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Honors Scholar Theses

Punishment vs. rehabilitation: a discourse on american prison reform & comparative analysis to swedish incarceration.

Lauren Hipplewitz Follow

Date of Completion

Spring 5-1-2022

Thesis Advisor(s)

Kristin Kelly; Matthew Singer

Honors Major

Political Science

The infrastructure of the United States prison system continues to evolve through a series of policy changes and reforms. Throughout these developments, however, the institution continues to remain rooted in the philosophy of harsh penalization. This thesis incorporates a comparative analysis between the concept of perpetrator punishment within the American federal prison system to the concept of rehabilitative justice found in the Swedish system. I conceptualize the underlying “goals” of imprisonment within the United States and Sweden and examine how they serve as an operational foundation for both institutions. I analyze American prison reform that took place during the “War on Drugs” under the Reagan administration in the 1980s, as this was a major pivotal point in modern incarceration. Using a similar timeframe to examine prison reform that occurred in Sweden, I highlight the key differences between domestic and Swedish policy. I argue that these resulting differences are symptomatic of the distinct cultural values positioned at the heart of each system.

Recommended Citation

Hipplewitz, Lauren, "Punishment vs. Rehabilitation: A Discourse on American Prison Reform & Comparative Analysis to Swedish Incarceration" (2022). Honors Scholar Theses . 913. https://digitalcommons.lib.uconn.edu/srhonors_theses/913

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How to Think about Criminal Justice Reform: Conceptual and Practical Considerations

• Published: 20 December 2022
• Volume 47 , pages 1050–1070, ( 2022 )

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• Charis E. Kubrin 1 &
• Rebecca Tublitz 1  

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How can we improve the effectiveness of criminal justice reform efforts? Effective reform hinges on shared understandings of what the problem is and shared visions of what success looks like. But consensus is hard to come by, and there has long been a distinction between “policy talk” or how problems are defined and solutions are promoted, and “policy action” or the design and adoption of certain policies. In this essay, we seek to promote productive thinking and talking about, as well as designing of, effective and sustainable criminal justice reforms. To this end, we offer reflections on underlying conceptual and practical considerations relevant for both criminal justice policy talk and action.

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Across the political spectrum in the United States, there is agreement that incarceration and punitive sanctions cannot be the sole solution to crime. After decades of criminal justice expansion, incarceration rates peaked between 2006 and 2008 and have dropped modestly, but consistently, ever since then (Gramlich, 2021 ). Calls to ratchet up criminal penalties to control crime, with some exceptions, are increasingly rare. Rather, where bitter partisanship divides conservatives and progressives on virtually every other issue, bipartisan support for criminal justice reform is commonplace. This support has yielded many changes in recent years: scaling back of mandatory sentencing laws, limiting sentencing enhancements, expanding access to non-prison alternatives for low-level drug and property crimes, reducing revocations of community supervision, and increasing early release options (Subramanian & Delaney, 2014 ). New laws passed to reduce incarceration have outpaced punitive legislation three-to-one (Beckett et al., 2016 , 2018 ). Rather than the rigid “law and order” narrative that characterized the dominant approach to crime and punishment since the Nixon administration, policymakers and advocates have found common ground in reform conversations focused on cost savings, evidence-based practice, and being “smart on crime.” A “new sensibility” prevails (Phelps, 2016 ).

Transforming extensive support for criminal justice reform into substantial reductions in justice-involved populations has proven more difficult, and irregular. While the number of individuals incarcerated across the nation has declined, the U.S. continues to have the highest incarceration rate in the world, with nearly 1.9 million people held in state and federal prisons, local jails, and detention centers (Sawyer & Wagner, 2022 ; Widra & Herring, 2021 ). Another 3.9 million people remain on probation or parole (Kaeble, 2021 ). And, not all jurisdictions have bought into this new sensibility: rural and suburban reliance on prisons has increased during this new era of justice reform (Kang-Brown & Subramanian, 2017 ). Despite extensive talk of reform, achieving actual results “is about as easy as bending granite” (Petersilia, 2016 :9).

How can we improve the effectiveness of criminal justice reform? At its core, a reform is an effort to ameliorate an undesirable condition, eliminate an identified problem, achieve a goal, or strengthen an existing (successful) policy. Scholarship yields real insights into effective programming and practice in response to a range of issues in criminal justice. Equally apparent, however, is the lack of criminological knowledge incorporated into the policymaking process. Thoughtful are proposals to improve the policy-relevance of criminological knowledge and increase communication between research and policy communities (e.g., Blomberg et al., 2016 ; Mears, 2022 ). But identifying what drives effective criminal justice reform is not so straightforward. For one, the goals of reform vary across stakeholders: Should reform reduce crime and victimization? Focus on recidivism? Increase community health and wellbeing? Ensure fairness in criminal justice procedure? Depending upon who is asked, the answer differs. Consensus on effective reform hinges on shared understandings of what the problem is and shared visions of what success looks like. Scholars of the policy process often distinguish “policy talk,” or how problems are defined and solutions are promoted, from “policy action,” or the design and adoption of policy solutions, to better understand the drivers of reform and its consequences. This distinction is relevant to criminal justice reform (Bartos & Kubrin, 2018 :2; Tyack & Cuban, 1995 ).

We argue that an effective approach to criminal justice reform—one that results in policy action that matches policy talk—requires clarity regarding normative views about the purpose of punishment, appreciation of practical realities involved in policymaking, and insight into how the two intersect. To this end, in this essay we offer critical reflections on underlying conceptual and practical considerations that bear on criminal justice policy talk and action.

Part I. Conceptual Considerations: Narratives of Crime and Criminal Justice

According to social constructionist theory, the creation of knowledge is rooted in interactions between individuals through common language and shared meanings in social contexts (Berger & Luckmann, 1966 ). Common language and shared meanings create ways of thinking, or narratives, that socially construct our reality and profoundly influence public definitions of groups, events, and social phenomena, including crime and criminal justice. As such, any productive conversation about reform must engage with society’s foundational narratives about crime and criminal justice, including views about the rationales for punishment.

I. Rationales of Punishment

What is criminal justice? What purpose does our criminal justice system serve? Answers to these questions are found in the theories, organization, and practices of criminal justice. A starting point for discovery is the fact that criminal justice is a system for the implementation of punishment (Cullen & Gilbert, 1982 ). This has not always been the case but today, punishment is largely meted out in our correctional system, or prisons and jails, which embody rationales for punishment including retribution, deterrence, incapacitation, rehabilitation, and restoration. These rationales offer competing purposes and goals, and provide varying blueprints for how our criminal justice system should operate.

Where do these rationales come from? They derive, in part, from diverse understandings and explanations about the causes of crime. While many theories exist, a useful approach for thinking about crime and its causes is found in the two schools of criminological thought, the Classical and Positivist Schools of Criminology. These Schools reflect distinct ideological assumptions, identify competing rationales for punishment, and suggest unique social policies to address crime—all central to any discussion of criminal justice reform.

At its core, the Classical School sought to bring about reform of the criminal justice systems of eighteenth century Europe, which were characterized by such abuses as torture, presumption of guilt before trial, and arbitrary court procedures. Reformers of the Classical School, most notably Cesare Beccaria and Jeremy Bentham, were influenced by social contract theorists of the Enlightenment, a cultural movement of intellectuals in late seventeenth and eighteenth century Europe that emphasized reason and individualism rather than tradition, along with equality. Central assumptions of the Classical School include that people are rational and possessed of free will, and thus can be held responsible for their actions; that humans are governed by the principle of utility and, as such, seek pleasure or happiness and avoid pain; and that, to prevent crime, punishments should be just severe enough such that the pain or unhappiness created by the punishment outweighs any pleasure or happiness derived from crime, thereby deterring would-be-offenders who will see that “crime does not pay.”

The guiding concept of the Positivist School was the application of the scientific method to study crime and criminals. In contrast to the Classical School’s focus on rational decision-making, the Positivist School adopted a deterministic viewpoint, which suggests that crime is determined by factors largely outside the control of individuals, be they biological (such as genetics), psychological (such as personality disorder), or sociological (such as poverty). Positivists also promote the idea of multiple-factor causation, or that crime is caused by a constellation of complex forces.

When it comes to how we might productively think about reform, a solid understanding of these schools is necessary because “…the unique sets of assumptions of two predominant schools of criminological thought give rise to vastly different explanations of and prescriptions for the problem of crime” (Cullen & Gilbert, 1982 :36). In other words, the two schools of thought translate into different strategies for policy. They generate rationales for punishment that offer competing narratives regarding how society should handle those who violate the law. These rationales for punishment motivate reformers, whether the aim is to “rehabilitate offenders” or “get tough on crime,” influencing policy and practice.

The earliest rationale for punishment is retribution. Consistent with an individual’s desire for revenge, the aim is that offenders experience an unpleasant consequence for violating the law. Essentially, criminals should get what they deserve. While other rationales focus on changing future behavior, retribution focuses on an individual’s past actions and implies they have rightfully “earned” their punishment. Punishment, then, expresses moral disapproval for the criminal act committed. Advocates of retribution are not concerned with controlling crime; rather, they are in the business of “doing justice.” The death penalty and sentencing guidelines, a system of recommended sentences based upon offense (e.g., level of seriousness) and offender (e.g., number and type of prior offenses) characteristics, reflect basic principles of retribution.

Among the most popular rationales for punishment is deterrence, which refers to the idea that those considering crime will refrain from doing so out of a fear of punishment, consistent with the Classical School. Deterrence emphasizes that punishing a person also sends a message to others about what they can expect if they, too, violate the law. Deterrence theory provides the basis for a particular kind of correctional system that punishes the crime, not the criminal. Punishments are to be fixed tightly to specific crimes so that offenders will soon learn that the state means business. The death penalty is an example of a policy based on deterrence (as is obvious, these rationales are not mutually exclusive) as are three-strikes laws, which significantly increase prison sentences of those convicted of a felony who have been previously convicted of two or more violent crimes or serious felonies.

