272% turnover rate and struggle with many long-term vacancies. Despite being the lowest-paid staff in CDOC, library staff are asked to fulfill two distinct sets of responsibilities: that of running a library, and facility safety and security tasks.

Based upon original research, the Colorado State Library (CSL) has created a standard for minimum staffing levels for CDOC Libraries and a formula that can be applied no matter what service model a correctional library uses. CSL has found that to improve recruitment and retention of its library staff, CDOC needs to (1) improve pay and the librarian promotional path by changing staff to a class series which more appropriately reflects the job duties and level of decision-making and (2) create more library staff positions statewide in order to meet the minimum staffing levels.

The number of prisoners over 55 years is increasing and many are at risk of developing dementia. This has generated new responsibilities for prisons to provide health and social care for older persons. The purpose of this paper is to synthesize the existing research literature regarding the phenomenon of the health and social care needs of older persons living with dementia in correctional settings.

Using an integrative review method based on Whittemore and Knafl, the inclusion criteria for the review are: articles written in English; a focus on some form of dementia and/or older persons with discussion of dementia; to be set in a correctional context (correctional facility, prison and jail); be derived from a published peer-reviewed journal or unpublished dissertation/thesis; and be a qualitative, quantitative or mixed methods study. Based on those criteria, a search strategy was developed and executed by a health sciences librarian in the following databases: Medline, CINAHL, Embase, PsychINFO, Proquest Nursing and Allied Health and Web of Science; searches were completed up to April 2019. After data were extracted from included studies, synthesis of findings involved an iterative process where thematic analysis was facilitated by Braun and Clarke’s approach.

Eight studies met the inclusion criteria. Key findings of the eight studies include recognition of dementia as a concern for correctional populations, dementia-related screening and programming for older persons and recommendations for improved screening and care practices. Most significant is the paucity of research available on this topic. Implications for research are discussed.

This paper identified and synthesizes the limited existing international research on the health and social care needs of older persons with dementia living in correctional settings. Although existing research is scant, this review highlights the need for increased awareness of dementia as a concern among older persons living in correctional settings. As well, the review findings emphasize that enhanced screening and interventions, particularly tailored approaches, are imperative to support those living with dementia in correctional settings.

The purpose of this paper is to apply a feminist perspective to the crisis in prison higher education in the US by exploring whether gender shapes access to on‐site, non‐occupational college programs in state prisons differently for women than for men.

The paper utilized a content analysis of official US state departments of correction websites and an email survey of state directors of education.

Findings show that while both women and men had little access to on‐site, non‐occupational college programming in the 2005‐2006 academic year, women in state prison had slightly greater access than men.

Theoretical implications of the findings include the importance of focusing a gender lens on correctional education programming, as well as the importance of extending analysis beyond gender alone towards an analysis of the intersections of gender, race, and class inequalities on access to prison higher education.

Practical implications include the identification of an emergent educational justice movement in the USA, and the presentation of exploratory data on the current college‐in‐prison programs useful for progressive activists, policymakers, correctional education administrators, equity scholars, and others interested in organizing around democratic access to postsecondary correctional education.

As there is little current research on college‐in‐prison programs in the US, and less on the gendered dimensions of program access, the paper makes an original valuable contribution to several literatures.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the fusion of psy-correctional discourse with the dominant risk logic to consider the implication this nexus can have on how self-injurious behaviour committed by women in prison is interpreted and responded to by the Correctional Service Canada (CSC).

The central focus of the study is an in-depth case analysis of the carceral death of Ashley Smith, a 19-year-old woman who committed suicide in her segregation cell in 2007 after enduring four years of excessively punitive treatment aimed at controlling her self-injurious behaviour.

Findings illustrate how the fusion of these logics creates a kind of “therapeutic-risk cloak” that reframes the behaviour as “abnormal” and “risky”, which masks the punitivity of strip search and segregation interventions in the name of safety, security and treatment.

Given that correctional officials knowingly failed to intervene when Smith tied the fatal ligature around her neck, a federal inquiry judged her death to be a homicide. By attempting to unveil the “therapeutic-risk cloak” the authors hope to challenge the underlying logic of CSC’s governance and management framework, which not only denies the oppressive gendered carceral reality that is linked to self-injurious behaviour amongst women prisoners, but is also used to justify intervention responses that exacerbate the very behaviour this framework aims to control. Until systemic transformation is achieved that eradicates CSC’s contradictory governance framework, there is no doubt that the authors will continue to see similar preventable deaths take place in prison.

