The Role of Schools in Assisting Children and Young People with a Parent in Prison – findings from the COPING Project

Children who experience parental incarceration are vulnerable to facing poor outcomes in terms of their mental health and education. Schools have the potential to provide a point of stability during a parent's prison sentence, thereby assisting children affected by parental imprisonment to remain resilient. This paper will present school related findings from COPING, a three year pan-European research project that investigated the impact of parental imprisonment on children in the UK, Romania, Germany and Sweden. It will focus on good practice points for schools regarding how they can most effectively support children of prisoners by drawing on the views expressed by young people and families affected by imprisonment, as well as professionals who work in a school setting. Young people placed a high value on support from trusted school staff that had a general awareness of issues relating to parental imprisonment as well as knowledge of their own particular situation. This paper will therefore stress the need for all school staff to be trained with regard to the impact upon children of parental imprisonment. The paper will also include a discussion of workshops involving young people in Secondary education that were designed to enable them to think about the impact of parental imprisonment

Non-imprisonment conditions on spacetime

The non-imprisonment conditions on spacetimes are studied. It is proved that the non-partial imprisonment property implies the distinction property. Moreover, it is proved that feeble distinction, a property which stays between weak distinction and causality, implies non-total imprisonment. As a result the non-imprisonment conditions can be included in the causal ladder of spacetimes. Finally, totally imprisoned causal curves are studied in detail, and results concerning the existence and properties of minimal invariant sets are obtained.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figures. v2: improved results on totally imprisoned curves, a figure changed, some misprints fixe

Imprisonment and the Right to Freedom of Movement

Government’s use of imprisonment raises distinctive moral issues. Even if government has broad authority to make and to enforce law, government may not be entitled to use imprisonment as a punishment for all the criminal laws it is entitled to make. Indeed, there may be some serious crimes that it is wrong to punish with imprisonment, even if the conditions of imprisonment are humane and even if no adequate alternative punishments are available

The Extravagance of Imprisonment Revisited

This report analyzes prison and jail populations in the US as a whole and in four key states -- California, Florida, New York, and Texas -- to determine 1) how many prisoners are nonserious offenders and what it costs to lock them up, 2) what proven effective alternatives are in use and what they cost, and 3) what savings could be realized if a portion of the nonserious offenders were sentenced to alternatives instead of prison and jail

States Cut Both Crime and Imprisonment

Over the past five years, the majority of states reduced both crime and imprisonment rates. The relationship between crime and incarceration is complex, but states are showing that it is possible to reduce them at the same time

Punishment and Welfare: Paternal Incarceration and Families’ Receipt of Public Assistance

The US criminal justice and welfare systems together form important government interventions into the lives of the poor. This paper considers how imprisonment is related to welfare receipt for offenders and their families. Using longitudinal data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing study, it investigates how recent paternal incarceration is associated with families' receipt of TANF, food stamps, and Medicaid/SCHIP. Results robust to multiple tests find that incarceration does not increase the likelihood of TANF receipt but significantly increases food stamps and Medicaid/SCHIP receipt. Further, the effect of incarceration on welfare receipt is larger than the recent loss of father's employment. The findings suggest that an unexpected consequence of mass imprisonment is the expansion of government regulation through welfare provision for offender's families.Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing study, imprisonment, welfare, criminal justice, welfare system, food stamps, Medicaid/SCHIP, incarceration

Sentencing outcomes for those assessed for intensive correction order suitability

This paper examines the outcomes of assessments for intensive correction orders, including the penalties imposed on those deemed unsuitable. Method: Assessment data for intensive correction orders were obtained from Corrective Services NSW and linked to finalised court appearances between 1 October 2010 and 30 September 2012. The proportion of assessment episodes associated with a finalised court appearance where an intensive correction order was imposed and the penalties imposed on offenders who did not receive an intensive correction order were examined. Results: 2,580 assessment episodes were identified, with 93 per cent (n=2,389) linked to a finalised court appearance. Of these assessment episodes linked to a court appearance, 55 per cent resulted in an intensive correction order. Of the assessment episodes linked to a finalised court appearance resulting in a sentence other than an intensive correction order, the most common penalties imposed were imprisonment (58%), a suspended sentence with supervision (16%) and a suspended sentence without supervision (8%). Conclusion: In line with intensive correction orders being introduced as an alternative to full-time imprisonment, the vast majority of offenders assessed for an intensive correction order who do not receive one instead receive a penalty of imprisonment or an alternative form of imprisonment (i.e., home detention or a suspended sentence)

Nicola Lacey, '<i>The Prisoners' Dilemma: Political Economy and Punishment in Contemporary Democracies</i>': Review

America imprisons a larger portion of its population than any other country on earth, a fact that has been, paradoxically, a source of both reassurance and worry on this side of the Atlantic. It is reassuring because the extraordinary US imprisonment rate is so much higher than in Scotland or England and Wales (or indeed anywhere else) that large increases in prison populations in the UK seem acceptable by comparison. There is the lurking worry, however, that we are moving along the same trajectory as America and will eventually end up in the same place. Nicola Lacey confronts both complacency and alarm about imprisonment in this thorough and insightful book, urging more, and more nuanced, attention to the distinctive political and economic structures that form the context of penal practices

The Optimal Use of Fines and Imprisonment When Wealth is Unobservable

This article studies the optimal use of fines and imprisonment when an offender's level of wealth is private information that cannot be observed by the enforcement authority. In a model in which there are two levels of wealth, I derive the optimal mix of sanctions, including the imprisonment sentence imposed on offenders who do not pay the fine -- referred to as the "alternative" imprisonment sentence. Among other things, I demonstrate that if imprisonment sanctions are used, the optimal alternative imprisonment sentence is sufficiently high that high-wealth individuals prefer to pay a fine exceeding the wealth level of low-wealth individuals and bear a lower (possibly no) imprisonment sentence rather than to pretend to be low-wealth individuals. I also show that if the optimal enforcement system would rely exclusively on fines when wealth is observable, the inability to observe wealth is detrimental because higher fines then could not be levied on higher-wealth individuals. In this case, it may be desirable when wealth is unobservable to impose an imprisonment sentence on offenders who do not pay the fine -- who will be low-wealth offenders -- in order to induce high-wealth offenders to pay the fine. However, if the optimal enforcement system would employ both fines and imprisonment sentences when wealth is observable, the inability to observe wealth is not detrimental. In this case, the same sanctions would be chosen if wealth is unobservable and these sanctions lead high-wealth individuals to pay more than low-wealth individuals.