Another rationale for punishment, incapacitation, has the goal of reducing crime by incarcerating offenders or otherwise restricting their liberty (e.g., community supervision reflected in probation, parole, electronic monitoring). Uninterested in why individuals commit crime in the first place, and with no illusion they can be reformed, the goal is to remove individuals from society during a period in which they are expected to reoffend. Habitual offender laws, which target repeat offenders or career criminals and provide for enhanced or exemplary punishments or other sanctions, reflect this rationale.

Embodied in the term “corrections” is the notion that those who commit crime can be reformed, that their behavior can be “corrected.” Rehabilitation refers to when individuals refrain from crime—not out of a fear of punishment—but because they are committed to law-abiding behavior. The goal, from this perspective, is to change the factors that lead individuals to commit crime in the first place, consistent with Positivist School arguments. Unless criminogenic risks are targeted for change, crime will continue. The correctional system should thus be arranged to deliver effective treatment; in other words, prisons must be therapeutic. Reflective of this rationale is the risk-need-responsibility (RNR) model, used to assess and rehabilitate offenders. Based on three principles, the risk principle asserts that criminal behavior can be reliably predicted and that treatment should focus on higher risk offenders, the need principle emphasizes the importance of criminogenic needs in the design and delivery of treatment and, the responsivity principle describes how the treatment should be provided.

When a crime takes place, harm occurs—to the victim, to the community, and even to the offender. Traditional rationales of punishment do not make rectifying this harm in a systematic way an important goal. Restoration, or restorative justice, a relatively newer rationale, aims to rectify harms and restore injured parties, perhaps by apologizing and providing restitution to the victim or by doing service for the community. In exchange, the person who violated the law is (ideally) forgiven and accepted back into the community as a full-fledged member. Programs associated with restorative justice are mediation and conflict-resolution programs, family group conferences, victim-impact panels, victim–offender mediation, circle sentencing, and community reparative boards.

II. Narratives of Criminal Justice

Rationales for punishment, thus, are many. But from where do they arise? They reflect and reinforce narratives of crime and criminal justice (Garland, 1991 ). Penological and philosophical narratives constitute two traditional ways of thinking about criminal justice. In the former, punishment is viewed essentially as a technique of crime control. This narrative views the criminal justice system in instrumental terms, as an institution whose overriding purpose is the management and control of crime. The focal question of interest is a technical one: What works to control crime? The latter, and second, narrative considers the philosophy of punishment. It examines the normative foundations on which the corrections system rests. Here, punishment is set up as a distinctively moral problem, asking how penal sanctions can be justified, what their proper objectives should be, and under what circumstances they can be reasonably imposed. The central question here is “What is just?”.

A third narrative, “the sociology of punishment,” conceptualizes punishment as a social institution—one that is distinctively focused on punishment’s social forms, functions, and significance in society (Garland, 1991 ). In this narrative, punishment, and the criminal justice system more broadly, is understood as a cultural and historical artifact that is concerned with the control of crime, but that is shaped by an ensemble of social forces and has significance and impacts that reach well beyond the population of criminals (pg. 119). A sociology of punishment narrative raises important questions: How do specific penal measures come into existence?; What social functions does punishment perform?; How do correctional institutions relate to other institutions?; How do they contribute to social order or to state power or to class domination or to cultural reproduction of society?; What are punishment’s unintended social effects, its functional failures, and its wider social costs? (pg. 119). Answers to these questions are found in the sociological perspectives on punishment, most notably those by Durkheim (punishment is a moral process, functioning to preserve shared values and normative conventions on which social life is based), Marx (punishment is a repressive instrument of class domination), Foucault (punishment is one part of an extensive network of “normalizing” practices in society that also includes school, family, and work), and Elias (punishment reflects a civilizing process that brings with it a move toward the privatization of disturbing events), among others.

Consistent with the sociology of punishment, Kraska and Brent ( 2011 ) offer additional narratives, which they call theoretical orientations, for organizing thoughts on the criminal justice system generally, and the control of crime specifically. They argue a useful way to think about theorizing is through the use of metaphors. Adopting this approach, they identify eight ways of thinking based on different metaphors: criminal justice as rational/legalism, as a system, as crime control vs. due process, as politics, as the social construction of reality, as a growth complex, as oppression, and as modernity. Several overlap with concepts and frameworks discussed earlier, while others, such as oppression, are increasingly applicable in current conversations about racial justice—something we take up in greater detail below. Consistent with Garland ( 1991 ), Kraska and Brent ( 2011 ) emphasize that each narrative tells a unique story about the history, growth, behaviors, motivations, functioning, and possible future of the criminal justice system. What unites these approaches is their shared interest in understanding punishment’s broader role in society.

There are still other narratives of crime and criminal justice, with implications for thinking about and conceptualizing reform. Packer ( 1964 ) identifies two theoretical models, each offering a different narrative, which reflect value systems competing for priority in the operation of the criminal process: the Crime Control Model and the Due Process Model. The Crime Control Model is based on the view that the most important function of the criminal process is the repression of criminal conduct. The failure of law enforcement to bring criminal conduct under tight control is seen as leading to a breakdown of public order and hence, to the disappearance of freedom. If laws go unenforced and offenders perceive there is a low chance of being apprehended and convicted, a disregard for legal controls will develop and law-abiding citizens are likely to experience increased victimization. In this way, the criminal justice process is a guarantor of social freedom.

To achieve this high purpose, the Crime Control Model requires attention be paid to the efficiency with which the system operates to screen suspects, determine guilt, and secure dispositions of individuals convicted of crime. There is thus a premium on speed and finality. Speed, in turn, depends on informality, while finality depends on minimizing occasions for challenge. As such, the process cannot be “cluttered up” with ceremonious rituals. In this way, informal operations are preferred to formal ones, and routine, stereotyped procedures are essential to handle large caseloads. Packer likens the Crime Control Model to an “assembly line or a conveyor belt down which moves an endless stream of cases, never stopping, carrying the cases to workers who stand at fixed stations and who perform on each case as it comes by the same small but essential operation that brings it one step closer to being a finished product, or, to exchange the metaphor for the reality, a closed file” (pg. 11). Evidence of this model today is witnessed in the extremely high rate of criminal cases disposed of via plea bargaining.

In contrast, the Due Process model calls for strict adherence to the Constitution and a focus on the accused and their Constitutional rights. Stressing the possibility of error, this model emphasizes the need to protect procedural rights even if this prevents the system from operating with maximum efficiency. There is thus a rejection of informal fact-finding processes and insistence on formal, adjudicative, adversary fact-finding processes. Packer likens the Due Process model to an obstacle course: “Each of its successive stages is designed to present formidable impediments to carrying the accused any further along in the process” (pg. 13). That all death penalty cases are subject to appeal, even when not desired by the offender, is evidence of the Due Process model in action.

Like the frameworks described earlier, the Crime Control and Due Process models offer a useful framework for discussing and debating the operation of a system whose day-to-day functioning involves a constant tension between competing demands of different sets of values. In the context of reform, these models encourage us to consider critical questions: On a spectrum between the extremes represented by the two models, where do our present practices fall? What appears to be the direction of foreseeable trends along this spectrum? Where on the spectrum should we aim to be? In essence, which value system is reflected most in criminal justice practices today, in which direction is the system headed, and where should it aim go in the future? Of course this framework, as all others reviewed here, assumes a tight fit between structure and function in the criminal courts yet some challenge this assumption arguing, instead, that criminal justice is best conceived of as a “loosely coupled system” (Hagan et al., 1979 :508; see also Bernard et al., 2005 ).

III. The Relevance of Crime and Criminal Justice Narratives for Thinking about Reform

When it comes to guiding researchers and policymakers to think productively about criminal justice reform, at first glance the discussion above may appear too academic and intellectual. But these narratives are more than simply fodder for discussion or topics of debate in the classroom or among academics. They govern how we think and talk about criminal justice and, by extension, how the system should be structured—and reformed.

An illustrative example of this is offered in Haney’s ( 1982 ) essay on psychological individualism. Adopting the premise that legal rules, doctrines, and procedures, including those of the criminal justice system, reflect basic assumptions about human nature, Haney’s thesis is that in nineteenth century America, an overarching narrative dominated legal and social conceptions of human behavior—that of psychological individualism. Psychological individualism incorporates three basic “facts” about human behavior: 1) individuals are the causal locus of behavior; 2) socially problematic and illegal behavior therefore arises from some defect in the individual persons who perform it; and, 3) such behavior can be changed or eliminated only by effecting changes in the nature or characteristics of those persons. Here, crime is rooted in the nature of criminals themselves be the source genetic, biological, or instinctual, ideas consistent with the Classical School of Criminology.

Haney reviews the rise and supremacy of psychological individualism in American society, discusses its entrenchment in legal responses to crime, and describes the implications of adopting such a viewpoint. Psychological individualism, he claims, diverted attention away from the structural and situational causes of crime (e.g., poverty, inequality, capitalism) and suggested the futility of social reforms that sought solutions to human problems through changes in larger social conditions: “The legal system, in harmony with widely held psychological theories about the causal primacy of individuals, acted to transform all structural problems into matters of moral depravity and personal shortcoming” (pg. 226–27). This process of transformation is nowhere clearer than in our historical commitment to prisons as the solution to the problem of crime, a commitment that continues today. Psychological individualism continues to underpin contemporary reform efforts. For example, approaches to reducing racial disparities in policing by eliminating officers’ unconscious racial bias through implicit-bias trainings shifts the focus away from organizational and institutional sources of disparate treatment.

In sum, the various narratives of crime and criminal justice constitute an essential starting point for any discussion of reform. They reflect vastly differing assumptions and, in many instances, value orientations or ideologies. The diversity of ways of thinking arguably contribute to conflict in society over contemporary criminal justice policy and proposed reforms. Appreciating that point is critical for identifying ways to create effective and sustainable reforms.

At the same time, these different ways of thinking do not exist in a vacuum. Rather, they collide with practical realities and constraints, which can and do shape how the criminal justice system functions, as well as determine the ability to reform it moving forward. For that reason, we turn to a discussion of how narratives about crime and criminal justice intersect with practical realities in the policy sphere, and suggest considerations that policymakers, researchers, and larger audiences should attend to when thinking about the future of reform.

