Search results

The purpose of this paper is to explore the conditions that create a “good” prison visit, focussing on the role that a dedicated third sector-run prison visitors’ centre plays in creating a supportive environment.

This paper draws on a synthesis of empirical data gathering conducted over a decade at a voluntary sector-managed prison visitors’ centre based at a male prison in Northern England. The paper draws specifically on qualitative data gathered through four independent evaluations of the centre over a ten-year period.

An important point to emerge from the research is the unwavering importance of the prison visit in the life, well-being and regime of a prisoner. Prison visitors’ centres are shown to be an important part of creating positive visits experiences offering a space for composure and for support for families.

Many voluntary sector organisations are unable to commission large research and evaluation studies, but are often able to fund smaller pieces of work. Pooling qualitative evidence from smaller studies is a viable way to potentially strengthen commissioning decisions in this sector.

The purpose of this study was to expand available knowledge on predictors of male inmate violence by examining a large set of variables offered by the importation, deprivation and threat appraisal and coping theories.

A total of 465 male inmates from five medium-security prisons in Wisconsin completed surveys to report demographics, violence, personality, social stressors and healthy coping behaviors to help manage risk by identifying key factors.

Inmates reported more violence with the “imported” characteristics of younger age, less incarceration, no college experience and personality patterns of impulsiveness, hostility and internal locus of control. More violence was reported by inmates with social stressors experienced from family and correctional staff. Additionally, less violence was reported by inmates with more healthy coping behaviors of exercise and social support, especially from family and other inmates.

One must remain uncertain about whether similar patterns of demographics, personality, social stressors and coping behaviors associated with inmate violence would be found in other US prisons. Future research can determine whether similar predictors of violence are found for women inmates and the consideration of ethnicity should be warranted when examining predictors of inmate violence.

Prison administrators can develop new programs to reduce social stressors and increase healthy coping behaviors found by this study to be significantly associated with reduced violence, exercise and social support from other inmates and family.

This research recommends that educating and training correctional staff for a trauma-informed care approach is an integral part of lessening the effects of “pains of imprisonment” on inmate violence and healing the effects of trauma.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this study provides the first direct comparison of social stressors from other inmates, correctional staff or family members outside the prison as possible predictors of male inmate violence.

The aims of this paper are to determine the state of visiting for women in the English prison system and to explore the relationship between women's mental health and visits in prison.

For the purpose of this paper the authors conducted a review of the literature. All literature published from 1983 onwards was included to coincide with the introduction of Pat Carlen's (1983) campaigning group Women in Prison (WIP). The review focused on all literature from England and Wales to reflect the National Criminal Justice System and used an inclusion criteria to achieve this.

The review revealed key themes including visit rejection, the importance of visits for maintaining identity and the contradicting emotions that women in prison experience when visited.

Social relationships and family ties are protective factors for prisoners' mental wellbeing, yet the number and frequency of visits to offenders in custody has declined. The potential role for prison visiting schemes to improve the mental wellbeing of women in custody is explored, including the implications for the education and training of staff and visitors involved in the visiting process.

The purpose of this paper aims to examine differences in measures of and relationships between visitation and quality of life (QOL) among older and younger jailed adults. The authors also explored the contribution of visitation to QOL among adults in this setting. The authors anticipated fewer visits and lower QOL among older adults. Framed by psychosocial developmental theory, the authors also anticipated a larger effect in the relationship between visitation and QOL among older rather than younger adults and that visitation would contribute most readily to psychological QOL.

Cross-sectional data from a large US jail were used (n = 264). The authors described the sample regarding visitation and QOL measures among older (≥45) and younger adults (≤44) and examined differences in measures of and relationships between visitation and QOL using independent sample t-tests and bivariate analyses. The authors explored the contribution of visitation to psychological, social relationships, physical and environmental QOL among jailed adults using hierarchical multiple linear regression.

Older adults had fewer family visits and lower physical QOL than younger adults, disparities were moderate in effect (d range = 0.33–0.35). A significant difference also emerged between groups regarding the visitation and environmental QOL relationship (z = 1.66, p <0.05). Visitation contributed to variation in physical and social relationships QOL among jailed adults (Beta range = 0.19–0.24).

Limited research exists among jailed older adults and scholars have yet to examine the relationship between visitation and QOL among persons in these settings.

Public health experts and advocates have long raised concerns about the pandemic preparedness of prison systems worldwide – an issue that became increasingly salient at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. People in prison experience poorer health outcomes compared to the general population, making timely access to adequate health services in prison critical for their health and wellbeing. This study aims to identify the extent of the literature on initial changes in mental health and substance use services for people in prison during the COVID-19 pandemic, summarize and synthesize the findings and identify areas in need of further study.

The authors conducted a review of the academic literature published internationally in English between 2019 and December 1, 2020 to describe the disruptions and adaptations to mental health and substance use services in prisons during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The authors found that mental health and substance use services in prisons around the world were widely disrupted due to the COVID-19 pandemic – predominantly consisting of the complete suspension of services, discontinuation of transfers to off-site treatment sites and limitations on service capacity. Adaptations ranged from virtual service delivery and changes to treatment dispensation processes to information sessions on overdose prevention.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first review to examine the nature and extent of the literature on delivery of mental health and substance use services in prisons during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The first case of COVID-19 in the Malawi prison system was reported in July 2020. Human rights organisations raised concerns about the possibility of significant COVID-19 outbreaks and deaths in the prison system, because of the poor infrastructure, lack of healthcare and adequate COVID-19 mitigation measures, existing co-morbidities (tuberculosis, HIV and hepatitis C), malnutrition and poor health of many prisoners.

