The effect of correctional facility programming on nonviolent beliefs

Gemstone Team Peace in Prisons

Panopticon

Contemporary prison practice faces many challenges, is developing rapidly and is become increasingly professionalized, influenced by the new National Offender Management Service. As well as bringing an increased emphasis on skills and qualifications it has also introduced a new set of ideas and concepts into the established prisons and penal lexicon.At the same time courses on prisons and penology remain important components of criminology and criminal justice degree courses. This will be the essential source of reference for the increasing number of people studying in, working in prisons and working with prisoners.This Dictionary is part a new series of Dictionaries covering key aspects of criminal justice and the criminal justice system and designed to meet the needs of both students and practitioners.This title includes key features such as: approximately 300 entries (of between 500 and 1500 words) on key terms and concepts arranged alphabetically; designed to meet the needs of both students and practitioners; and, entries which include summary definition, main text and key texts and sources. It takes full account of emerging occupational and Skills for Justice criteria. It is edited by a leading academic and practitioner in the prisons and penology field. It includes entries contributed by leading academic and practitioners in prisons and penology.

The Impact of Disrespect on Prisoners’ Aggression: Outcomes of Experimentally Inducing Violence Supportive Cognitions

Self-report research suggests that much violence is triggered by perceived insults and disrespect. This may be particularly true in the context of a prison or another environment of acute deprivation, whereby individuals have little other recourse to means of reputation enhancement. This paper presents the findings of two studies conducted with prisoner volunteers inside a Category C (minimum security) prison in England. In the first study, the authors randomly assigned a sample of 89 prisoners to one of two conditions: the experimental group were asked to discuss times they have been disrespected by authority figures inside and outside the prison; the control group were asked more neutral questions. Both groups then completed several measures of cognitive beliefs, distortions, and hostile attribution biases. None of the measures differed across the two groups except the measure of excuse and justification acceptance. Controlling for other factors, the experimental group endorsed these rationalisations at a significantly higher rate than the control group. This finding suggests that raising the salience of disrespect - reminding prisoners of times they have been made to feel unworthy of consideration - may raise the risk that prisoners will engage in violence by providing prisoners with justifications or excuses for actions they might not otherwise endorse. These findings received some additional validation in the second study, a qualitative analysis of offender accounts of violence and aggression within the prison. Implications for reducing violence within prisons are discussed.

Reconsidering Respect: Its Role in the British Prison Service

This article examines the meaning of respect in the interpersonal relationships within Her Majesty’s Prison Service. It is argued that respect-as-esteem and respect-asconsideration are often confused and unequally emphasised in modern society. This confusion is especially evident within the prison context where, due to the prison service’s ‘decency agenda’, the respectful treatment of inmates has become a topical issue. What does respect mean in prison? Why is it important? How can respectful relationships be established between staff and inmates? This article discusses these questions and proposes that there are different forms of respect possible between people. It is argued that there needs to be a recognition of the nuances of meaning when we use the word respect and that ‘respect-as-consideration’ may be the form of respect most consistently achievable, at the present time, within interpersonal relationships in English and Welsh prisons.

Early crime writing and the state: Jonathan Wild, Daniel Defoe and Bernard Mandeville in 1720s London

This article argues that the early development of crime writing needs to be understood in relation to the consolidation of the modern state. It demonstrates that London in the 1720s constitutes a significant moment in this early development for three main reasons. First, the period witnessed a crime epidemic which reached its climax in the 1720s and which precipitated a set of particularly aggressive counter-measures by the state; second, it saw the rise and eventual fall of the infamous Jonathan Wild who acted as both thief and surrogate policeman; and third, it was also marked by a surge in interests on the part of writers like Daniel Defoe and Bernard Mandeville in the related matters of crime and punishment. This article explores the ways in which accounts of crime and punishment in this period deployed and in some instances interrogated the rhetoric of social contract theory and writings on statecraft, particularly by Thomas Hobbes and Mandeville. But while the criminal biographies and gallows sermons produced by the Newgate prison’s ‘ordinaries’ provided crude and reductive accounts of the efficacy of the state, the article shows how two accounts of the life of Jonathan Wild (by Defoe and H.D) responded in highly complex ways to the issues of crime and policing and provided a consistently and self-consciously ambivalent reading of the state and state power. To conclude, I suggest that this ambivalence can be read as a critique of the impartial or neutral state and that it constitutes one of the key features of what we would later understand to be crime writing as a dedicated literary genre.