Part II. Practical Considerations: Criminal Justice Reform through a Policy Lens

Criminal justice reform is no simple matter. Unsurprisingly, crime has long been considered an example of a “wicked” problem in public policy: ill-defined; with uncertainty about its causes and incomplete knowledge of effective solutions; complex arrangements of institutions responsible for addressing the problem; and, disagreement on foundational values (Head & Alford, 2015 ; Rittel & Webber, 1973 )—the latter apparent from the discussion above. Many note a large gap between criminological knowledge and policy (Mears, 2010 , 2022 ; Currie, 2007 ). While a movement to incorporate research evidence into the policy-making process has made some in-roads, we know less about how policymakers use this information to adopt and enact reforms. Put differently, more attention is paid to understanding the outcomes of crime-related policy while less is known about the contexts of, and inputs into, the process itself (Ismaili, 2006 ).

We identify practical considerations for policy-oriented researchers and policymakers in thinking through how to make criminal justice reform more effective. Specifically, we discuss practical considerations that reformers are likely to encounter related to problem formulation and framing (policy talk) and policy adoption (policy action), including issues of 1) variation and complexity in the criminal justice policy environment, 2) problem framing and policy content, 3) policy aims and outcomes, 4) equity considerations in policy design and evaluation; and, 5) policy process and policy change. These considerations are by no means exhaustive nor are they mutually exclusive. We offer these thoughts as starting points for discussion.

I. The Criminal Justice Policy Environment: Many Systems, Many Players

The criminal justice “system” in the United States is something of a misnomer. There is no single, centralized system. Instead, there are at least 51 separate systems—one for each of the 50 states, and the federal criminal justice system—each with different laws, policies, and administrative arrangements. Multiple agencies are responsible for various aspects of enforcing the law and administering justice. These agencies operate across multiple, overlapping jurisdictions. Some are at the municipal level (police), others are governed by counties (courts, prosecution, jails), and still others by state and federal agencies (prisons, probation, parole). Across these systems is an enormous amount of discretion regarding what crimes to prioritize for enforcement, whether and what charges to file, which sentences to mete out, what types of conditions, treatment, and programming to impose, and how to manage those under correctional authority. Scholars note the intrinsic problem with this wide-ranging independence: “criminal justice policy is made and put into action at the municipal, county, state, and national levels, and the thousands of organizations that comprise this criminal justice network are, for the most part, relatively autonomous both horizontally and vertically” (Lynch, 2011 :682; see also Bernard et al., 2005 ; Mears, 2017 ).

Criminal justice officials are not the only players. The “policy community” is made up of other governmental actors, including elected and appointed officials in the executive branches (governors and mayors) and legislative actors (council members, state, and federal representatives), responsible for formulating and executing legislation. Non-governmental actors play a role in the policy community as well, including private institutions and non-profit organizations, the media, interest and advocacy groups, academics and research institutions, impacted communities, along with the public at large (Ismaili, 2006 ).

Any consideration of criminal justice reform must attend to the structural features of the policy environment, including its institutional fragmentation. This feature creates both obstacles and opportunities for reform. Policy environments vary tremendously across states and local communities. Policies championed in Washington State are likely different than those championed in Georgia. But the policy community in Atlanta may be decidedly different than that of Macon, and policy changes can happen at hyper-local levels (Ouss & Stevenson, 2022 ). Differences between local jurisdictions can have national impacts: while urban jurisdictions have reduced their reliance on jails and prisons, rural and suburban incarceration rates continue to increase (Kang-Brown & Subramanian, 2017 ). Understanding key stakeholders, their political and policy interests, and their administrative authority to act is critical for determining how effective policy reforms can be pursued (Miller, 2008 ; Page, 2011 ). Prospects for, and possible targets of, reform thus necessitate a wide view of what constitutes “policy,” Footnote 1 looking not only to federal and state law but also to state and local administrative policies and practices (Reiter & Chesnut, 2018 ).

II. Policy Talk: Framing Problems, Shaping Possible Solutions

While agreement exists around the need for reform in the criminal justice system, this apparent unanimity belies disagreements over the proposed causes of the problem and feasible solutions (Gottschalk, 2015 ; Levin, 2018 ). This is evident in how reform is talked about in political and policy spheres, the types of reforms pursued, and which groups are its beneficiaries. Since the Great Recession of 2008, bipartisan reforms have often been couched in the language of fiscal conservatism, “right-sizing” the system, and being “smart on crime” (Beckett et al., 2016 ). These economic frames, focused on cost-efficiency, are effectively used to defend non-punitive policies including changes to the death penalty, marijuana legalization, and prison down-sizing (Aviram, 2015 ). However, cost-saving rationales are also used to advance punitive policies that shift the costs of punishment onto those who are being sanctioned, such as “pay-to-stay” jails and the multitude of fines and fees levied on justice-involved people for the cost of criminal justice administration. Economic justifications are not the only arguments that support the very same policy changes; fairness and proportionality, reducing prison overcrowding, enhancing public safety, and increasing rehabilitation are all deployed to defend various reforms (Beckett et al., 2016 ). Similarity in rhetorical justifications—cost-efficiency and fiscal responsibility, for example—can obscure deep divisions over how, and whom, to punish, divisions which stem from different narratives on the causes and consequences of crime.

The content of enacted policies also reveals underlying disagreements within justice reform. Clear distinctions are seen in how cases and people are categorized, and in who benefits from, or is burdened by, reform. For example, many states have lowered penalties and expanded rehabilitation alternatives for non-violent drug and other low-level offenses and technical violations on parole. Substantially fewer reforms target violent offenses. Decarceration efforts for non-violent offenders are often coupled with increasing penalties for others, including expansions of life imprisonment without parole for violent offenses (Beckett, 2018 ; Seeds, 2017 ). Reforms aimed only at individuals characterized as “non-violent, non-serious, and non-sexual” can reinforce social distinctions between people (and offenses) seen as deserving of lenient treatment from those who aren’t (Beckett et al., 2016 ).

The framing of social problems can shape the nature of solutions, although the impact of “framing” deserves greater attention in the criminal justice policy process (Rein & Schön, 1977 ; Schneider & Ingram,  1993 ). Policies can be understood in rational terms—for their application of technical solutions to resolve pre-defined problems—but also through “value-laden components, such as social constructions, rationales, and underlying assumptions” (Schneider & Sidney, 2006 :105). Specific frames (e.g., “crime doesn’t pay” or “don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time”) derive from underlying narratives (e.g., classical school, rational-actor models of behavior, and deterrence) that shape how crime and criminal justice are understood, as discussed in Part I. Framing involves how issues are portrayed and categorized, and even small changes to language or images used to frame an issue can impact policy preferences (Chong & Druckman, 2007 ). Public sentiments play an important role in the policy process, as policymakers and elected officials are responsive to public opinion about punishments (Pickett, 2019 ). Actors in the policy community—criminal justice bureaucrats, elected officials, interest groups, activists—compete to influence how a problem is framed, and thus addressed, by policymakers (Baumgartner & Jones, 2009 ; Benford & Snow, 2000 ). Policymakers, particularly elected officials, commonly work to frame issues in ways that support their political goals and resonate with their constituents (Gamson, 1992 ).

As noted at the outset, public support for harsh punishments has declined since the 1990’s and the salience of punitive “law and order” and “tough-on-crime” politics has fallen as well, as public support for rehabilitative approaches has increased (Thielo et al., 2016 ). How can researchers and policymakers capitalize on this shift in public sentiments? Research suggests that different issue frames, such as fairness, cost to taxpayers, ineffectiveness, and racial disparities, can increase (or reduce) public support for policies for nonviolent offenders (e.g., Dunbar, 2022 ; Gottlieb, 2017 ) and even for policies that target violent offenders (Pickett et al., 2022 ). Public sentiment and framing clearly matter for what problems gain attention, the types of policies that exist, and who ultimately benefits. These themes raise orienting questions: In a specific locale, what are the dominant understandings of the policy problem? How do these understandings map to sets of foundational assumptions about the purpose of intervention (e.g., deterrence, retribution, rehabilitation, restoration) and understandings of why people commit crime (e.g., Classical and Positivist approaches)? What types of issue frames are effective in garnering support for reforms? How does this support vary by policy context (urban, suburban, rural; federal, statewide, and local) and audience (elected officials, agency leadership, frontline workers, political constituents)?

III. Proposed Solutions and Expected Outcomes: Instrumental or Symbolic?

There are a variety of motivations in pursuing various policy solutions, along with different kinds of goals. Some reflect a desire to create tangible change for a specific problem while others are meant to mollify a growing concern. As such, one practical consideration related to policymaking and reform that bears discussion is the symbolic and instrumental nature of criminal justice policies.

Policies are considered to have an instrumental nature when they propose or result in changes to behaviors related to a public problem such as crime—that is, when they change behavior through direct influence on individuals’ actions (Sample et al., 2011 :29; see also Grattet & Jenness, 2008 ; Gusfield, 1963 ; Oliver & Marion, 2008 ). Symbolic policies, by contrast, are those that policymakers pass in order to be seen in a favorable light by the public (Jenness, 2004 ), particularly in the context of a “moral panic” (Barak, 1994 ; Ben-Yehuda, 1990 ). As Sample et al., ( 2011 :28) explain, symbolic policies provide three basic functions to society: 1) reassuring the public by helping reduce angst and demonstrate that something is being done about a problem; 2) solidifying moral boundaries by codifying public consensus of right and wrong; and 3) becoming a model for the diffusion of law to other states and the federal government. Symbolic policies are thus meant to demonstrate that policymakers understand, and are willing to address, a perceived problem, even when there is little expectation such policies will make a difference. In this way, symbolic policies are “values statements” and function largely ceremonially.

