Criminal Law Commons^™

Caring Against The Carceral: How Families Mediate The Social Death Of Incarceration, Jessica Claire

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Incarceration, especially in the United States, is deeply related to issues of racism, poverty, and citizenship. These particular experiences are the result of a history of biopolitical control affecting Black and brown communities and have a quintessential origin in enslavement. Those who are incarcerated are isolated, dishonored, and powerless as a result of the criminalization of race and poverty. These observations led to questions surrounding the particular impact families may have on the experiences of those who are incarcerated. Families of Incarcerated Loved ones, or FOILs, mediate incarceration through intentional socialization which has the potential to counteract the realities of …

The Never-Ending Grasp Of The Prison Walls: Banning The Box On Housing Applications, Ashley De La Garza

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Abstract forthcoming.

Beat The Heat: Texas’S Need To Reduce Summer Temperatures In Offender Housing, Mary E. Adair

St. Mary's Law Journal

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice’s lack of air conditioning in offender housing areas is a violation of the Eighth Amendment and deprives offenders of humane living conditions. Unlike most Texans, offenders housed in the TDCJ are unable to adequately protect themselves from the higher, prolonged summer temperatures. Most Texas prisons do not provide air conditioning or other types of cooling systems in offender housing areas, so offenders are at the mercy of the elements with little protection against heat-related illnesses. Several jurisdictions, other than Texas, have recognized extreme temperatures in housing areas can lead to constitutional violations because the …

Reforming Recidivism: Making Prison Practical Through Help, Katelyn Copperud

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

While Texas has long been recognized as “Tough Texas” when it comes to crime, recent efforts have been made to combat that reputation. Efforts such as offering “good time” credit and more liberal parole standards are used to reduce the Texas prison populations. Although effective in reducing prison populations, do these incentives truly reduce a larger issue of prison overpopulation: recidivism?

In both state and federal prison systems, inmate education is proven to reduce recidivism. Texas’s own, Windham School District, provides a broad spectrum of education to Texas Department of Criminal Justice inmates; from General Education Development (GED) classes to …

Judicious Imprisonment, Gregory Jay Hall

All Faculty Scholarship

Starting August 21, 2018, Americans incarcerated across the United States have been striking back — non-violently. Inmates with jobs are protesting slave-like wages through worker strikes and sit-ins. Inmates also call for an end to racial disparities and an increase in rehabilitation programs. Even more surprisingly, many inmates have begun hunger strikes. Inmates are protesting the numerous ills of prisons: overcrowding, inadequate health care, abysmal mental health care contributing to inmate suicide, violence, disenfranchisement of inmates, and more. While recent reforms have slightly decreased mass incarceration, the current White House administration could likely reverse this trend. President Donald Trump’s and …

Who We Are: Incarcerated Students And The New Prison Literature, 1995-2010, Reilly Hannah N. Lorastein

Honors Projects

This project focuses on American prison writings from the late 1990s to the 2000s. Much has been written about American prison intellectuals such as Malcolm X, George Jackson, Eldridge Cleaver, and Angela Davis, who wrote as active participants in black and brown freedom movements in the United States. However the new prison literature that has emerged over the past two decades through higher education programs within prisons has received little to no attention. This study provides a more nuanced view of the steadily growing silent population in the United States through close readings of Openline, an inter-disciplinary journal featuring …

A Failing Correctional System: State Prison Overcrowding In The United States, Susan M. Campers

Pell Scholars and Senior Theses

State prison overcrowding has grown into a detrimental problem within our American penal system, such that after decades of being ignored by politicians, media outlets, and the lower court system, it has resulted in an ineffective and overcrowded correctional system that craves reformation.

Happiness And Punishment, Christopher J. Buccafusco, John Bronsteen, Jonathan S. Masur

All Faculty Scholarship

This article continues our project to apply groundbreaking new literature on the behavioral psychology of human happiness to some of the most deeply analyzed questions in law. Here we explain that the new psychological understandings of happiness interact in startling ways with the leading theories of criminal punishment. Punishment theorists, both retributivist and utilitarian, have failed to account for human beings' ability to adapt to changed circumstances, including fines and (surprisingly) imprisonment. At the same time, these theorists have largely ignored the severe hedonic losses brought about by the post-prison social and economic deprivations (unemployment, divorce, and disease) caused by …