Assessing the effectiveness of direct gesture interaction for a safety critical maritime application

Multi-touch interaction, in particular multi-touch gesture interaction, is widely believed to give a more natural interaction style. We investigated the utility of multi-touch interaction in the safety critical domain of maritime dynamic positioning (DP) vessels. We conducted initial paper prototyping with domain experts to gain an insight into natural gestures; we then conducted observational studies aboard a DP vessel during operational duties and two rounds of formal evaluation of prototypes - the second on a motion platform ship simulator. Despite following a careful user-centred design process, the final results show that traditional touch-screen button and menu interaction was quicker and less erroneous than gestures. Furthermore, the moving environment accentuated this difference and we observed initial use problems and handedness asymmetries on some multi-touch gestures. On the positive side, our results showed that users were able to suspend gestural interaction more naturally, thus improving situational awareness

Prison Visitation Policies in the U.S. And Alaska

This article examines prison visitation in Alaska and nationally based on a 2012 survey of prison visitation policies for all 50 states and in the federal prison system.[Introduction] / Family Visitation and Virtual Visitation / Alaska's Visitation Policies / Topics for Future Study / SIDEBARS / Questions from Prison Visitation Policies: A Fifty State Survey / Alaska Prison Visitation Resource

Learning from PPO Investigations: End-of-Life Care

With a large and ageing prison population, the Prison Service has to deal with more foreseeable deaths from terminal and incurable illnesses than ever before. This brings new challenges for both prison regimes and prison facilities to accommodate the end of life care needs for those prisoners who require them. This report looks at how the Prison Service is responding to these challenges and is focused on a sample of 214 prisoners who died from a terminal illness in prison between January 2007 and October 2012

Emotion and performance: prison officers and the presentation of self in prisons

This article explores how prison officers manage and perform emotion on a day-to-day basis. Although the performance of emotion is invariably highlighted when things ‘go wrong’ in prison - perhaps particularly during prison disturbances - the emotional life of prisons at an everyday level has received much less attention. Moreover, although the sociology of the prison has acknowledged the impact of prison on the emotional lives of prisoners there has been much less interest in the emotional impact of the prison on its uniformed staff. This article focuses on how prison officers’ emotions are structured and performed on a daily basis. Prisons are emotional places, but like all organizations, they have their own ‘rules’ about the kinds of emotions it is appropriate for prison officers to express (and indeed feel) at work. In consequence, working in prisons demands a performative attitude on the part of staff, an (often significant) engagement in emotion-work and, relatedly, the employment of various emotion-work strategies

Mass incarceration: the juggernaut of American penal expansionism

A plethora of evidence confirms that America continues to lead the world in imprisonment. No serious commentator doubts mass incarceration is a major issue for the nation. The America penal industrial complex incarcerates close to a quarter of all the prisoners on the planet. The American rate of incarceration remains stubbornly locked at a substantially higher level than those of comparable parliamentary democracies. There is no doubt that America’s penal institutions contain some individuals who pose a substantial public risk. However, there is significant scope to limit incarceration for a range of offenders, including those convicted of drug offences. There is a recognition the decades-long ‘War on Drugs’ has ultimately been counterproductive. At the end of 2014, some six years into Obama’s presidency, the USA’s total incarcerated population included some 2,306,100 prisoners It is only now that the United States may be witnessing the end of an ill-starred forty year experiment with mass incarceration and that American penal expansionism has finally begun to ease. The overall picture is of a pause, and even a slight reverse, in the race to incarcerate.non

Escape from Death Row: A Study of “Tripping” as an Individual Adjustment Strategy Among Death Row Prisoners

[Excerpt] “The literature on stress and coping in American prisons tends to focus on the social dimensions of prison life. This literature describes a prison culture that shapes prison adjustment; such a culture entails norms, roles, and groups (including gangs) that dictate norms of adjustment. The literature also suggests that prisoners have to find a way to get along in the more public areas of the prison (such as the prison yard or mess hall) or retreat to smaller worlds within the prison while carving out “niches” that allow them to adjust in ways they find more familiar—in their jobs, educational or vocational classes, or even in a regular regimen of television in the cell. While there is much of value in this literature, recent trends in correctional management have produced more sharply subscribed prison environments that greatly reduce social activity among prisoners and presumably reduce the salience of cultural forces in the prison world.