This distinction has a long history in criminological work, dating back to Gusfield’s ( 1963 ) analysis of the temperance movement. Suggesting that policymaking is often dramatic in nature and intended to shift ways of thinking, Gusfield ( 1963 ) argues that Prohibition and temperance were intended as symbolic, rather than instrumental, goals in that their impacts were felt in the action of prohibition itself rather than in its effect on citizens’ consumptive behaviors.

A modern-day example of symbolic policy is found in the sanctuary status movement as it relates to the policing of immigrants. Historically, immigration enforcement was left to the federal government however state and local law enforcement have faced increasing demands to become more involved in enforcing immigration laws in their communities. Policies enacted to create closer ties between local police departments and federal immigration officials reflect this new pattern of “devolution of immigration enforcement” (Provine et al., 2016 ). The Secure Communities Program, the Criminal Alien Program, and 287g agreements, in different but complementary ways, provide resources and training to help local officials enforce immigration statutes.

The devolution of immigration enforcement has faced widespread scrutiny (Kubrin, 2014 ). Many local jurisdictions have rejected devolution efforts by passing sanctuary policies, which expressly limit local officials’ involvement in the enforcement of federal immigration law. Among the most comprehensive is California’s SB54, passed in 2017, which made California a sanctuary state. The law prohibits local authorities from cooperating with federal immigration detainer requests, limits immigration agents’ access to local jails, and ends the use of jails to hold immigration detainees. At first glance, SB54 appears instrumental—its aim is to change the behavior of criminal justice officials in policing immigration. In practice, however, it appears that little behavioral change has taken place. Local police in California had already minimized their cooperation with Federal officials, well before SB54 was passed. In a broader sense then, “…the ‘sanctuary city’ name is largely a symbolic message of political support for immigrants without legal residency” and with SB54 specifically, “California [helped build] a wall of justice against President Trump’s xenophobic, racist and ignorant immigration policies,” (Ulloa, 2017 ).

Instrumental and symbolic goals are not an either-or proposition. Policies can be both, simultaneously easing public fears, demonstrating legislators’ desire to act, and having direct appreciable effects on people’s behaviors (Sample et al., 2011 ). This may occur even when not intended. At the same time, a policy’s effects or outcomes can turn out to be different from the original aim, creating a gap between “policy talk” and “policy action.” In their analysis of law enforcement action in response to the passage of hate crime legislation, Grattet and Jenness ( 2008 ) find that legislation thought to be largely symbolic in nature, in fact, ended up having instrumental effects through changes in enforcement practices, even as these effects were conditioned by the organizational context of enforcement agencies. Symbolic law can be rendered instrumental (under certain organizational and social conditions) and symbolic policies may evolve to have instrumental effects.

As another example, consider aims and outcomes of sex offender registration laws, which provide information about people convicted of sex offenses to local and federal authorities and the public, including the person’s name, current location, and past offenses. As Sample et al. ( 2011 ) suggest, these laws, often passed immediately following a highly publicized sex crime or in the midst of a moral panic, are largely cast as symbolic policy, serving to reassure the public through notification of sex offenders’ whereabouts so their behaviors can be monitored (Jenkins, 1998 ; Sample & Kadleck, 2008 ). While notification laws do not yield a discernable instrumental effect on offenders’ behavior (Tewksbury, 2002 ), this is not the sole goal of such policies. Rather, they are intended to encourage behavioral change among citizens (Sample et al., 2011 ), encouraging the public’s participation in their own safety by providing access to information. Do sex offender notification laws, in fact, alter citizen behavior, thereby boosting public safety?

To answer this question, Sample and her colleagues ( 2011 ) surveyed a random sample of Nebraska residents to determine whether they access sex offender information and to explore the reasons behind their desire, or reluctance, to do so. They find largely symbolic effects of registry legislation, with a majority of residents (over 69%) indicating they had never accessed the registry. These findings raise important questions about the symbolic vs. instrumental nature of criminal justice policies more broadly: “Should American citizens be content with largely symbolic crime policies and laws that demonstrate policy makers’ willingness to address problems, ease public fear, solidify public consensus of appropriate and inappropriate behavior, and provide a model of policies and laws for other states, or should they want more from crime control efforts? Is there a tipping point at which time the resources expended to adhere to symbolic laws and a point where the financial and human costs of the law become too high to continue to support legislation that is largely symbolic in nature? Who should make this judgment?” (pg. 46). These two examples, immigration-focused laws and sex offender laws, illustrate the dynamics involved in policymaking, particularly the relationship between proposed solutions and their expected outcomes. They reveal that instrumental and symbolic goals often compete for priority in the policy-making arena.

IV. Equity-Consciousness in Policy Formulation

As the criminal justice system exploded in size in the latter half of the twentieth century, its impacts have not spread equally across the population. Black, Latino, and Indigenous communities are disproportionately affected by policing, mass incarceration, and surveillance practices. At a moment of political momentum seeking to curb the excesses of the criminal justice system, careful attention must be paid not only to its overreach, but also to its racialized nature and inequitable impacts. Many evaluative criteria are used to weigh policies including efficiency, effectiveness, cost, political acceptability, and administrative feasibility, among others. One critical dimension is the extent to which a policy incorporates equity considerations into its design, or is ignorant about potential inequitable outcomes. While reducing racial disparities characterizes reform efforts of the past, these efforts often fail to yield meaningful impacts, and sometimes unintentionally exacerbate disparities. Equity analyses should be more formally centered in criminal justice policymaking.

Racial and ethnic disparities are a central feature of the U.S. criminal justice system. Decades of research reveals Black people, and to a lesser degree Latinos and Native Americans, are disproportionately represented in the criminal justice system at all stages (Bales & Piquero, 2012 ; Hinton et al., 2018 ; Kutateladze et al., 2014 ; Menefee, 2018 ; Mitchell, 2005 ; Warren et al., 2012 ). These disparities have many sources: associations between blackness and criminality, and stereotypes of dangerousness (Muhammad, 2010 ); implicit racial bias (Spencer et al., 2016 ); residential and economic segregation that expose communities of color to environments that encourage criminal offending and greater police presence (Peterson & Krivo, 2010 ; Sharkey, 2013 ); and, punitive criminal justice policies that increase the certainty and severity of punishments, such as mandatory minimum sentences, life imprisonment, and habitual offender laws, for which people of color are disproportionately arrested and convicted (Raphael & Stoll, 2013 ; Schlesinger, 2011 ). Disparities in initial stages of criminal justice contact, at arrest or prosecution, can compound to generate disparate outcomes at later stages, such as conviction and sentencing, even where legal actors are committed to racial equality (Kutateladze et al., 2014 ). Disparities compound over time, too; having prior contact with the justice system may increase surveillance and the likelihood of being arrested, charged, detained pretrial, and sentenced to incarceration (Ahrens, 2020 ; Kurlychek & Johnson, 2019 ).

Perspectives on how to reduce disparities vary widely, and understanding how the benefits or burdens of a given policy change will be distributed across racial and ethnic groups is not always clear. Even well-intentioned reforms intended to increase fairness and alleviate disparities can fail to achieve intended impacts or unintentionally encourage inequity. For example, sentencing guidelines adopted in the 1970s to increase consistency and reduce inequitable outcomes across groups at sentencing alleviated, but did not eliminate, racial disparities (Johnson & Lee, 2013 ); popular “Ban the Box” legislation, aimed at reducing the stigma of a criminal record, may increase racial disparities in callbacks for job seekers of color (Agan & Starr, 2018 ; Raphael, 2021 ); and “risk assessments,” used widely in criminal justice decision-making, may unintentionally reproduce existing disparities by relying on information that is itself a product of racialized policing, prosecution, and sentencing (Eckhouse et al., 2019 ). Conversely, policies enacted without explicit consideration of equity effects may result in reductions of disparities: California’s Proposition 47, which reclassifies certain felony offenses to misdemeanors, reduced Black and Latino disparities in drug arrests, likelihood of conviction, and rates of jail incarceration relative to Whites (Mooney et al., 2018 ; Lofstrom et al., 2019 ; MacDonald & Raphael, 2020 ).

Understanding the potential equity implications of criminal justice reforms should be a key consideration for policymakers and applied researchers alike. However, an explicit focus on reducing racial disparities is often excluded from the policymaking process, seen as a secondary concern to other policy goals, or framed in ways that focus on race-neutral processes rather than race-equitable outcomes (Chouhy et al., 2021 ; Donnelly, 2017 ). But this need not be the case; examinations of how elements of a given policy (e.g., goals, target population, eligibility criteria) and proposed changes to procedure or practice might impact different groups can be incorporated into policy design and evaluation. As one example, racial equity impact statements (REIS), a policy tool that incorporates an empirical analysis of the projected impacts of a change in law, policy, or practice on racial and ethnic groups (Porter, 2021 ), are used in some states. Modeled after the now-routine environmental impact and fiscal impact statements, racial impact statements may be conducted in advance of a hearing or vote on any proposed change to policy, or can even be incorporated in the policy formulation stages (Chouhy et al., 2021 ; Mauer, 2007 ). Researchers, analysts, and policymakers should also examine potential differential effects of existing policies and pay special attention to how structural inequalities intersect with policy features to contribute to—and potentially mitigate—disparate impacts of justice reforms (Anderson et al., 2022 ; Mooney et al., 2022 ).

V. Putting It Together: Modeling the Policy Change Process

Approaches to crime and punishment do not change overnight. Policy change can be incremental or haphazard, and new innovations adopted by criminal justice systems often bear markers of earlier approaches. There exist multiple frameworks for understanding change and continuity in approaches to crime and punishment. The metaphor of a pendulum is often used to characterize changes to criminal justice policy, where policy regimes swing back and forth between punishment and leniency (Goodman et al., 2017 ). These changes are ushered along by macro-level shifts of economic, political, demographics, and cultural sensibilities (Garland, 2001 ).

Policy change is rarely predictable or mechanical (Smith & Larimer, 2017 ). Actors struggle over whom to punish and how, and changes in the relative resources, political position, and power among actors drive changes to policy and practice (Goodman et al., 2017 ). This conflict, which plays out at the level of politics and policymaking and is sometimes subsumed within agencies and day-to-day practices in the justice system, creates a landscape of contradictory policies, logics, and discourses. New policies and practices are “tinted” by (Dabney et al., 2017 ) or “braided” with older logics (Hutchinson, 2006 ), or “layered” onto existing practices (Rubin, 2016 ).