‘The ‘Complexity of Imprisonment: The Northern Ireland Experience'

This article will examine the thesis that Northern Ireland experiences a relatively low level of crime. It will explore the possible reasons why crime in the North has not witnessed a dramatic increase. In light of this, the article will highlight the difficulties surrounding the current prison system and illustrate that once again Northern Ireland is experiencing a very different criminal justice system in comparison to Great Britain. Although the prisons are now being used predominately to deal with “ordinary’ crime”, they are still part of the political process.

The Stormont Papers: 50 years of Northern Ireland Debates Online

This website offers access to the Parliamentary Debates of the devolved government of Northern Ireland from June 7 1921 to the dissolution of Parliament in March 28 1972.

These papers cast a unique and valuable light on the development of the Province. The 92,000 printed pages of Parliamentary Debates are held by few institutions and they have no comprehensive subject index. Hence they have been inaccessible and difficult to use. This project, with the support of academics, archivists and politicians, has taken the Papers and fully digitised them. The resource has been available online since October 2006.

Visitors to the site can search either the full text or specific keywords (for example Prisons, Westminster or Drunkenness), or they can browse particular debates according to the combined subject index, or they can simply view the volumes.

We Were There:Experiences of women in the Maze and Long Kesh Prison

A feature documentary on the experiences of women in the Maze and Long Kesh Prison

Islands: Nature and Culture

Islands are contradictory places: they can be remote, mysterious spots, or lively centres of holiday revelry. They are associated alternately with escape, imprisonment, holiday and exile, and their exotic, otherworldly beauty has inspired artists and writers across the centuries. Islands have been sites of immense political, creative and scientific importance from Charles Darwin's enlightening voyage to the Gálapagos Islands, which resulted in his groundbreaking theory of evolution, to the moat-encased prisons incarcerating the world's most dangerous convicts.
Despite the common view of islands as earthly paradises, their often small size means they have restricted resources and limited opportunities for their inhabitants to thrive. In response, islanders have welcomed or sternly rejected, the fresh opportunities offered by turning their homes into tourist destinations. For people seeking beautiful landscapes, solitude or exciting adventure, islands are the most popular holiday spots in the world. They entice the rich and famous, and their allure has provided refuge and inspiration for artists and writers, from Paul Gauguin in Tahiti to George Orwell on Jura in the Hebrides, and general visitors alike.
Filled with illustrations, Islands is a comprehensive exploration of the geographical and cultural aspects of island life – their habitations and environments, their permanent residents and vast transitional populace, their colonial history and their enduring appeal to people around then world.

Degradation, Harm and Survival in a Women’s Prison:Special Issue on Gendered Violence

This article is derived in in-depth qualitative research in the women’s unit of a male prison in Northern Ireland. The researchers had unprecedented observational and interview access and moved freely within the unit including the punishment block. What follows focuses primarily on the experiences of women and girls, recording their accounts of the impact on their lives of a harsh and neglectful regime. It demonstrates how the institutionalisation of violation and neglect within women’s prisons is often gender specific. Finally, it considers the key research recommendations, noting official responses.

Criminal Justice in Transition: The Northern Ireland Context

This book represents a critical examination of key aspects of crime and criminal justice in Northern Ireland which will have resonance elsewhere. It considers the core aspects of criminal justice policymaking in Northern Ireland which are central to the process of post-conflict transition, including reform of policing, judicial decision-making and correctional services such as probation and prisons. It examines contemporary trends in criminal justice in Northern Ireland as related to various dimensions of crime relating to female offenders, young offenders, sexual and violent offenders, race and criminal justice, community safety and restorative justice. The book also considers the extent to which crime and criminal justice issues in Northern Ireland are being affected by the broader processes of ‘policy transfer’, globalisation and transnationalism and the extent to which criminal justice in Northern Ireland is divergent from the other jurisdictions in the United Kingdom. Written by leading international authorities in the field, the book offers a snapshot of the cutting edge of critical thinking in criminal justice practice and transitional justice contexts.