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Articles 1 - 11 of 11

Full-Text Articles in Law

Sexual Abuse Of Female Inmates In Federal Prisons, Brenda Smith Dec 2022

Sexual Abuse Of Female Inmates In Federal Prisons, Brenda Smith

Congressional and Other Testimony

This Article discusses the modest aspirations of the Prison Rape Elimination Act (“PREA”) that passed unanimously in the United States Congress in 2003. The Article posits that PREA created opportunities for holding correctional authorities accountable by creating a baseline for safety and setting more transparent expectations for agencies’ practices for protecting prisoners from sexual abuse. Additionally, the Article posits that PREA enhanced the evolving standards of decency for the Eighth Amendment and articulated clear expectations of correctional authorities to provide sexual safety for people in custody.


When Jail & Prison Sentences Become Death Sentences: How Willfully Exposing Incarcerated Persons To Covid-19 Amounts To Cruel & Unusual Punishment, Arielle Aboulafia Jan 2022

When Jail & Prison Sentences Become Death Sentences: How Willfully Exposing Incarcerated Persons To Covid-19 Amounts To Cruel & Unusual Punishment, Arielle Aboulafia

Human Rights Brief

Eric Warner called his older brother Hank from San Quentin State Prison almost every Sunday. Though the prison only allowed the brothers to speak for fifteen minutes each week, the two spoke about their lives. In June 2021, Eric stopped calling, and Hank became worried. Hank tried to get in touch with the prison. However, his calls were met with a dead-end voicemail each time. He recalls that he “knew, by not hearing anything, that something was not good.” The following month, prison personnel returned Hank’s calls and told him that his brother Eric had been hospitalized. Later that month, …


Prisons Must Cease Re-Traumatizing Women: A Call For Gender-Responsive Programs That End The Cycle Of Abuse, Sally Abrahamson Jan 2009

Prisons Must Cease Re-Traumatizing Women: A Call For Gender-Responsive Programs That End The Cycle Of Abuse, Sally Abrahamson

Legal Writing Competition Winners

“They break us out there and then more in here. And they don't do anything to build us back up.” This is a quote from a woman serving thirty-one years for assault and crack-cocaine possession. Like many other incarcerated women, she has a history of being in domestically abusive relationships. Prison, she said, felt like an extension of feeling the same hopelessness she did before entering prison. Using drugs was a means to escape the reality of abuse and poverty. Her time in prison further disempowered her economically and socially, as she received no job-training and lost many of her …


Panel 3: Transparency And Access Of Independent Experts To All Places Of Detention: Oversight Practices Of U.S. Juvenile Facilities , Ted H. Rubin Jan 2009

Panel 3: Transparency And Access Of Independent Experts To All Places Of Detention: Oversight Practices Of U.S. Juvenile Facilities , Ted H. Rubin

Human Rights Brief

No abstract provided.


Analyzing Prison Sex: Reconciling Self Expression With Safety, Brenda V. Smith Jan 2006

Analyzing Prison Sex: Reconciling Self Expression With Safety, Brenda V. Smith

Project on Addressing Prison Rape - Articles

This article examines the complexity of prison sex and the challenges that it raises in the context of recently enacted United States legislation, specifically the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA). It begins by identifying a range of prisoner interests in enhanced sexual expression. These interests are described below in an attempt to disentangle prisoners’ rights in sexual expression from states’ legitimate interests in regulating that expression. This article also directs policymakers and decision makers to mine international documents and human rights norms that recognize the necessity of punishment and at the same time outline a standard for the safety of …


Sexual Abuse Of Women In Prison: A Modern Corollary Of Slavery, Brenda V. Smith Jan 2006

Sexual Abuse Of Women In Prison: A Modern Corollary Of Slavery, Brenda V. Smith

Project on Addressing Prison Rape - Articles

This paper addresses the sexual abuse of women in custody as a more contemporary manifestation of slavery and discusses the congruencies and the differences that exist between the sexual abuse of women in custody and slavery. The paper charts the history of the parallel abolition and prison reform movements and examines their divergent paths arguing that the women's movement abandonment of prison advocacy has harmed the women in prison movement. The article concludes that the embrace of human rights norms has assisted in providing new avenues for redressing the sexual abuse of women in custody.


Rethinking Prison Sex: Self -Expression And Safety, Brenda V. Smith Jan 2006

Rethinking Prison Sex: Self -Expression And Safety, Brenda V. Smith

Project on Addressing Prison Rape - Articles

This article analyzes legislation and policies that limit prisoners' sexual expression and autonomy. The article juxtaposes prisoners interest in sexual expression against the interests of the state in regulating sex by and between prisoners. The article concludes that the state has an interest in regulating sex between inmates and staff and in regulating coerced or forced sex between inmates. In other instances prisons could accommodate prisoners' interest in sexual expression and achieve important goals such as better decisionmaking; improved relations with family and partners to aid community reentry; reduction of prison rape; and inmate management.


Mental Health And Incarceration: What A Bad Combination, Olinda Moyd Jan 2003

Mental Health And Incarceration: What A Bad Combination, Olinda Moyd

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

The District of Columbia has one of the highest per capita incarceration and criminal justice supervision rates in the United States1 and among the highest in the world. The local prison population has risen dramatically over the past decade for a variety of reasons including increased rates of re-incarceration for parole violations and the imposition of longer sentences for drug offenses. Recent acts of Congress have seriously impacted the sentencing laws in the District including determination of where persons sentenced for violating local D.C. laws will serve such sentences. On August 5, 1997, President Clinton signed into law The National …


Watching You, Watching Me, Brenda V. Smith Jan 2003

Watching You, Watching Me, Brenda V. Smith

Project on Addressing Prison Rape - Articles

This article addresses these arguments and ultimately concludes that same-sex supervision should be adopted in U.S. prisons in supervising both male and female prisoners. First, while same-sex supervision may not prevent sexual misconduct, it may reduce it by cutting off a primary vector of sexual misconduct-cross-gender interactions between staff and inmates. Second, same-sex supervision may increase prisoner well-being by giving prisoners a greater sense of control over their bodies, thereby reducing their sense of vulnerability to abuse. Finally, adopting same-sex supervision policies would make the United States' position more congruent with international standards for the treatment of prisoners.


George Bush's America Meets Dante's Inferno: The Americans With Disabilities Act In Prison, Ira Robbins Jan 1996

George Bush's America Meets Dante's Inferno: The Americans With Disabilities Act In Prison, Ira Robbins

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Introduction: The conditions in America's correctional facilities have long been cause for concern. Even those who do not advocate a comfortable quality of life for inmates recognize that basic problems such as overcrowding, inmate violence,' inadequate staffing,2 and increasing costs of building and maintaining prisons have approached crisis levels. Meanwhile, the prison population continues to swell. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics of the United States Department of Justice, the number of prisoners incarcerated at state and federal prisons annually has grown at a rate of 8.4% in recent years.'


Legal Aspects Of Prison Riots, Ira Robbins Jan 1982

Legal Aspects Of Prison Riots, Ira Robbins

Articles in Law Reviews & Other Academic Journals

Introduction: Riots are a recurrent phenomenon in American prisons. In the 1950s and the early 1970s, major riots erupted in prisons across the country, and many have occurred in the past several years.' Riots will continue to occur as long as the dominant function of prisons is the custodial confinement of inmates. As one commentator explains, "The way to make a strong bomb is to build a strong perimeter and generate pressure inside. Similarly, riots occur where ... pressures and demands are generated in the presence of strong custodial confinement."When such a bomb detonates and a prison riot erupts, a …