Public policy theory offers different, but complementary, insights into how policies come to be, particularly under complex conditions. One widely used framework in policy studies is the “multiple streams” framework (Kingdon, 1995 ). This model of the policymaking process focuses on policy choice and agenda setting, or the question of what leads policymakers to pay attention to one issue over others, and pursue one policy in lieu of others.

The policy process is heuristically outlined as a sequential set of steps or stages: problem identification, agenda setting, policy formulation, adoption or decision-making, implementation, and evaluation. However, real-world policymaking rarely conforms to this process (Smith & Larimer, 2017 ). In the multiple streams lens, the process is neither rational nor linear but is seen as “organized anarchy,” described by several features: 1) ambiguity over the definition of the problem, creating many possible solutions for the same circumstances and conditions; 2) limited time to make decisions and multiple issues vying for policymakers’ attention, leading to uncertain policy preferences; 3) a crowded policy community with shifting participation; and, 4) multiple agencies and organizations in the policy environment working on similar problems with little coordination or transparency (Herweg et al., 2018 ).

In this context, opportunity for change emerges when three, largely separate, “streams” of interactions intersect: problems , politics , and policies . First, in the “problem stream,” problems are defined as conditions that deviate from expectations and are seen by the public as requiring government intervention. Many such “problems” exist, but not all rise to the level of attention from policymakers. Conditions must be re-framed into problems requiring government attention. Several factors can usher this transformation. Changes in the scale of problem, such as increases or decreases in crime, can raise the attention of government actors. So-called “focusing events” (Birkland, 1997 ), or rare and unexpected events, such as shocking violent crime or a natural disaster (e.g., COVID-19 pandemic), can also serve this purpose. The murder of George Floyd by police officers in Minneapolis, for instance, was a focusing event for changing the national conversation around police use of force into a problem requiring government intervention. Finally, feedback from existing programs or policies, particularly those that fail to achieve their goals or have unwanted effects, can reframe existing conditions as problems worthy of attention.

The “policy stream” is where solutions, or policy alternatives, are developed to address emerging problems. Solutions are generated both by “visible” participants in the stream, such as prominent elected officials, or by “hidden” actors, such as criminal justice bureaucrats, interest groups, academics, or consultants. Policy ideas float around in this stream until they are “coupled,” or linked, with specific problems. At any given time, policy ideas based in deterrence or incapacitation rationales, including increasing the harshness of penalties or the certainty of sanctions, and solutions based in rehabilitative rationales, such as providing treatment-oriented diversion or restorative justice programs, all co-exist in the policy stream. Not all policy alternatives are seen as viable and likely to reach the agenda; viable solutions are marked by concerns of feasibility, value acceptability, public support or tolerance, and financial viability.

Lastly, the “political stream” is governed by several elements, including changes to the national mood and changing composition of governments and legislatures as new politicians are elected and new government administrators appointed. This stream helps determine whether a problem will find a receptive venue (Smith & Larimer, 2017 ). For example, the election of a progressive prosecutor intent on changing status quo processing of cases through the justice system creates a viable political environment for new policies to be linked with problems. When the three streams converge, that is, when conditions become problems, a viable solution is identified, and a receptive political venue exists, a “policy window” opens and change is most likely. For Kingdon ( 2011 ), this is a moment of “opportunity for advocates of proposals to push their pet solutions, or to push attention to their special problems” (pg. 165).

Models of the policy change process, of which the multiple streams framework is just one, may be effectively applied to crime and justice policy spheres. Prior discussions on the ways of thinking about crime and criminal justice can be usefully integrated with models of the policy change process; narratives shape how various conditions are constructed as problems worthy of collective action and influence policy ideas and proposals available among policy communities. We encourage policymakers and policy-oriented researchers to examine criminal justice reform through policy process frameworks in order to better understand why some reforms succeed, and why others fail.

When it comes to the criminal justice system, one of the most commonly asked questions today is: How can we improve the effectiveness of reform efforts? Effective reform hinges on shared understandings of what the problem is as well as shared visions of what success looks like. Yet consensus is hard to come by, and scholars have long differentiated between “policy talk” and “policy action.” The aim of this essay has been to identify conceptual and practical considerations related to both policy talk and policy action in the context of criminal justice reform today.

On the conceptual side, we reviewed narratives that create society’s fundamental ways of thinking about or conceptualizing crime and criminal justice. These narratives reflect value orientations that underlie our criminal justice system and determine how it functions. On the practical side, we identified considerations for both policy-oriented researchers and policymakers in thinking through how to make criminal justice reform more effective. These practical considerations included variation and complexity in the criminal justice policy environment, problem framing and policy content, policy aims and outcomes, equity considerations in policy design and evaluation, and models of the policy change process.

These conceptual and practical considerations are by no means exhaustive, nor are they mutually-exclusive. Rather, they serve as starting points for productively thinking and talking about, as well as designing, effective and sustainable criminal justice reform. At the same time, they point to the need for continuous policy evaluation and monitoring—at all levels—as a way to increase accountability and effectiveness. Indeed, policy talk and policy action do not stop at the problem formation, agenda setting, or adoption stages of policymaking. Critical to understanding effective policy is implementation and evaluation, which create feedback into policy processes, and is something that should be addressed in future work on criminal justice reform.

No single definition of public policy exists. Here we follow Smith and Larimer ( 2017 ) and define policy as any action by the government in response to a problem, including laws, rules, agency policies, programs, and day-to-day practices.

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Widra. E., & Herring, T. (2021). States of incarceration: The global context 2021 . Prison Policy Initiative. Retrieved July 26 2022, from https://www.prisonpolicy.org/global/2021.html

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Kubrin, C.E., Tublitz, R. How to Think about Criminal Justice Reform: Conceptual and Practical Considerations. Am J Crim Just 47 , 1050–1070 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12103-022-09712-6

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• Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice
• Prison Reform

Why promote prison reform?

Central to the arguments to promote prison reforms is a human rights argument - the premise on which many UN standards and norms have been developed. However, this argument is often insufficient to encourage prison reform programmes in countries with scarce human and financial resources. The detrimental impact of imprisonment, not only on individuals but on families and communities, and economic factors also need to be taken into account when considering the need for prison reforms.

Human rights considerations

A sentence of imprisonment constitutes only a deprivation of the basic right to liberty. It does not entail the restriction of other human rights, with the exception of those which are naturally restricted by the very fact of being in prison. Prison reform is necessary to ensure that this principle is respected, the human rights of prisoners protected and their prospects for social reintegration increased, in compliance with relevant international standards and norms.

Imprisonment and poverty

Imprisonment disproportionately affects individuals and families living in poverty. When an income generating member of the family is imprisoned the rest of the family must adjust to this loss of income. The impact can be especially severe in poor, developing countries where the state does not provide financial assistance to the indigent and where it is not unusual for one breadwinner to financially support an extended family network. Thus the family experiences financial losses as a result of the imprisonment of one of its members, exacerbated by the new expenses that must be met - such as the cost of a lawyer, food for the imprisoned person, transport to prison for visits and so on. When released, often with no prospects for employment, former prisoners are generally subject to socio-economic exclusion and are thus vulnerable to an endless cycle of poverty, marginalisation, criminality and imprisonment. Thus, imprisonment contributes directly to the impoverishment of the prisoner, of his family (with a significant cross-generational effect) and of society by creating future victims and reducing future potential economic performance.

Public health consequences of imprisonment

Prisons have very serious health implications. Prisoners are likely to have existing health problems on entry to prison, as they are predominantly from poorly educated and socio-economically deprived sectors of the general population, with minimal access to adequate health services. Their health conditions deteriorate in prisons which are overcrowded, where nutrition is poor, sanitation inadequate and access to fresh air and exercise often unavailable. Psychiatric disorders, HIV infection, tuberculosis, hepatitis B and C, sexually transmitted diseases, skin diseases, malaria, malnutrition, diarrhoea and injuries including self-mutilation are the main causes of morbidity and mortality in prison. In countries with a high prevalence of TB in the outside community, prevalence of TB can be up to 100 times higher inside the prisons. In most countries HIV infection in prisons is significantly higher than within the population outside prison, especially where drug addiction and risk behaviours are prevalent. Prison staff are also vulnerable to most of the diseases of which prisoners are at risk.

Prisons are not isolated from the society and prison health is public health. The vast majority of people committed to prison eventually return to the wider society. Thus, it is not in vain that prisons have been referred to as reservoirs of disease in various contexts.

Detrimental social impact

Imprisonment disrupts relationships and weakens social cohesion, since the maintenance of such cohesion is based on long-term relationships. When a member of a family is imprisoned, the disruption of the family structure affects relationships between spouses, as well as between parents and children, reshaping the family and community across generations. Mass imprisonment produces a deep social transformation in families and communities.

The cost of imprisonment

Taking into account the above considerations, it is essential to note that, when considering the cost of imprisonment, account needs to be taken not only of the actual funds spent on the upkeep of each prisoner, which is usually significantly higher than what is spent on a person sentenced to non-custodial sanctions, but also of the indirect costs, such as the social, economic and healthcare related costs, which are difficult to measure, but which are immense and long-term.

The benchmarks for action in prison reform: the United Nations Standards and Norms

Key among standards and norms that relate directly to prison reform are:.

