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This study examines the cost-effectiveness of reintegrating ex-combatants from armed groups in Colombia. After an ethnographic exploration of the challenges of reintegration that ex-combatants face, I evaluate the cost-effectiveness of the reintegration program operated by the Agency for Reincorporation and Normalization (Agencia para la Reincorporación y la Normalización, ARN), the government agency that handles the reintegration of ex-combatants from all armed groups in Colombia. I analyze the agency's approaches (past, current, and proposed) toward reintegrating ex-combatants from various armed groups, comparing the financial costs against outcomes. The ARN has been successful at achieving two of its primary goals: minimizing recidivism and maximizing employment of ex-combatants. Only 10% of ARN program participants rejoin criminal groups and 93% find employment across both the formal and informal sectors (informal employment is widespread in Colombia and Latin America). The ARN has been unsuccessful at providing adequate security for ex-combatants. Approximately 6% of ex-combatants enrolled in the ARN program have been murdered since 2001: approximately 3,000 program participants have been assassinated. Next, I evaluate the cost-effectiveness of both the ARN's overall program and its outcome across different regions and demographics of the participant population. Finally, I suggest ways that other countries facing the challenge of reintegrating populations of ex-combatants can learn from the Colombian experience, as well as ways that Colombia can improve its own reintegration cost-effectiveness.

In the year 2001, the Risk Assessment Pilot Program was implemented in Argentina with the aims of establishing a systematic manner of assessing risk for violent recidivism in conditional release candidates and contributing to the design of intervention programs that help to reduce the criminal recidivism rate. The baseline assessment showed that conditional release candidates had a high-risk profile: 72.5% had severe or moderate substance abuse problems; 62% had failed in previous probation, conditional release or discharge from a mental institution; 85% had serious or moderate employment problems before incarceration. Individuals who were substance abusers were incorporated to the Drug Abuse Biochemical Control Program. Variations in dynamic factors were assessed with conditionally released subjects. Some encouraging results were obtained through December 2003 and their initial impact on judicial and penitentiary institutions is already seen.

In this chapter, I analyse the ethics of organisations assessing applicants based on group risk statistics; for example, parole boards consider information predicting recidivism risk, and employers want to minimise the risk of selecting lower-productivity employees. The organisational rejection of applicants from risky groups is explored as a form of discrimination to help identify the distinct ethical implications for applicant autonomy from the use of group risk statistics. Contra arguments from Schoeman (1987) and Schauer (2003), I argue that there is a substantive difference between assessing applicants directly through group statistics rather than including ‘individualised’ evidence. This difference impacts on the agency of applicants in the process. As organisations have reason to statistically assess applicants, some considerations for increasing applicant agency in the process are suggested. These include focusing on the nature of the factors used to assess applicants (static or dynamic), the transparency of the process to applicants, and the use of statistics specific to individuals.

To explain the persistent abhorrent perspective society holds of sex offenders, the concept of sex offenders, the evolution of salient sex offender legislation, and the relationships between sex offenders and social control with a focus on the current and emerging socio-legal issues are discussed. As one of the most vilified criminal offenders, sex offenders are inextricably related to social control as demonstrated by the disproportionately imposed legal restrictions they have experienced compared to offenders without a history of sex crimes. Public support of excessive punishments toward sex offenders has been bolstered by societal depictions that have induced perceptions of sex offenders as monstrous beings.

Aversions toward sex offenders unfold when it is perceived that the solidarity of society is dissolute and volatile. During these periods of perceived social disintegration, mass media emerges as a source that can contextualize the depraved actions of sex offenders, though the media have arguably perverted their role as an educator and contributed to misinformation. Education and revised evaluative assessments of sexual recidivism are suggested as approaches to redefine how sex offenders should be portrayed, as a heterogeneous group of individuals that vary in their amenability to rehabilitative treatment.

This chapter reviews a recent study that explores the perception of adult convicted prisoners and ex-prisoners in Sri Lanka regarding their use of prison libraries. How prison officials, particularly rehabilitation officers and counselors see the presence of a prison library in the rehabilitative process is also examined. This chapter focuses mainly on the perceptions, feelings and emotions associated with using the prison library by Sri Lankan prisoners and ex-prisoners during their incarceration.

Information poverty is often common among prisoners as most are illiterate and are deprived of freedom due to their imprisonment. The role of a prison library in the rehabilitative process is highly commendable. A review of related literature, semi-structured interviews, and life histories with inmates at four closed prisons in Sri Lanka and ex-prisoners and observation on Sri Lankan prison libraries found that prisoners and ex-prisoners see prison libraries as important in meeting their diverse information needs, assisting them to spend their time effectively during incarceration, and to overcome stress while enhancing their well-being by reading. This chapter also stresses the importance of a well-established prison library and the effective delivery of library services for desistance from crime. However, the majority of prison officials do not see the importance of a prison library in the rehabilitative process. Drawbacks and potential of prison libraries and several implications for practice are also elaborated in this chapter. Such implications will be of interest to prison administrators and library professionals.

