In an effort to humanize the issues surrounding mass incarceration, and to foster empathy in historic site visitors, Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Site launched a pilot tour program that hired formerly incarcerated people to give tours of the building. These 15-minute tours allowed visitors to hear personal stories of incarceration alongside…

Prison education is seen in both criminal and education policies as a way of assimilating inmates 'back into society'. In spite of the policy emphasis on education, the practices in prison education vary from prison to prison. The stated aim of prison education in EU and in Finnish national level policies is to teach inmates the skills and…

Prisons across the United States of America are faced with finding ways to reduce illiteracy rates across adult education. One strategy is to offer reading programs that are based on the science of reading. Thus, the purpose of this study was to determine if adults in treatment groups across five midwestern correctional institutions who received a…

This paper articulates the first 'general theory' of prison education, offering a new insight into the relevance of desistance theory and understanding of prison sociology to the lives of men engaged in education whilst in prison. Using a realist review method (Pawson, 2002b; Wong, 2013a) we develop a rough, initial general theory of prison…

This paper explores the reformulation of the English curriculum for prison education across England and Wales in the second decade of the twenty-first century. As a PhD researcher and Functional English teacher examining the use of drama and creative education in a prison at the time, a prohibition on the use of fictional reading and writing…

The relationship between autism, criminality and psychopathy has gained increased attention in recent years, although research has focused on autism spectrum disorders, and not autistic traits. We measured autistic traits (with the Autism Spectrum Quotient) in a sample of 101 inmates from a high-security prison and compared them to a control…

Violent extremism research is still lacking a sound empirical basis for the validation of assessment instruments. Yet there is a growing need for these instruments to assess the dangerousness of individuals, but also the success of interventions. By analysing prisoner files of one female and 39 male inmates (average age 28.83 years, SD = 7.58)…

Inmates in American prisons are undereducated and underemployed. Compared to adults in the US, prisoners are at least three times more likely to be without a high school or general educational development (GED) diploma and four times less likely to have a postsecondary degree. Studies have consistently found that unemployment rates for prisoners,…

Purpose: Prisons offer a public health opportunity to access a group with multiple and complex needs and return them to the community with improved health. However, prisons are not conducive to optimal health and there are few frameworks to guide efforts. This study aims to generate insights into health literacy across a young adult prison…

This article discusses the science-based diagnostic observation in a Dutch girls' reformatory in the 1950s. Scientisation of the observation implied that to the medical examination upon entry and observation of a child's behaviour were added a psychological assessment, a psychiatric examination, and an inquiry into the family of origin. Inspired…

The objective of this paper, which makes use of the concepts of power and discipline from Michel Foucault's theoretical framework, is the investigation of the impact that the manner of operation of a Second Chance School (SCS) has on the disciplinary work of a prison in Greece. The research was carried out using semi-structured interviews with the…

Too many young people cycle in and out of prison, jails, and detention centers and face probation and parole conditions that keep them locked out of opportunity. These interactions with the criminal justice system demand the need for both equitable practices and programs that support second chances and large-scale investments in decarceration.…

On a given day, more than 43,000 youths who largely identify as students of color and are disproportionately male are held in residential placement facilities as a result of involvement with the juvenile justice system. More than two-thirds of youths living in placement facilities who participated in a national survey shared aspirations to…

The importance of the studied problem is determined by the fact that in contemporary Russian society, along with social, political and economic problems, there is a significant crime rate growth, which in its turn leads to an increase in the number of people convicted of various crimes. The current penitentiary system in the country, despite a…

Purpose: Today, the criminal justice system is annually placing more than 300,000 people with severe mental illness (SMI) in prisons and jails which are neither equipped nor staffed to respond to the unique challenges of this population. This article provides a comprehensive overview of the literature that focuses on treating inmates with…