The purpose of this paper is to examine characteristics of gang organization in youth correctional facilities as reported by youth and staff as well as to analyze the relationship between institutional violence and level of gang organization.

The data were collected through interviews with staff and youth in correctional facilities. Gang organization level averages are compared across youth and official perspectives, and the variability of responses among youth is also examined. Negative binomial regression models are conducted to determine the association between perceived level of gang organization and officially recorded violent behavior, both prior to and subsequent to the interview.

Perceptions of institutional gang organization vary notably depending on who is reporting. In contrast with prior studies of street gangs, controlling for youth demographics and offense characteristics, the authors find no significant relationship between gang organization and violence.

The sample size is small and the data are cross-sectional. Future studies will need to be conducted in order to confirm these findings, as they contradict prior studies. The analysis of street gang organization may need to be approached differently by scholars.

Research has not been conducted on the organizational structure of gangs in youth correctional facilities or its relationship to institutional violence.

Incarcerated transgender women often require healthcare to meet their physical-, mental-, and gender transition-related health needs; however, their healthcare experiences in prisons and jails and interactions with correctional healthcare providers are understudied. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

In 2015, 20 transgender women who had been incarcerated in the USA within the past five years participated in semi-structured interviews about their healthcare experiences while incarcerated.

Participants described an institutional culture in which their feminine identity was not recognized and the ways in which institutional policies acted as a form of structural stigma that created and reinforced the gender binary and restricted access to healthcare. While some participants attributed healthcare barriers to providers’ transgender bias, others attributed barriers to providers’ limited knowledge or inexperience caring for transgender patients. Whether due to institutional (e.g. sex-segregated prisons, biased culture) or interpersonal factors (e.g. biased or inexperienced providers), insufficient access to physical-, mental-, and gender transition-related healthcare negatively impacted participants’ health while incarcerated.

Findings highlight the need for interventions that target multi-level barriers to care in order to improve incarcerated transgender women’s access to quality, gender-affirmative healthcare.

This study provides first-hand accounts of how multi-level forces serve to reinforce the gender binary and negatively impact the health of incarcerated transgender women. Findings also describe incarcerated transgender women’s acts of resistance against institutional and interpersonal efforts to maintain the gender binary and present participant-derived recommendations to improve access to gender affirmative healthcare for incarcerated transgender women.

Despite the volumes that have been written on America's correctional crisis – the peerless incarceration rate, disproportionate confinement of minority group members and democratically untenable policies of disenfranchisement of people with felony convictions – criminal justice policy has changed little within the past decade or more. An important voice has been left out of these correctional policy formulations – that of prisoners. This paper proposes convict labor unions as one way to address this issue. It utilizes the United States Supreme Court majority's arguments in Jones v. North Carolina to assess the feasibility of inmate labor unions in light of current federal, state and local institutional operations; and provides a very tentative outline of how a prisoners’ labor union could be structured and function – exploring the potential democratic ramifications of such unions for corrections and in broader social policy.

The purpose of this study is to systematically review the recent empirical literature on job stress and burnout among prison staff with a focus on predictors, outcomes of stress and burnout and the mediating role that stress and burnout can play between its predictors and outcomes.

The authors followed systematic literature review (SLR) protocols for the social sciences, and searches were done on two large research databases: SCOPUS and Web of Science. Articles included in the study were from January 2015 to March 2020. After the screening and eligibility processes, 48 articles met the inclusion/exclusion criteria, and 33 articles were included in the full-text qualitative analysis.

Characteristics of the samples, main authors and journals and measures used to assess stress and burnout are presented, showing that most research was done in the USA, with cross-sectional studies using similar measures of stress and burnout. Results from the qualitative analysis were organised around the main research questions. Most studies explored the antecedents of stress and burnout in the context of the job demands – resources model. Common predictors that consistently increase stress and burnout among different samples include perceived dangerousness of the job and work–family conflict. Participation in decision-making and social support consistently decrease job stress.

This paper presents a SLR on stress and burnout among prison officers in a pre-COVID-19 pandemic era, providing an important picture of the published scientific research on the topic as well as implications for theory and practice.