• United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners
• Body of Principles for the Protection of All Persons under Any Form of Detention and Imprisonment
• Basic Principles for the Treatment of Prisoners
• United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for Non-Custodial Measures (Tokyo Rules)
• United Nations Rules for the Treatment of Women Prisoners and Non-custodial Measures for Women Offenders (Bangkok Rules)

Other UN instruments relevant to the prison system:

• Universal Declaration of Human Rights
• International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights
• International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
• The Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment
• UN Declaration on the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance
• Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination
• Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women
• Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officials
• Basic Principles on the use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials
• Safeguards guaranteeing protection of the rights of those facing the death penalty
• UN Recommendations on Life Imprisonment
• Basic principles on the use of restorative justice programs in criminal matters
• Kampala Declaration on Prison Conditions in Africa
• Arusha Declaration on Good Prison Practice

For further info: see "Compendium of United Nations standards and norms in crime prevention and criminal justice"

UNODC's integrated and multi-disciplinary approach to prison reform strategy

It is of utmost importance that prison reform is not regarded in isolation from broader criminal justice reform. UNODC believes that effective prison reform is dependent on the improvement and rationalisation of criminal justice policies, including crime prevention and sentencing policies, and on the care and treatment made available to vulnerable groups in the community. Reform of the prison system should therefore always take into account the needs relating to the reform of the criminal justice system as a whole and employ an integrated, multi-disciplinary strategy to achieve sustainable impact. Thus, reform initiatives will usually need to also encompass criminal justice institutions other than the prison service, such as the judiciary prosecution and police service, as relevant.

An integrated approach also takes account of areas that are typically not regarded as part of the "criminal justice system". These include, for example, the development of substance dependence treatment programmes in the community or psycho-social counselling programmes, to which certain offenders may be diverted, rather than being imprisoned, thus ensuring that services in prison are not overstretched, trying to meet the needs of a growing number of prisoners with special needs.

The integrated strategy to prison reform can benefit immensely from the establishment and development of collaboration and partnerships with other UN agencies and other international and national organisations engaged in complementary programmes.

Thematic Areas of Work in the field of Prison Reform and Alternatives to Imprisonment

UNODC's technical assistance in the area of prison reform covers the following thematic areas:

• pre-trial detention;
• prison management;
• alternative measures and sanctions;
• social reintegration.

A cross-cutting theme relevant to all prison related interventions is healthcare, including specifically the prevention, management and treatment of HIV/AIDS and drug dependency. Read more....

Pre-trial detention

There are three main issues that need to be taken into consideration in the context of pre-trial detention: firstly, pre-trial detention is overused in most countries worldwide and in many developing countries the size of the pre-trial prisoner population is larger than that of the convicted prisoner population. This situation contradicts the provisions in international standards, including ICCPR, that provide for the limited use of pre-trial detention, only when certain conditions are present. Secondly, pre-trial detention is the period most open to abuse in the criminal justice process. Recognizing the particular vulnerability of pre-trial detainees, international human rights instruments provide for a large number of very specific safeguards to ensure that the rights of detainees are not abused, that they are not ill-treated and their access to justice not hindered. Thirdly, although pre-trial detainees should be presumed innocent until found guilty by a court of law, and treated as such, conditions in pre-trial detention are often much worse than those of prisons for convicted prisoners. In addition, the lack of resources for prisons in many low-income countries means that people in detention do not have access to legal advice and assistance, with the result being that they may overstay on remand, and/or not receive a fair trial, further adding to the congestion of prisons. Therefore, improving access to justice, supporting legal and paralegal aid programmes, improving information management and cooperation between courts and prisons, to speed up the processing of cases, as well as assisting with the development of safeguards for pre-trial detainees, such as independent monitoring and inspection mechanisms, comprise important elements of UNODC's work in the field of penal reform.

Prison Management

In order for a prison system to be managed in a fair and humane manner, national legislation, policies and practices must be guided by the international standards developed to protect the human rights of prisoners. Prison authorities have a responsibility to ensure that the supervision and treatment of prisoners is in line with the rule of law, with respect to individuals' human rights, and that the period of imprisonment is used to prepare individuals for life outside prison following release. But often national legislation and rules relating to the management of prisons are outdated and in need of reform. In many countries the prison department is under the authority of police or military institutions and managers and staff have received no specific training regarding prison management. Staff morale is usually low and effective leadership to drive prison reform is lacking. Information collection and management systems are also very inadequate (or non-existent) in many prison systems worldwide, hindering the development of sound policies and strategies based on reliable, factual data. UNODC can provide much assistance in reforming national legislation, developing training programmes for prison managers to improve their leadership role and staff to apply international standards and norms in their daily practice, and by contributing to the institutional capacity building of prison administrations.

Alternative Measures and Sanctions

Overcrowding is a key concern in almost all prison systems worldwide, while punitive criminal policies, as well as a shortage of social protection services in the community, continue to contribute to the rapid growth of the prison population in many countries. As mentioned earlier, overcrowding is the root cause of many human rights violations in prisons. Solutions to overcrowding need to be explored and implemented in almost all countries in which UNODC is operational.

While overcrowding can be temporarily decreased by building new prisons, practice shows that trying to overcome the harmful effects of prison overcrowding through the construction of new prisons does not provide a sustainable solution. In addition, building new prisons and maintaining them is expensive, putting pressure on valuable resources. Instead, numerous international instruments recommend a rationalization in sentencing policy, including the wider use of alternatives to prison, aiming to reduce the number of people being isolated from society for long periods.

The use of non-custodial sanctions and measures also reflects a fundamental change in the approach to crime, offenders and their place in society, changing the focus of penitentiary measures from punishment and isolation, to restorative justice and reintegration. When accompanied by adequate support for offenders, it assists some of the most vulnerable members of society to lead a life without having to relapse back into criminal behavior patterns. Thus, the implementation of penal sanctions within the community, rather than through a process of isolation from it, offers in the long term better protection for society. Supporting the introduction and implementation of non-custodial sanctions and measures is therefore a key element of UNODC's work in the area of prison reform.

Social Reintegration

One of the principle objectives of the United Nations in the area of prison reform is to contribute to the successful reintegration of prisoners into society following their release. Social reintegration initiatives should start as early as possible within the criminal justice process in order to have maximum effect. This means that diversion from the criminal justice process (especially of vulnerable groups) to appropriate treatment programmes, non-custodial sanctions, instead of isolation from society and purposeful activities and programmes in prisons, can all be considered as elements of a comprehensive "social reintegration" policy. Interventions to support former prisoners following release from prison, continuum of care in the community for those in need, will all be more effective if the period in prison is used to prepare a prisoner for re-entry to society. This policy requires close coordination between criminal justice institutions and social protection and health services in the community and probation services where they exist. UNODC can offer key support and advice in this area, including supporting the development of social reintegration programmes in prisons and in assisting with the planning and implementation of continuum of care and support in the community.

Equivalence of healthcare and the right to health is a principle that applies to all prisoners, who are entitled to receive the same quality of medical care that is available in the community. However, this right is rarely realised in prisons, where usually healthcare services are extremely inadequate. Prison health services are almost always severely under-funded and understaffed and sometimes non-existent. Most of the time under the responsibility of the authority in charge of the prisons administration, prison health services work in complete isolation from national health authorities, including national HIV and national TB programmes. Specific women's health needs are rarely addressed.

The right to health includes not only the access to preventive, curative, reproductive, palliative and supportive health care but also the access to the underlying determinants of health, which include: safe drinking water and adequate sanitation; safe food; adequate nutrition and housing; safe health and dental services; healthy working and environmental conditions; health-related education and information and gender equality.

Technical assistance provided by UNODC in this area is based on the premise that penal reform and health in prisons are interrelated, and that an integrated strategy needs to be adopted in addressing the enormous challenge of HIV/AIDS and other transmissible diseases such as tuberculosis (TB) in prison settings. Improved prison management and prison conditions are fundamental to developing a sustainable health strategy in prisons. In addition, prison health is an integral part of public health, and improving prison health is crucial for the success of public health policies.

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Prison Reform

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Prison Reform in the US Criminal Justice System

Working thesis statement, working draft, feedback reflection.

Prison reform should be implemented through ensuring public safety, improve the circumstances of incarceration to create a constructive culture, and develop a model to incentivize behaviors, attitudes, and lifestyles conducive to personal self-control and responsibility.

The topic of prison reform has been highly debated as the American Criminal Justice System has failed to address the practical and social challenges associated with incarceration as well as the reentering of ex-prisoners into society. The existing methods of punishment for crimes do not address the constructive culture necessary to improve the behavior of the population as they fail to include a variety of educational, environmental, occupational, and psychological challenges. As mentioned by Warren, “we send too many people in jail. We keep them there for too long. We do little to rehabilitate them” (1, para. 2). Regardless huge economic advantages gained by private corporations and businesses that are profiting from the current prison system, there are “catastrophic human and financial cost for the families involved and the communities within which they live” (Vazquez, 2). Thus, prison reform should be implemented through ensuring public safety, improve the circumstances of incarceration to create a constructive culture, and develop a model to incentivize behaviors, attitudes, and lifestyles conducive to personal self-control and responsibility.

Public safety and prison reform go hand-in-hand. Rethinking the way in which security is established within society is the first step toward the reform. Public safety should imply providing multiple opportunities for all young people to receive proper education and remain in schools. The harsh school discipline protocols, including zero-tolerance and racial discrimination, become factors supporting the school-to-prison pipeline (Mallett, 3) and do not, in fact, contribute to the creation of a secure society. Public safety is also associated with ensuring the establishment of effective violence prevention that would divert young people from resorting to criminal activity even before law enforcement becomes involved (Warren, 1). Finally, public safety should ensure the availability of accessible mental health services as well as programs to manage alcohol and drug addiction. Thus, rethinking the way society and the government approach public safety is instrumental for not only improving police-community relations but also finding a way to move from a solely punitive system to solutions that focus on tackling the roots of crime before they have the opportunity to grow.

Improving the circumstances and environments within prison walls is another step toward carrying out an effective prison reform. Combined with a renewed perspective on public health, the reform should improve the conditions at correctional facilities. From small-scale improvements such as bedding and kitchen equipment to radical shifts in the culture fostered at the facilities, the prison reform should consider all aspects of environmental development. On a small scale, prisons should get new equipment for vocational training and education, such as books. The more educational and occupational resources are available to prisoners, the more likely they are to pursue positive life opportunities upon release (Duwe, 4). Capacity building is another critical aspect of improving environments at prisoners and implies the training of staff on human rights as well as incorporating prisoner assessment and classification systems that help risk prevention. System improvements are more complicated; however, they are necessary for such purposes as solving problems with prisoners’ transportations, streamlining the case file management, and building sustainable processes of prisoner education and preparation for life after release.