The significance of 'the visit' in an English category-B prison: Views from prisoners, prisoners' families and prison staff

A number of claims have been made regarding the importance of prisoners staying in touch with their family through prison visits, firstly from a humanitarian perspective of enabling family members to see each other, but also regarding the impact of maintaining family ties for successful rehabilitation, reintegration into society and reduced re-offending. This growing evidence base has resulted in increased support by the Prison Service for encouraging the family unit to remain intact during a prisoner’s incarceration. Despite its importance however, there has been a distinct lack of research examining the dynamics of families visiting relatives in prison. This paper explores perceptions of the same event – the visit – from the families’, prisoners’ and prison staffs' viewpoints in a category-B local prison in England. Qualitative data was collected with 30 prisoners’ families, 16 prisoners and 14 prison staff, as part of a broader evaluation of the visitors’ centre. The findings suggest that the three parties frame their perspective of visiting very differently. Prisoners’ families often see visits as an emotional minefield fraught with practical difficulties. Prisoners can view the visit as the highlight of their time in prison and often have many complaints about how visits are handled. Finally, prison staff see visits as potential security breaches and a major organisational operation. The paper addresses the current gap in our understanding of the prison visit and has implications for the Prison Service and wider social policy

Discretion, Due Process, and the Prison Discipline Committee

A revised version of this paper was published as: Schafer, N.E. (1986). "Discretion, Due Process and the Prison Discipline Committee." Criminal Justice Review 11(2): 37–46 (Fall 1986). (http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/073401688601100207).Prison discipline received considerable attention from both the courts and professional organizations during the decade of the 1970s. It was widely assumed that the due process requirements which resulted from judicial review coupled with the promulgation of model discipline standards and procedures would limit the broad discretionary authority found in the traditional prison disciplinary process. A case study of the activities of one prison discipline committee suggests that these external pressures have had less impact on decision-making than such internal pressures as overcrowding. Due process requirements have not greatly inhibited the exercise of discretion in the prison discipline process.Abstract [Introduction] / Background of the Study / Prison Discipline in Indiana / Case Study of an Indiana Prison Discipline Committee / Discussion / Figures / Notes / References / Cases / Appendix: List of Violation

Identifying health promotion needs among prison staff in three English prisons: results from a qualitative study.

Prisons are seen as a (temporary) home and community for offenders, yet they also have a dual role as a workplace for prison staff. This article explores how the "healthy settings" philosophy, commonly used in schools, applies in the prison environment. The article explores the concept of the health-promoting prison from the perspective of prison staff using semistructured interviews in three English prisons. Data were analyzed using Attride-Stirling's thematic network approach. The findings indicate that working in a prison can be highly stressful and can have a negative impact on physical and mental health. Staff perceived that the focus of health promotion efforts was in many cases exclusively focused on prisoners, and many suggested that prison staff needs were being overlooked. The article argues that the theory and practice of a health-promoting prison have developed rapidly in recent years but still lag behind developments in other organizations. The article suggests that health promotion policy and practice in prison settings may need to be reconfigured to ensure that the needs of all those who live and work there are recognized

Prisoner Behavior, Staff Response: Using Prison Discipline Records

This study is based on official monthly summaries of violations reviewed by the prison discipline committee that were collected over a twenty-month period (September 1978 to May 1980) at the Indiana Reformatory, a maximum security prison for adult male felons.Official prison misconduct records are used to test some of the assumptions inherent in previous research based upon such records. Many of these studies used prison data to measure changes in prisoner behavior, while others used them to indicate changes in the actions and attitudes of prison staff. Analysis of one prison's official discipline records over a 30-month period reveals flaws in both approaches. The same data cannot serve to draw conclusions about both groups though they can provide information about both when supplemented with other research methods. Conclusions drawn from official prison misconduct records are more reliable when used to assess the end of the prison discipline process — assessing discretionary decisionmaking by staff — than at the beginning of the process — evaluating prisoner behavior.[Introduction] / Background of the Study / A Case Study of Prison Discipline Records / Conclusion / Notes / References / Figure