Prisoner resettlement in Spain : good practices for early-released prisoners and prisoners lost in transition that fully serve their sentence

The Spanish Constitution establishes that prison sentences should be aimed at rehabilitation and resettlement. According to this principle, the Spanish prison rules provide a progressive system of enforcement of prison sentences that promotes supervised early release as a way to facilitate reintegration in the community. The process of reintegration should start in prison -where criminogenic needs should be tackled- and continue in the community, addressing financial, family and job settlement issues. This ideal system seems to work effectively with prisoners that are early released. These prisoners benefited from the professional supervision of the probation system and from the help of third sector organizations that work in partnership with the penitentiary system. However, there is an important shortcoming of the Spanish system, because a relevant part of prisoners are only released after having served the full sentence and therefore are excluded from this transitional return to the community

A Flawed Compass: A Human Rights Analysis of the Roadmap to Strengthening Public Safety

On April 20th, 2007, Canada\u27s Minister of Public Safety announced the appointment of a Panel charged with the task of reviewing the operations of the Correctional Service of Canada (CSC). . The mandate of the Review Panel was to provide the Minister of Public Safety with advice on a broad range of complex topics that have been problematic for CSC over many years. The Review Panel presented its final report on October 31, 2007. The report entitled “A Roadmap to Strengthening Public Safety”, contains 109 recommendations organized around strengthening five key areas: 1) Offender Accountability; 2) Eliminating Drugs from Prison; 3) Employability / Employment; 4. Physical Infrastructure; and 5. Eliminating Statutory Release; Moving to Earned Parole. The Government officially responded to the Report in Budget 2008, investing $478.8 million over five years to initiate the implementation of a new vision and set the foundation to strengthen the federal correctional system and enable CSC to respond comprehensively to the Panel’s recommendations. Our purpose in writing this report is to subject the Roadmap’s recommendations and CSC\u27s transformation agenda to the kind of scrutiny that such far-reaching changes in the Canadian federal correctional system demands and the Canadian public deserves. Our report is intended to present a counterpoint to the Roadmap, one marked by a review of correctional and legal history, a consideration of the relevant reports of royal commissions, task forces and academic research and an analysis of the human rights standards and jurisprudence applicable to correc-tions, all of which is entirely absent from the Roadmap. On the basis of what we consider a stronger historical and legal foundation, one anchored in an unwavering commitment to human rights in prison, we will discuss the merits, limitations and the true costs for both public safety and human dignity of implementation of the Panel’s recommendations for correctional pro-grams and services. We will show that the Panel\u27s analysis reveals such fundamental misunderstandings and misinterpretation of the Canadian correctional context that both its observations and recommendations are indelibly flawed. The authors, Michael Jackson and Graham Stewart, consider the following issues in their critique of the Review Panel\u27s Roadmap: a) Faulty Premises; Human Rights and Corrections; the Panel’s proposed Amendments to the Corrections and Conditional Release Act (CCRA); the Nature of Prisoners’ Rights; Conditions of Confinement; Segregation\u27 Gangs; Drugs in Prison; Earned Parole; Employment and Employability; Education; Aboriginal Offenders; Physical Infrastructure and Regional Complexes; and finally, Rhetoric and Reality. The authors conclude the Roadmap was a dangerous exercise in creating major “transformative” policy virtually overnight by a largely unqualified group under a heavy cloud of political expediency. Surely these factors alone warrant that the report be set aside as a failed experiment in public policy. That it was accepted in its entirety without any apparent internal critical review or public consultation as the future for CSC is alarming. The Roadmap seeks to move the Correctional Service of Canada away from an unequivocal commitment to respect and protect the human rights of prisoners as the centerpiece of its operations. It is a flawed moral and legal compass. It points in the wrong direction; a direction that, tragically and inevitably, will bring yet more chapters in an already overburdened history of abuse and mismanagement of correctional authority through disregard of human dignity

Hard times: exploring the complex structures and activities of Brazilian prison gangs

This research examines the presence of organised criminal groups in prison and its influence on inmate’s interaction and on the prison system of Rio de Janeiro. Information collected from a series of in-depth interviews with prisoners and ex-prisoners, members and non-members of the criminal groups and authorities of the criminal justice system, suggests that the current social organisation of prisons is working favourably towards the further development of organised crime and deviant behaviour. Prisoners are subordinated not only to the prison administration but also to the gang leaders. If a convict had no links with drug trafficking prior to incarceration, they definitely create one behind bars. Ninety-eight percent (98%) of interviewees from the sensitive sample engaged in drug trafficking while in prison. Off-brand inmates, those who are the less conspicuous convicts, end up engaging in illegal activities to avoid retaliation, perpetuating then a cycle of violence in a fragmented geopolitical gang space behind bars. Political pressure towards the validity of the classification system stratified by gang affiliation has impacted on the prison administration to create multiple categories of prisoners, which are mutually exclusive. This has had pervasive impacts on penal affairs such as allocation of sentences, lack of vacancies and disruption of prisoner’s routine. The research shows that the State goes beyond classification of inmates by gang affiliation; it has incorporated elements of gang’s violent tradition to assess and influence justice and prisoner’s progression. This study offers an interesting scope for a comparative analysis through the study of anti-prison gang strategies. Experiences around the globe have been driven to target gangs with racial and ethnical rivalries. Prison gangs in this study are devoted to a more capitalist goal: the monopoly of illegal drug markets in the streets. Such understandings and contextualizing make a significant contribution to re-examining the role of inmate culture as well as the value of contemporary penal reforms designed to making the penal institutions more responsive and interventionist in addressing inmate needs