Prison reform cannot be implemented successfully without the development of the model that incentivizes behaviors, attitudes, and lifestyles that facilitate personal self-control and responsibility. Both social reintegration programs for prisoners and prevention programs for high-risk individuals are imperative to implement to promote their self-confidence, self-efficacy, and positive social relationships as methods to address the profoundly disturbing periods in their lives (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 5). Programs that improve the lifestyles of high-risk populations and encourage the positive development of such individuals are imperative to prevent reconvictions as well as foster environments that would not encourage people to commit crimes.

However, there is a high risk of further exacerbation of racial-based issues. Thus, some critics argue that prison reform and its so-called back-end approach to rehabilitation will only escalate the racial disparities among prisoners and contribute to the marginalization of Blacks and Latinos. There is a concern that the abovementioned programs favor predominantly white-collar offenders, who are unlikely to be people of color, which means a lack of equal release opportunities for prisoners regardless of their race (Wolcott, 6). Another vital criticism here is that the prison reform fails to address primary reasons why people get incarcerated altogether. Best minds argue with fervency whether disparities in imprisonment and further release are caused by racism or by making choices, and reasons why Blacks make proportionally more criminal choices than whites, are debatable.

Prison reform has always been and remains highly disputed today. In the current exploration, the issue has been addressed from the perspective of improving circumstances and environments that encourage people to commit crimes. Prison reform can be successfully carried out through the improvement of public safety, the development of positive environments at prisons, and the facilitation of models that incentivize lifestyles targeted at promoting personal self-control and responsibility.

Elizabeth Warren. 2019. Rethinking Public Safety to Reduce Mass Incarceration and Strengthen Communities. Medium.

Yolanda Vazquez. 2017. Crimmigration: The Missing Piece of Criminal Justice Reform. University of Richmond Law Review, 51(4). 1093-1148. Web.

Christopher A. Mallett. 2017. The School-To-Prison Pipeline: Disproportionate Impact on Vulnerable Children and Adolescents. Education and urban society. 49(6). 563-592.

Grant Duwe. 2017. The Use and Impact of Correctional Programming for Inmates on Pre- and Post-Release Outcomes. U.S. Department of Justice.

United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. 2012. Introductory Handbook on The Prevention of Recidivism and Social Reintegration of Offenders.

Jennifer M. Wolcott. 2018. Prison Reform and Redemption for Whom? Texas Education Review. Fall 2018 Special Issue. 60-70. 

The received feedback: “Well organized outline. Missing counter perspective; need two different sources for each main idea. Strong thesis statement. Well-developed intro. Body paragraph has good topic sentence but needs at least one more piece of evidence from a different source. (Only needed intro, first body paragraph.) Strong fluency. Missing feedback reflection.”

The feedback was used step by step to improve the paper. The focus was made on missing constituents. First of all, additional sources were found. Then, the counter-perspective was worked out and formulated to ensure an overall persuasiveness of the essay. An extra piece of evidence from another source was developed for the introduction and the first body paragraph. The feedback provides the students with an excellent opportunity to practice by reviewing their paper. It will help have a fresh and critical look at the writing and eliminate mistakes in the future.

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We Need Better Mental Health Services in Prison

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by Jamar Glenn, Prison Journalism Project August 28, 2021

This <a target="_blank" href="https://prisonjournalismproject.org/2021/08/28/we-need-better-mental-health-services-in-prison/">article</a> first appeared on <a target="_blank" href="https://prisonjournalismproject.org">Prison Journalism Project</a> and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.<img src="https://i0.wp.com/prisonjournalismproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/cropped-PJP-favicon-2.png?fit=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1" style="width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;"><img id="republication-tracker-tool-source" src="https://prisonjournalismproject.org/?republication-pixel=true&post=7434" style="width:1px;height:1px;">

My name is Jamar Glenn, a 40-year-old father, son, sibling and activist in my community. 

I was incarcerated at 16 years old, and I served an 18½-year sentence for second degree murder. I was 36 years old when I was released from prison in February 2016.  

Serving a sentence that was longer than I had been alive really took a toll on my mental health and development. I never thought I had mental issues. Whatever emotions I had were quickly and deeply buried inside of me because of the prison culture.

I had to uphold an image. Although I wasn’t the biggest guy, I would allow my attitude and temper to compensate for what I lacked in size, which meant trouble across the board. I had over 50 major infractions in this time period.

To be totally honest, I was completely broken by the age of 14. I know now that I had been affected by what is now identified as adverse childhood experiences. This includes abuse, neglect, parental addiction, mental illness, divorce, and incarceration.

So all the abuse I had seen and experienced was still inside me, buried, overlooked, and untreated for 22 years. Why? Because I didn’t trust the system, their doctors, counselors, and correction officers.

I was afraid of their medications and being put on a medical hold, which could prevent me from transferring to institutions closer to my family. And — most importantly — could I really trust my most-personal information and feelings to the people I considered “the police?”

So in 2016, I was released back into the community, physically a 36-year-old man, but mentally a 22-year-old young adult. I looked good, and I felt great! But I was broken and hurt, wearing a mask to hide what was going on for fear of being labeled “institutionalized” or the “weirdo” who couldn’t cope in society. Both prevented me from seeking help. 

I still have mental issues deep inside, and no breathing exercises can help me mentally.

Unfortunately, I’m back in prison, but this time I’m aware of my issues, and I’m attacking them at the root. Through self-preservation, proper reading materials and the love and support of family and friends, I believe that this too shall pass.

I believe we need better mental health programs throughout the corrections department, and more felon-friendly mental health groups and institutions on the outside. If we can address childhood trauma in the earlier stages of life, we can prevent mass incarceration of the youth in our communities. 

Mental health is a serious issue for the formerly — and currently — incarcerated man, woman and child. Incarceration without the proper assistance cripples us.

I hope that me lighting this candle in this dark room shines light and brings awareness to some of the issues we still have to face from the inside out.

Disclaimer : The views in this article are those of the author. Prison Journalism Project has verified the writer’s identity and basic facts such as the names of institutions mentioned.

Jamar Glenn

Jamar Glenn is a writer and activist incarcerated in Washington.

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Prison Reform: Reducing Recidivism by Strengthening the Federal Bureau of Prisons

The Federal Bureau of Prisons is undertaking sweeping reforms designed to reduce recidivism and strengthen public safety.  By focusing on evidence-based rehabilitation strategies, these reforms touch virtually every aspect of the federal prison system, from an inmate’s initial intake to his or her return to the community.  The reforms are targeted to address the core behavioral issues that result in criminality, with the goal of reducing the likelihood that inmates re-offend either while incarcerated or after their release.  In doing so, the Bureau is creating safer prisons and safer streets, underscoring the Justice Department’s philosophy that one of the best ways to prevent crime is by reducing recidivism. 

Recent and Ongoing Reforms to Reduce Recidivism

Consulting reports, relevant documents.

• Select Op-Eds and Speeches  

Below is a summary of the most significant recent and ongoing reforms at the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP), starting from an inmate’s arrival at a Bureau facility and continuing until his or her return home.    

From day one, identifying an inmate’s individualized “criminogenic” needs.  BOP embraces a corrections philosophy that reentry preparation must begin on the first day of incarceration.  The first and most important step in reentry planning is obtaining information about an individual inmate’s risk of recidivating and programmatic needs that will inform development of an individualized reentry plan. Social science research indicates each inmate possesses his or her own "criminogenic factors," [1] such as criminal history, substance abuse, and education level. By identifying these factors as soon as an inmate enters custody, the Bureau can ensure that the individual receives appropriate services and can monitor his or her progress throughout the term of incarceration.  In 2016, the Bureau retained an independent social science research organization, American Institutes of Research (AIR), to evaluate BOP’s existing criminogenic assessment tools and to propose improvements.   This evaluation, which will be completed in the fall of 2017, will increase the effectiveness of correctional programs by ensuring the right services are delivered to the right inmates, that these programs are aligned to the risk level and unique needs of each individual, and that all services are delivered at the intensity and frequency necessary to reduce the likelihood of recidivism.

Building a “school district” within the federal prison system.  Research shows that inmates who participate in correctional education programs have 43 percent lower odds of returning to prison than those who do not, and that every dollar spent on prison education saves four to five dollars on the costs of re-incarceration. [2]   With guidance from the Bronner Group , an educational consulting firm, BOP is building a semi-autonomous school district within the federal prison system and will offer programs for adult literacy/basic skills, high school diplomas, post-secondary education, and expanded opportunities for individuals with learning disabilities.  In November 2016, the Bureau announced that it hired Amy Lopez, a veteran correctional educator, to serve as the first “superintendent” of the BOP school district.  Under the new system, each federal inmate will be assessed upon incarceration to determine his or her education level and determine the type and level of instruction needed.  That “individualized education plan” will follow the inmate through his or her time in BOP’s custody.   

Launching a tablet-based pilot program for inmate education.  BOP is launching a pilot program to determine the feasibility of a “blended” education model that combines classroom instruction with online education (provided through tablets customized for the prison environment).   Similar pilots have been successfully launched in Ohio and California.  The pilot program will be rolled out at two prisons in early 2017 and will be expanded to additional sites in future years.  BOP is currently reviewing bids from vendors to provide the necessary hardware and software for the pilot program.   

Supporting the Second Chance Pell Pilot Program.   Second Chance Pell is a pilot program announced by the Department of Education in July 2015 that will allow eligible incarcerated Americans to receive Pell Grants and pursue postsecondary education with the goal of helping them get jobs and support their families when they are released.  Seven BOP facilities are participating in this program, which allows select colleges and universities to provide funding to cover tuition, required fees, books, and supplies for inmates seeking educational opportunities.   