The authors conducted a legal-realist assessment of the Malawian prison system response to COVID-19 during state disaster measures, with a specific focus on the right to health and standards of healthcare as mandated in international, African and domestic law.

The Malawi prison system was relatively successful in preventing serious COVID-19 outbreaks in its prisons, despite the lack of resources and the ad hoc reactive approach adopted. Whilst the Malawi national COVID plan was aligned to international and regional protocols, the combination of infrastructural deficits (clinical staff and medical provisions) and poor conditions of detention (congestion, lack of ventilation, hygiene and sanitation) were conducive to poor health and the spread of communicable disease. The state of disaster declared by the Malawi Government and visitation restrictions at prisons worsened prison conditions for those working and living there.

In sub-Saharan Africa, there is limited capacity of prisons to adequately respond to COVID-19. This is the first legal-realist assessment of the Malawian prison system approach to tackling COVID-19, and it contributes to a growing evidence of human rights-based investigations into COVID-19 responses in African prisons (Ethiopia, South Africa and Zimbabwe).

The purpose of this paper is to present the characteristics of incarcerated women in two prisons in Java, Indonesia and discuss the specific problems and needs incarcerated women with children face with regard to mothering.

A cross-sectional survey using a semi-structured questionnaire was administered to 399 incarcerated women in two prisons. Focus group discussions provided additional information on mother’s experiences in prison.

This research finds that children’s welfare was an important concern for mothers while in prison and that they faced various problems in maintaining family ties during their incarceration, including distance, costs and time for family to visit (49.3 percent), and challenges to being able to communicate with family and children (26.6 percent).

This study contributes to the limited research on incarcerated women in Indonesia, broadly, and on mothering and incarceration, in particular, and suggests that women’s needs as mothers have not been taken into consideration by prisons and the criminal justice system.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the motives and emotions of Western tourists visiting Tuol Sleng Genocide Prison Museum in Phnom Penh, Cambodia and further contribute to a deeper understanding of the dark tourism consumption.

Data were collected from popular travel blog sites. This study employs various qualitative and quantitative methods, such as netnography, semantic network analysis and critical content analysis in order to gain a deeper insight into the visitors’ emotions and motivations.

This study reveals that people visit Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum mainly for “remembrance”, “worth visiting”, “learning and understanding”, “paying respect” and a “must visit” attraction. Emotions revealed in this study were “shocking“, “sadness“, “horror” and “depressive”.

This paper is limited to the analyses of travel blogs sites. Further research could include interviews with Western visitors, and professionals managing the site.

To the best of the knowledge, this is the first study to examine the emotions of visitors in Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum.

Sub-Saharan African prisons have seen a substantial increase in women prisoners, including those incarcerated with children. There is very little strategic literature available on the health situation and needs of women prisoners and their circumstantial children in Malawi. The study aims to explore this issue.

A qualitative exploratory study using in-depth key informant interviews with senior correctional stakeholders (commissioner of prison farms, senior correctional management staff, senior health officials and senior officers in charge) (n = 5) and focus group discussions (FGD) with women in prison of age between 18 and 45 years (n = 23) and two FGD with correctional staff (n = 21) was conducted in two prisons in Malawi, Chichiri and Zomba. Narratives were transcribed and analysed using thematic analysis.

Three key themes emerged and are as follows: “hygiene and sanitary situation across multiple prison levels and subsequent health implications for women”; “nutritional provision and diets of women and children in prison”; and “women’s access to prison-based and external health services”. Divergence or agreement across perspectives around sanitation and disease prevention, adequacy of nutrition for pregnant or breast-feeding women, health status and access to prison-based health care are presented.

Garnering a contemporary understanding of women’s situation and their health-care needs in Malawian prisons can inform policy and correctional health practice change, the adaptation of technical guidance and improve standards for women and their children incarcerated in Malawi.

There is a strong need for continued research to garner insight into the experiences of women prisoners and their children, with a particular emphasis on health situation.

As useful as police data have been in furthering our knowledge of gangs and gang violence networks, not everything about gang networks can be learned from examining police data alone. There are numerous alternative sources of data that already exist on gang networks and some that can be developed further. This study aims to introduce existing research on social networks and gangs with a specific focus on prisons and schools.

This study reviews the existing empirical literature on gang networks in schools and prison settings and use the broader literature on social networks and crime to propose directions for future research, including specific suggestions on data collection opportunities that are considered to be low-cost; that is, strategies that simply make use of existing administrative records in both settings, instead of developing original data collection procedures.

The author found the existing literature on each of these settings to be quite limited, especially when the spotlight is put specifically on gang networks. These shortcomings can be addressed via low-cost opportunities for data collection in each of these settings, opportunities that simply require the network coding of existing administrative records as a foundation for gang network studies.

Investing in these low-cost network data collection activities have the potential for theoretical and empirical contributions on our understanding of gang networks, and may also bring value to practitioners working in school and prison settings as a guide for network-based planning or interventions.