Previous studies suggest that the care for elderly prisoners is a growing problem. The emerging phenomenon such as the correctional ageing crisis is an urgent concern that needs to be collectively and holistically addressed from a multi-sectoral perspective. In a developing country, like the Philippines, where prison congestion is alarming, the need for more empirical investigations that probe into the prison life and services is warranted to better inform penal policy and practice that would improve health outcomes among incarcerated individuals. The purpose of this study is to examine the extent to which depression among Filipino elderly prisoners shape their food choices.

A survey of 160 Filipino elderly prisoners of age 60 and above from October to November 2018 was conducted using a three-part research instrument, which consists of a personal and nutrition-related checklist, 15-point geriatric depression scale and a set of cards that were ranked and sorted through the balanced incomplete block design.

Results of the survey were subjected to conjoint analysis and structural equation modeling using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences 24. Interestingly, taste was the most considered attribute (30.765%) while portion size (9.759%) is the least considered by the Filipino elderly prisoners. Notably, depression has a significant positive effect on their food preferences in all attributes except portion size.

This study was limited to two prison settings in the Philippines. Considering the results from the conjoint analysis, strategies can be developed in designing an individualized meal plan suitable for the needs of each elderly prisoner. Also, sizeable government appropriations should be in place to ensure the nutritional quality of food served to aging Filipino prisoners.

Provisions for a pool of nutritionists working hand in hand with other health members would guarantee a prison system that promotes the overall well-being of each prisoner. Further, this study can contribute valuable inputs in the menu cycle practice of prisons in the country. There may be a need to prioritize the nutritional aspect of these vulnerable and deprived groups so as to promote a better quality of life among elderly prisoners. Also, other forms of psychosocial, physical and spiritual health activities extended to elderly prisoners may prevent depressive symptoms.

Conjoint analysis is remarkably gaining prominence in not only the health-care setting (Phillips et al., 2002; Ryan and Farrar, 2000) but also the field of nutrition. It holds a number of unique and practical promises to prison settings.

The purpose of this study is to present evidence for a new model of change management designed to create a continuous integrated alignment between ongoing external organizational change and the proven internal environmental factors related to employee emotional wellness and workplace engagement that in turn directly impact organizational performance relationships within society and the human condition.

This research uses a quantitative approach based on both primary and secondary data. The secondary data includes an analysis of the 2018 Public Service Employee Survey of Canada (N = 163,121) conducted by the Government of Canada while the primary data involves a 2018 employee survey conducted by the author of both civilian and sworn police officer employees with the British Columbia division of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (N = 2,129) as well as a 2019 survey by the author of Corrections Officers at the Kent Maximum Security Institution in Agassiz, British Columbia (N = 174).

The key findings presented in this paper provide new evidence that correlations between key organizational workplace factors and employee wellness and performance are directly linked to the ability to address rapidly evolving external environmental factors; that traditional change management approaches are often insufficient to create a positive nexus between the results of environmental scanning and internal workplace environments; and that a new holistic model described in this paper can serve as a powerful diagnostic tool for change managers to identify how internal organizational structures, systems and climates can harmonize with external climates including societal expectations, economic and technological change and public policy.

The research findings pertain to about 100,000 employees of the Canadian public service and their readiness to manage well-established external environmental factors based on their rating of key internal environmental factors rated to workplace wellness and employee emotional health. Further research on the topic of external/internal organizational change adaptability is required specific to private sector organizations.

The practical implications of the change management matrix diagnostic model have been proven in earlier beta testing with a group of organizational executives. The presentation of the data in the matrix format resulted in quick and clear identification of major areas of required change. Those changes resulted in improved service delivery, public safety and public trust. A second test was conducted by MBA students successfully applying the matrix model to identify key areas requiring change in various case studies.

Society at present has many new expectations of organizational behavior and citizenship as rapid changes in external environments occur including changes to technology, corporate governance, communications, economic conditions, social values, demographics and public policy. A failure by organizations to ensure that their internal environments of corporate culture, structure, systems and the workplace climate are in sync with external change presents major threats to employee and social well-being and organizational success.

A unique model of organizational change management is presented that allows for successfully adapting internal organizational environments to the challenges of meeting rapidly advancing integrated external environmental forces. The result becomes an integrated ecosystem of external and internal environmental forces that offer adaptability to complex and evolving challenges ranging from social, economic, technological and climate change.