Addiction recovery: an exploration of therapeutic community impact in Brazil

As the number of substance abusers continues to rise in Brazil, it is increasingly critical to thoroughly assess the change efforts being made in response to the national issue. Therapeutic communities are one of the leading solutions to the addiction crisis. There are a vast number of such organizations, yet relapse rates remain high, and the number of substance abusers consistently increases. Individuals seeking long-term sobriety and a sense-of-meaning in life may not be able to depend entirely on the current efforts offered for addiction recovery. This phenomenological qualitative study employed semi-structured interviews to examine the strategies and measures for success that therapeutic community service providers utilize. Challenges service providers experience in their work guiding individuals to a greater quality of life was also investigated. Twenty-five key findings revealed insights about therapeutic community operations, residents seeking sobriety, and service providers leading these organizations. Implications for positive social change in addiction recovery were determined

Motherhood in prison – challenges and perspectives

The authors have analysed the status, treatment and needs of imprisoned mothers and their children. They point out that, almost everywhere in the world, children of incarcerated mothers are not given adequate attention, and that their very specific needs are neglected, although this directly contradicts the international standards and the principle of protecting the best interests of the child. In order to make recommendations that could upgrade the realization of rights of incarcerated mothers and their children left behind, the authors have reviewed the scientific and professional literature, focusing on the possible negative effects of parental detention and practices that have been shown to contribute to the well-being and social reintegration of both children and their mothers. International legal documents have also been analysed. General recommendations that have been given relate to the justice and prison systems, social welfare, schools and the media

Dimensions of desistance : a qualitative longitudinal analysis of different dimensions of the desistance process among long-term prisoners in the Netherlands

In the past decades a growing body of literature has been dedicated to explain desistance from offending behaviour, or to answer the question why some offenders quit crime and others do not. Currently, more psychological explanations infuse a prominent line of research emphasizing the importance of subjective, individual factors coming from within the offender, such as developing a new sense of self-identity. The aim of this study was to gain more insight into different dimensions of desistance, focusing on two aspects of identity: future expectations and conventional aspirations, and investigated how these related to (non-)criminal behaviour over time. Furthermore, this study examined how the parole experience interacted with the different dimensions of desistance. This qualitative, longitudinal study followed 28 male prisoners serving a long-term sentence in the Netherlands during their transition from prison to society. Findings illustrated the importance of individual factors such as believing in one’s own abilities in the context of pre-release expectations, the lack of conventional scripts and role models, and the contribution of parole supervision to the desistance process. Yet, it also revealed the pain of failure for men attempting to refrain from crime, mostly relating to structural support such as employment or housing issues. Dit proefschrift is onderdeel van het Prison Project. Dit project is financieel ondersteund door de Universiteit Leiden, het Nederlands Studiecentrum voor Criminaliteit en Rechtshandhaving (NSCR), de Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk onderzoek (NWO) en de Universiteit van Utrecht.Criminal Justice: Legitimacy, accountability, and effectivit

Rehabilitation in Principle and Practice: Perspectives of Inmates and Officers

This article addresses rehabilitation, its conceptualisation by officers and inmates, and its expression in practice within a select Norwegian prison. It reports on findings from a qualitative interview-based research project conducted as a pilot study, whereby semi-structured interviews were conducted with inmates and officers at the prison. Furthermore, the authors examine the principle of rehabilitation as it follows from Norwegian law and assess how it is implemented in practice in a Norwegian prison. The preliminary findings from the study reveal factors—such as inmate isolation and mental health challenges, drug use, unequal treatment, and limited capacity and resources—that are impacting the effectiveness of what the prison has intended to achieve and ask for further research and discussion in this area.publishedVersio

Prison, Architecture and Humans

"What is prison architecture and how can it be studied? How are concepts such as humanism, dignity and solidarity translated into prison architecture? What kind of ideologies and ideas are expressed in various prison buildings from different eras and locations? What is the outside and the inside of a prison, and what is the significance of movement within the prison space? What does a lunch table have to do with prison architecture? How do prisoners experience materiality in serving a prison sentence? These questions are central to the texts presented in this anthology. Prison, Architecture and Humans is the result of a collaboration between researchers and architects from Italy, Norway and Sweden. It presents new approaches to prison architecture and penological research by focusing on prison design, prison artefacts, everyday prison life and imprisoned bodies. The book will be of interest to students, researchers, architects and politicians.