Encouraging inmates to develop marketable job skills.  BOP is expanding opportunities for occupational training, with a focus on ensuring that inmates develop the job skills they need to find work after release from custody.  As part of this effort, BOP is working to revitalize Federal Prison Industries (FPI), also known as UNICOR, the agency’s largest and most successful job training program.  Research shows that inmates who worked in prison industries were 24 percent less likely to recidivate and 14 percent more likely to be gainfully employed after release from custody than other inmates.  In 2016, the Bureau hired Gary Simpson, a former manufacturing and operations executive of a Fortune 100 company, to restore FPI’s viability and increase opportunities for inmates.

Developing standardized, evidence-based programs to reduce recidivism.    Research shows that recidivism risk can be effectively reduced through evidence-based programming that targets criminogenic needs, such as courses in cognitive behavioral therapy and other topics.  Inmate programming also makes prisons safer because inmates occupied in productive activities are less likely to engage in institutional misconduct.  As a result, BOP is expanding access to critical National Programs , including BRAVE and STAGES, and developing new National Programs where programming gaps exist.  To achieve this goal, the Bureau will request additional appropriations to increase its staffing of critical positions, such as social workers, psychologists, and treatment specialists.  This year, the Bureau developed a standardized Release Preparation Program, required for all releasing inmates, that will be offered nationwide.  In addition, the Bureau is streamlining its many locally developed programs to focus on evidence-based programs with a proven track record of reducing recidivism.  As part of this process, the Bureau developed an “ Inmate Model Programs Catalog ,” which contains curriculum guides for about 50 “model” programs that Bureau facilities are encouraged to adopt nationwide.  In addition, the Bureau has developed a new computerized system to better track which facilities are implementing which model programs.  Finally, the Bureau is committed to increasing inmate enrollment in appropriate programs by improving its case management process and providing greater use of incentives.  

Prioritizing mental health treatment for inmates.  BOP is working to overhaul its policies on the treatment and care of inmates with mental illness.  Among other changes, in May 2014, BOP issued new internal guidance prioritizing the use of cognitive behavioral therapy and other evidence-based treatment programs proved to be effective in correctional settings.  Since then, BOP also established a number of “secure mental health step-down units,” which provide housing and treatment for inmates with serious mental illness and a significant history of violence, and has launched a pilot program to provide dedicated mental health staff within restrictive housing units.  In addition, as part of the Bureau’s education reforms, the agency hired its first-ever school psychologist to assist in developing programs for inmates with special learning needs.  

Ensuring inmates receive appropriate substance abuse treatment .   BOP has provided intensive substance abuse treatment for inmates for more than 20 years. The Residential Drug Abuse Program (RDAP), one of the Bureau’s most effective recidivism-reduction programs, has been expanded recently to include additional programs for Spanish-speaking inmates, inmates with a dual mental health diagnosis, high security level inmates, and female inmates.  In addition, to help inmates with a history of opioid dependence as they transition back to the community, BOP has recently launched a regional field trial to offer Medication-Assisted Treatment (MAT) for certain inmates, with plans to expand the program.

Helping inmates maintain family ties while incarcerated.   Research shows that close and positive family relationships during incarceration reduce recidivism, improve an individual’s likelihood of finding and keeping a job after prison, and ease the harm to family members separated from their loved ones.  In April 2016, BOP announced a series of family-friendly initiatives aimed at strengthening the bonds between inmates and their children and families.  These programs included expanded video-conferencing visitation; the launch of a pilot program that engages children of incarcerated parents in positive youth development activities; new guidance and training for BOP staff on how to make visitation spaces more child friendly and interact with children in a developmentally appropriate way; educating inmates on how to keep in contact with children who may be in foster care; tip sheets for parents, correctional staff and mentors to support children of incarcerated parents; and a new interagency partnership to develop model policies that can be used by state and local prison facilities to help strengthen family ties.  In addition, all Bureau facilities are now required to hold at least one “Family Reunification Event” per year.   

Enhancing programs for female inmates .  In December 2016, the Bureau will resume housing female inmates at its facility in Danbury, Connecticut, making it easier for female inmates from the Northeast to remain in contact with their families.  In addition, the Danbury facility will house an integrated treatment facility for female inmates, which will include RDAP, a mental health step-down program, and a trauma treatment program.  Over the past year, the Bureau has sought to enhance its overall programming for females, culminating in its first-ever national conference for Bureau wardens and agency leaders on gender-responsive programming.   

R educing the use of solitary confinement and other forms of restrictive housing.   In January 2016, the Department of Justice announced a series of reforms designed to safely limit the use of solitary confinement and other forms of restrictive housing throughout the criminal justice system.  As part of this effort, BOP agreed to end the practice of placing juveniles in restrictive housing and to limit its use for low-level disciplinary infractions.  In addition, the Department of Justice issued more than 50 “Guiding Principles,” which cover a range of important reforms areas including the use of restrictive housing as a form of punishment, the appropriate conditions of confinement in restrictive housing, and the proper treatment of vulnerable inmate populations, such as juveniles, pregnant women, LGBT inmates, and inmates with serious mental illness.   

Phasing out BOP’s use of private prisons.   In an August 2016 memorandum, the Department announced that the Bureau would be reducing—and ultimately ending—its use of privately operated prisons .  As part of this phased approach, the Bureau expects to end the housing of inmates at three or more private contract facilities within a year of the memo’s release, and will reduce the total private prison population to less than 14,200 inmates by May 1, 2017—a greater than 50 percent decrease since 2013. To further this objective, the Bureau recently reduced the beds sought in a pending solicitation to private prison companies down from 10,800 beds to 3,600 beds.

Reforming and strengthening federal halfway houses.   The Bureau is overhauling its use of Residential Reentry Centers (RRCs), popularly known as “halfway houses,” which provide housing for approximately 80 percent of inmates during the final months of their federal sentences.  Since the early 1980s, the ownership and operation of RRCs have been fully privatized, with BOP relying on a mix of for-profit companies and non-profit organizations.  In November 2016, Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates issued a memorandum directing BOP to leverage its purchasing power and overhaul this private market.  Among other things, the memorandum directed BOP to establish clear, uniform standards for all RRC providers; expand the collection and publication of RRC performance data; and explore alternative models that would create a more effective and efficient market for federal reentry services.    

Helping inmates obtain government-issued ID prior to their release.  Access to government-issued identification documents is critical to successful reentry.  Without such documentation, men and women leaving correctional facilities face extreme challenges securing employment and housing, registering for school, opening bank accounts, and accessing other benefits, such as health care, that are critical to successful integration.  BOP is working to ensure that every federal inmate obtains government-issued identification, including a Social Security card, birth certificate, and state-issued photo ID card, prior to his or her return to the community.  In November 2016, BOP announced that it would begin covering the costs of obtaining these documents prior to an inmate’s release to an RRC, after independent consultants determined that doing so would actually save BOP approximately $19 million per year (by making it easier for RRC residents to obtain employment and housing, thereby facilitating their transfer to less-expensive home confinement).  In addition, in April 2016, Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch sent a letter to all 50 governors seeking their assistance in helping federal inmates obtain state-issued IDs.   

Equipping inmates with information and resources as they return to the community.  In April 2016, the Department of Justice issued its “Roadmap to Reentry,” which identified five evidence-based principles guiding federal efforts to improve correctional practices and programs for returning citizens.  As part of this effort, BOP published a “Reentry Handbook,” which provides practical guidance to inmates as they return to the community, with over 20,000 copies distributed to inmates in its first year.  In addition, BOP activated a reentry hotline to assist formerly incarcerated individuals as they transition to the community.  These efforts dovetail with the Obama Administration’s broader reentry efforts, including codifying the Federal Interagency Reentry Council , and supporting the Fair Chance Business Pledge , which calls on companies to commit to hiring formerly incarcerated individuals.

As part of its reform efforts, BOP retained outside consultants to evaluate several aspects of its rehabilitative services and develop proposals for further improvements.  In the interest of transparency, and to educate the public about its efforts, BOP decided to release these reports publicly.

, The Boston Consulting Group (September 2016).

, Bronner Group (November 2016).

. Deloitte (August 2016).

• Building a School District in the Federal Bureau of Prisons  (January 2017)
• Memo on Federal Halfway Houses (November 2016)
• Inmate Model Programs Catalog  (November 2016)
• 2016 Statement of Work for Residential Reentry Centers (October 2016)
• Memo on Reducing Use of Private Prisons (August 2016)
• Federal Interagency Reentry Council Report (August 2016)
• Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch's Letter to Governors on Exchanging Bureau IDs for State-Issued Identification (April 2016)
• Roadmap to Reentry  | PDF  (April 2016)
• Reentering Your Community: A Handbook  (April 2016)
• Report and Recommendations on Restrictive Housing | PDF (January 2016)
• Inmate National Programs Catalog (May 2016)
• Program Statement on Treatment and Care of Inmates with Mental Illness  (May 2014)

Select Op-Eds and Speeches

Deputy Attorney General Sally Q. Yates Delivers Remarks at Harvard Law School on Sentencing and Prison Reform, January 9, 2017

Deputy Attorney General Sally Q. Yates, “Phasing Out Our Use of Private Prisons,” August 18, 2016

Attorney General Loretta Lynch, “The Way Forward in Reentry,” July 6, 2016.

Deputy Attorney General Sally Q. Yates Delivers Remarks At National Reentry Week Event at Santa Maria Hostel in Houston, April 26, 2016.   

Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch Delivers Remarks at National Reentry Week Event in Philadelphia, April 25, 2016.

Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch Delivers Remarks at the American Correctional Association Winter Conference, January 26, 2016.

Deputy Attorney General Sally Q. Yates Delivers Remarks on Prison Reform and Criminal Justice Reform at Columbia Law School, October 29, 2015.

[1]   Criminogenic needs are characteristics, traits, problems, or issues of an individual that directly relate to the individual’s likelihood to commit another crime, such as low levels of educational and employment performance, or substance abuse.

[2]   Education and Vocational Training in Prisons Reduces Recidivism, Improves Job Outlook, Rand Corporation, August 22, 2013, https://www.bja.gov/Publications/RAND_Correctional-Education-Meta-Analysis.pdf

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