Recently researchers working on criminal behaviour have interested in elder offenders as the population is getting older. Crime statistics showed that the number of offenders over the age 55 is increasing each year. These statistics revealed that older people engage not only in minor crimes but also engage in serious crimes. One of this kind of crimes is sexual abuse which is defined as sexual offending against the individuals who are incapable of giving consent. Although public view regarding to elder people sexuality is seen as they are incapable of this kind of acts because of their age, the statistics showed that contrary. Yet the reasons behind the offending behaviour of these elderly people is explained little by the researchers. The aim of this chapter is to review the psychological perspective including neurobiological, psychiatric, cognitive and behavioural perspective. Neurobiological and psychiatric approach mainly focused on disease that lead to criminal conduct like dementia or paedophilia. Cognitive approach emphasises the cognitive distortions regarding to sexual abuse behaviour. Behavioural approach proposed that the learning process based on classical conditioning and operant conditioning determine the sexual abuse behaviour. Yet none of the theories alone not enough to explain the sexual abuse behaviour in elderly people. There is a need for more studies on sex offending behaviour of elderly people in order to have comprehensive understanding of their behaviour and to put forward new theoretical models.

United Nation’s Standard Minimum Rules for Treatment of Prisoners, popularly known as Nelson Mandela Rules categorically advocates for the Prison Education and its integration with the educational system of the country. Moreover, principles for the treatment of prisoners, adopted by United Nation in 1990, guarantee that prisoners retain the human rights and fundamental freedoms set out in Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which includes right to take part in education also. However, there is little sensitization about the rights of prisoners in many countries. The issue has gained prominence as several international organizations have now raised concern on these matters.

Education of jail inmates has attracted the attention of Open and Distance Learning (ODL) systems in India. Among all the ODL institutions, Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU) has been the major role player. Right from its first initiative to have a special study center in Tihar Jail in 1994, IGNOU’s network for jail inmates has undergone significant expansion. The university has now strong presence in the prisons. Under a special collaborative arrangement with Ministry of Home Affairs, IGNOU has started free education to jail inmates from 2010. This chapter gives a glimpse about the model being followed by IGNOU for providing education inside prisons, highlights its good practices, gaps in its functioning and makes recommendations for further strengthening of this network.

Purpose – Prison health is public health. Yet, efforts to protect against as well as slow the spread of COVID-19 are virtually impossible in prison settings where “what we know” may not match with policies. As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, incarcerated people are uniquely at risk as correctional facilities are “super-spreader” sites for prisoners and staff alike. The purpose of this chapter is to explore the impact of COVID-19 in prisons along with the additional personal and social costs associated with the pandemic (e.g., lockdowns, limited visitation, etc.) that can also impact the health status of those “doing COVID time.”

Methodology/Approach – This chapter examines the multifaceted impact of the COVID pandemic on those (in)directly impacted in correctional settings. It is not an empirical work.

Originality/Value – This chapter provides insight into the often taken-for-granted impact of the COVID pandemic on those who live and work in prison settings. The recommendations may be of interest to those who “do the time,” those who work in such settings, and social justice advocates and others involved in policy-making.

In terms of the concept of broken home as a juvenile delinquency risk factor, whilst Nigeria and Ghana are culturally different from western nations (Gyekye, 1996; Hofstede, 1980; Smith, 2004), parental death (PDE) and parental divorce (PDI) have been previously taken-for-granted as one factor, that is ‘broken home’. This paper aims to deconstruct the singular model of ‘broken home’ and propose a binary model – the parental death and parental divorce hypotheses, with unique variables inherent in Nigerian/Ghanaian context.

It principally deploys the application of Goffman’s (1967) theory of stigma, anthropological insights on burial rites and other social facts (Gyekye, 1996; Mazzucato et al., 2006; Smith, 2004) to tease out diversity and complexity of lives across cultures, which specifically represent a binary model of broken home in Nigeria/Ghana. It slightly appraises post-colonial insights on decolonization (Agozino, 2003; Said, 1994) to interrogate both marginalized and mainstream literature.

Thus far, analyses have challenged the homogenization of the concept broken home in existing literature. Qualitatively unlike in the ‘West’, analyses have identified the varying meanings/consequences of parental divorce and parental death in Nigeria/Ghana.

Unlike existing data, this paper has contrasted the differential impacts of parental death and parental divorce with more refined variables (e.g. the sociocultural penalties of divorce such as stigma in terms of parental divorce and other social facts such as burial ceremonies, kinship nurturing, in relation to parental death), which helped to fill in the missing gap in comparative criminology literature.