Since the late 1960s, politicians and policymakers have talked tough on crime and have passed tough laws to build prisons and to prescribe lengthy sentences for the criminally convicted. In the past five years, however, public attention has focused on a criminal justice issue to which politicians and other public officials previously paid little…

More than 300 men of Japanese descent refused to be drafted into the U.S. military in the 1940s, contending that they should not risk their lives for a country that had forced 120,000 Japanese-Americans, including them and their families, into internment camps. They would be willing to fight in World War II only after Japanese-Americans were…

The purpose of this article is to illustrate a number of the deficiencies that currently exist in our understanding of women's participation in prison education, and to offer alternative methods to reduce such deficiencies. Through a review of empirical studies that examine the conditions of women's prisons and two trend studies examining women's…

Novice prison teachers experience confusion and disorientation--culture shock--when they go to teach in prison because teaching and prison cultures collide. The stages of acculturation associated with culture shock are predictable and so are the identities and experiences of teachers who are positioned by the cultural dynamics of prison teaching.…

If correctional education aims to transform individuals and bring about change, we need to consider the whole person who comes with human needs, emotions and attitudes. In order to expand our approach, alternative programs should be explored. A somewhat unusual but very promising approach to address offenders' human needs is the use of animals in …

This paper describes the "Think Exit at Entry" program that has become the guiding principle for the Georgia Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ). The Georgia DJJ believes that the transition process begins the day the youth enters the system and continues well after release from the institution. Literature points the need for transition…

Adjudicated youth face tentative futures upon release from secure care settings. Their fate is often dependent upon the existence of quality aftercare programs emphasizing effective, integrated transition services to help them reintegrate successfully. The goal in developing transition plans for youth exiting detention is to reduce the likelihood…

Academic failure, exclusionary discipline practices, and dropout have been identified as key elements in a "school to prison pipeline." Although a strong body of research exists on the risks for delinquency, few studies have attempted to understand the variables within schools that exacerbate or counteract these risks. We conducted three…

The compulsion and capacity for self-expression in penal institutions can be witnessed through the endless production of such creations as wall murals, graffiti, effigies, adornments, decorative envelopes, and tattoos. The intent of this paper is to examine the self-directed expressive endeavors of male residents at a county jail. The examples…

The outrage over revelations of torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib prison has faded from public discourse, but a number of questions remain unanswered. This paper criticizes official rationalizations offered for the abuse. We make the case that these abuses are systemic, resulting from dehumanization of the enemy and the long reliance on and…

States are facing the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Yet, despite these deficiencies in funds, state governors must assure their constituents that dangerous criminals will still be arrested, adjudicated and imprisoned. Experience shows that the best way to ensure public safety efficiently over the long run is to spend less on…

Prison suicide rates are increasing. The impact of witnessing a suicide or how many people do so is unknown. The aim of this study was to find how many young people detained in a Young Offenders' Institution (YOI) have had contact with another's suicide attempt and to test for association between this and own self-harming behaviour. A…

This article presents an interview with poet Helen Frost. Frost talked about how poetry can help at-risk children. She also related the challenges she faced when she wrote her latest book titled "The Braid."

This random assignment study compared women in a prison Therapeutic Community (TC) program with those in a cognitive-behavioral intervention. Over two thirds of study subjects received a lifetime diagnosis of severe mental disorder, nearly one-half received a diagnosis of PTSD, and virtually all reported exposure to trauma. Preliminary analysis (n…

In all educational settings, youth with disabilities, particularly those with learning disability (LD) and emotional behavioral disability (EBD), frequently have difficulties in mathematics. For teachers to provide students with access to the grade-level curriculum, a reliance on empirically validated instruction is essential. In this paper, the…