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The Dutch juvenile justice system locks up an increasing number of adolescent boys and girls at a cost of approximately €250,000 for each inmate annually (Boone & Moerings, 2007; Tonry, 2005). Questions have been raised, however, about the cost‐effectiveness of treatment in closed institutions. This study, with a sample of 49 adolescents residing in a Dutch youth prison, examined the role of group climate in establishing and maintaining treatment effects. Results show that an open group climate, with group workers paying more attention to the psychological needs of the adolescents and giving them ‘space’ to experiment, led to inmates feeling that they were ‘being understood by the group workers’. This perception of being understood was associated with greater treatment motivation and higher internal locus of control. Positive prison workers in the living group turned out to be a key factor in building an open group climate and subsequently higher internal locus of control and greater treatment motivation.

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.

Looks at a specific variant of systems thinking, called critical systems thinking, which is an approach that was developed in the UK during the 1980s. In particular, consideration is given to “rule‐bound” systems – scenarios where the possibilities for change have been found to be problematic. The characteristics of such situations will initially be set out, focusing on the power relations that appear to pervade such situations. A prison‐based change management initiative is used to show how critical systems thinking can be employed, and provide some reflections on the process of change management and the outcomes achieved. These reflections point to some difficulties experienced that emerged from the rule‐bound nature of the problem situation and ways in which such difficulties might be addressed in similar situations in the future are suggested. Insights for both private and public sector organizations are drawn throughout the paper.

This chapter explores the provision of library services to children residing in juvenile justice facilities. The small body of scholarly literature published on the topic over the last 50 years is examined, followed by a description of the findings of a recent Australian survey of juvenile justice library provision in that country. Australia presents a very poor example of the provision of library services to children living in correctional detention. A contrast to the Australian context is provided through a case study of the library service to the South Carolina Birchwood School, in the United States. Housed in the South Carolina Juvenile Justice Centre, the Birchwood School library is presented as an example of better practice and an illustration of what can be achieved by a juvenile justice facility library when it is sufficiently staffed and funded. Opportunities for further research are identified and conclusions are drawn regarding the need for libraries in juvenile justice facilities.

This chapter offers a prospective and naturalistic study of the impact of a risk-assessment and risk-management program on mentally abnormal young offenders admitted to a medium secure adolescent psychiatric inpatient unit in the United Kingdom (U.K.) because of violent, dangerous or self-harming behaviour. As a result of the risk assessment, there was a reduction in their violent, dangerous or self-harming behaviour that was significantly associated with a reduction in the number of risk factors. About 80% were discharged directly back into the community.

This paper aims to investigate the motivations of social entrepreneurs in East Africa to create a social enterprise and their identified links to successful social entrepreneurship in East Africa.

The authors employed a qualitative method by performing thematic analysis on a set of interviews on social entrepreneurs from East Africa who are Ashoka fellows.

The findings suggest that intense personal experiences linked to past-life events as well as a high achievement orientation towards improving livelihoods and creating impact serve as key triggers for social entrepreneurship. Successful entrepreneurship focusses on system change at national and local levels. Their success is also seen when the social entrepreneurs have achieved their mission and are no longer needed; thus, they become irrelevant. The paper discusses the implications of these findings on the model used for sustainable social entrepreneurship in East Africa.

Based on an exploratory research on Ashoka fellows, the study adds insight to their motivations and success which can be used in a wider scale study of the same.

The authors advance the scarce empirical research on East African social entrepreneurs, link success factors of social entrepreneurship to a recent framework on motivation to engage in social entrepreneurship and stimulate further research in the area. The study contributes to the literature on social entrepreneurship by linking success factors of social entrepreneurship to a recent framework on motivation to engage in social entrepreneurship.

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 purpose of this study is to provide an in-depth account of how individuelas with a mild intellectual disabilitiy or borderline intellectual functioning (MID-BIF; IQ 50–85) perceive their group climate in a secure forensic setting. Giving voice to these service users may provide relevant insights for secure forensic settings.

The interpretative phenomenological analysis was used to explore what individuals with MID-BIF experience with regard to their group climate.

In the interviews about the four domains of group climate (i.e. repression, support, growth and atmosphere), five overarching dimensions appeared, namely, autonomy, uniformity, recognition, competence and dignity. Depending on the person and the (treatment) context in which he/she resides, these five dimensions relate to all four factors of the group climate instrument.

From the perspective of individuals with MID-BIF, this study contributes by providing a framework to “fine-tune” group climate on five dimensions. Training socio-therapists to be sensitive to interpret ambiguous signals on these dimensions can contribute to optimizing group climate in secure forensic settings.

Intergenerational confinement is an under-recognized, policy-driven issue which greatly impacts Indigenous and racialized peoples in countries with ongoing colonial legacies. Numerous policy solutions enacted over colonial history have exacerbated instead of mitigated this situation. This chapter advances an improved understanding of the impacts of carceral legacies, moving beyond the dominant focus of parental incarceration in the literature. Focusing on Indigenous peoples, multiple generations in families and communities have been subjected to changing methods of confinement and removal. Using critical policy analysis and interview research, this chapter interrogates these intergenerational impacts of carceral policy-making in Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Drawing on qualitative interviews with 124 people in the three case countries, this chapter centers perspectives of people who have been intergenerationally confined in carceral institutions. With a goal of transformation, it then explores an alternative orientation to policy-making that seeks to acknowledge, account for, and address the harmful direct and indirect ripple-effects of carceral strategies over generations.

This chapter draws on data from young men¹ interviewed on two occasions; first as ‘children’ aged 17 years within juvenile Young Offenders’ Institutions (YOIs); and then again as ‘adults’ aged 18 years within young adult/adult prisons about their experiences of transitions. Ethical reviews typically reflect age-determined constructions of child/adult status and those aged under 18 years are deemed to be more ‘vulnerable’, thus attracting more scrutiny from research ethics committees (Economic and Social Research Council [ESRC], 2020). This concern heightens the methodological difficulties of prison research, as incarceration renders children ‘doubly vulnerable’ (Jacobson & Talbot, 2017). Such institutions may be obstructive and access must be obtained from a series of gatekeepers. Negotiating the balance between participants’ rights and their best interests (Heptinstall, 2000; Thomas & O’Kane, 1998), along with gatekeepers’ priorities can be challenging. This chapter outlines how tricky ethical tensions were balanced with participants’ best interests in line with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) (United Nations, 1989). Despite the difficulties encountered, the researcher (J.P.) took the view that there would be ‘ethical implication[s] of NOT conducting the research’ (Girling, 2017, p. 38). The chapter offers recommendations for how researchers might conduct ethically sensitive research with similar cohorts of young people.