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

Rehabilitation, punishment and profit: The dismantling of public-sector probation

Probation has been nurtured and developed for over a century as the key cornerstone of our community justice system in England and Wales. However, a fundamental transformation in the way in which offenders are managed in the community is underway. After 106 years of rehabilitative intervention, the Probation Service is about to be dismantled - at least, in its traditional public sector incarnation. On 9 May 2013, Justice Secretary Chris Grayling formally confirmed the Conservative-Liberal Democratic coalition government's plans to privatise the majority of probation work by 2015. While few would argue with the principle of supporting rehabilitation, there was controversy over both how this could be achieved and which agencies might deliver it. The privatisation of probation was viewed as a key component of the government’s “rehabilitation revolution”

Organising neoliberalism: markets, privatisation and justice

The correctional populations of the USA and England and Wales have undergone substantial and relentless expansion over the last forty years. Throughout this period, these countries have also experienced neoliberal governments. This chapter aims to analyse the impact of those governments upon the criminal and community justice systems of the USA and of England and Wales with a particular focus on prisons, probation, and privatization, and to consider whether neoliberalism has undermined liberal and rehabilitative approaches.IIn particular, this chapter explore the way in which neoliberalism has prioritised punitiveness, de-prioritised rehabilitation, fostered a growing incarcerated population, and engaged in the pursuit of private profit at the expense of social justice within the carceral and probation systems

Written evidence from Dr Michael Teague, Senior Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Derby.

The demographics of our prison population reflect the issues that our penal system must address if it is to be successful in lowering reoffending. The size of the prison population appears to be linked with sentencing behaviour. Prison sentences are getting longer. The current prison population projections appear to accurately reflect our current state of knowledge. Over the longer term, growth is likely in the determinate sentenced population. Safety is the cornerstone upon which rehabilitative intervention in prison is built. Urgent action to guarantee safety in prisons is required. The increasing incidence of self-harm raises continuing concerns. The use of community sentencing options should be prioritised.N/

Evidence Verification Complications with Solid-State Drives

Solid-state drives operate on a combination of technologies that create a barrier between the physical data being written and the digital forensics investigator. This barrier prevents the application of evidence verification methods developed for magnetic disk drives because the barrier prevents the investigator from directly controlling and therefore verifying that the underlying physical data has not been manipulated. The purpose of this research is to identify a period of inactivity where the underlying physical data is not being manipulated by wear leveling or garbage collection routines such that evidence can be reliably verified with existing hashing algorithms. An experiment is conducted on Samsung drives. The limitation of this method is it does not enable the verification of deleted data and will be one size of solid-state drives. The results show that after an hour and a half, the solid-state drives examined will produce the same consistently until ten hours

Managing Chronic Low Back Pain

Chronic Low Back Pain remains a leading reason for ambulatory care visits, a leading primary diagnosis for ambulatory care visits, a leading cause of global burden, and the leading cause of lost workdays in the US. US Health expenditures for adults with chronic low back pain total over 102 billion. Chronic low back pain increases the risk of unemployment, poverty, obesity, smoking, and depression. Physical therapy (PT) and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) have been proven to reduce chronic low back pain intensity and duration, improve function, reduce healthcare utilization and cost, and reduce sick time. This project investigated community resources to promote patient education and participation in PT and CBT, with an emphasis on low cost at home options.https://scholarworks.uvm.edu/fmclerk/1673/thumbnail.jp

A hazardous finding of a rare anomalous left main coronary artery in a patient with a secundum atrial septal defect

A 23-year-old male referred for evaluation of a “choking” sensation with exertion and a murmur. A transthoracic echocardiogram demonstrated right atrial and ventricular dilatation, right ventricular volume overload, and a large secundum atrial septal defect (ASD) with left to right shunt and a calculated pulmonary-to-systemic blood flow ratio (Qp/Qs) estimated at 2.3 to 1. Cardiac catheterization also demonstrated evidence of the ASD with Qp/Qs of 4.6 to 1 with a significant step-up in oxygen saturation at the right atrial level. Additionally, an anomalous left main coronary artery (ALMCA) origin from the anterior right coronary cusp was suspected. Using 64-slice multidetector computed tomography coronary angiography (CCTA) the left main coronary artery was seen to arise from the right coronary cusp then traverse between the pulmonary trunk and the proximal ascending aorta before bifurcating into the left anterior descending and circumflex arteries that followed their normal courses distally. Based on the high risk nature of associated sudden death from an anomalous left main coronary artery (ALMCA) coursing between the aorta and the pulmonary trunk, the patient underwent surgical re-implantation of the ALMCA to the left coronary cusp and repair of the ASD. This case highlights a rare finding of a hazardous ALMCA in a patient with a secundum ASD and the utility of CCTA in evaluating the course of coronary anomalies along with other cardiac pathology

Teacher activity level and the presence or absence of retarded adolescent mediators on sorting performances of preschool retarded children

Five male preschool students performing a black-white square sorting task were prompted by an adult experimenter alone, five trainable mentally retarded male adolescents alone, the experimenter and five adolescents jointly, or were not prompted at all. The social behaviors of the adolescents were observed in their classroom for changes as a result of being a peer mediator. Also recorded was the percentage of time the experimenter spent immediately mediating the preschool students. Praise, tokens, and varied edible reinforcers were contingently administered to both the preschool students and the adolescent mediators. The results showed that any mediation was significantly superior to no mediation, the five adolescents were as effective as the adult, and joint mediation by the adult and five adolescents was superior to the adult alone mediation. Joint mediation was also significantly superior to mediation by the adolescents alone in producing high rates of preschool student square sorting. No significant changes in the social behavior of the adolescent mediators occurred in their classroom as a result of serving as a mediator