Law Commons^™

Connecting The Disconnected: Communication Technologies For The Incarcerated, Neil Sobol

Neil L Sobol

Incarceration is a family problem—more than 2.7 million children in the United States have a parent in jail or prison. It adversely impacts family relationships, financial stability, and the mental health and well-being of family members. Empirical research shows that communications between inmates and their families improve family stability and successful reintegration while also reducing the inmate’s incidence of behavioral issues and recidivism rates. However, systemic barriers significantly impact the ability of inmates and their families to communicate. Both traditional and newly developed technological communication tools have inherent advantages and disadvantages. In addition, private contracting of communication services too often …

Lessons Learned From Ferguson: Ending Abusive Collection Of Criminal Justice Debt, Neil L. Sobol

Neil L Sobol

On March 4, 2015, the Department of Justice released its scathing report of the Ferguson Police Department calling for “an entire reorientation of law enforcement in Ferguson” and demanding that Ferguson “replace revenue-driven policing with a system grounded in the principles of community policing and police legitimacy, in which people are equally protected and treated with compassion, regardless of race.” Unfortunately, abusive collection of criminal justice debt is not limited to Ferguson. This Article, prepared for a discussion group at the Southeastern Association of Law Schools conference in July 2015, identifies the key findings in the Department of Justice’s report …

"Cerd-Ain" Reform: Dismantling The School-To-Prison Pipeline Through More Thorough Coordination Of The Departments Of Justice And Education, Lisa A. Rich

Lisa A. Rich

In the last year of his presidency, President Barack Obama and his administration have undertaken many initiatives to ensure that formerly incarcerated individuals have more opportunities to successfully reenter society. At the same time, the administration has been working on education policy that closes the achievement gap and slows the endless flow of juveniles into the school-to-prison pipeline. While certainly laudable, there is much more that can be undertaken collaboratively among executive branch agencies to end the school-to-prison pipeline and the endless cycle of people re-entering the criminal justice system.

This paper examines the rise of the school-to-prison pipeline through …

Sex & Surveillance: Gender, Privacy & The Sexualization Of Power In Prison, Teresa A. Miller

Teresa A. Miller

In prison, surveillance is power and power is sexualized. Sex and surveillance, therefore, are profoundly linked. Whereas numerous penal scholars from Bentham to Foucault have theorized the force inherent in the visual monitoring of prisoners, the sexualization of power and the relationship between sex and surveillance is more academically obscure. This article criticizes the failure of federal courts to consider the strong and complex relationship between sex and surveillance in analyzing the constitutionality of prison searches, specifically, cross-gender searches. The analysis proceeds in four parts. Part One introduces the issues posed by sex and surveillance. Part Two describes the sexually …

Prisoners And The Law, Ira P. Robbins

Ira P. Robbins

• The future of prison reform
• Restitution
• Proposals for a new correctional system
• Inmate welfare funds
• Prisoner, prison, probation, and parole statistics
• Incisive articles, written by some of the nation's leading authorities, on the development and present status of this evolving area of law
• The most recent changes and developments in the field

Formulating A Best Practice Statement For Prison Parenting Programs, Christine Beatriz, Donna M. Zucker Rn, Phd, Faan

Donna M. Zucker

Formulating a Best Practice Statement for Prison Parenting Programs Purpose: The purpose of this undergraduate honors project was to critically analyze available research on parenting, parenting education, incarcerated parents, and outcomes for the children of incarcerated parents, and make recommendations to a correctional facility for best practices. Background: Over 1.7 million American children have one or more incarcerated parents. These children are at high risk of depression, aggression, and intergenerational incarceration. Many incarcerated men have a limited understanding of parenting and fatherhood. While countless correctional facilities nationally have educational parenting programs, these programs are mainly unstandardized, and their efficacy is …

Varieties Of Prison Voyeurism, Jeffrey Ian Ross Ph.D.

Jeffrey Ian Ross Ph.D.

No abstract provided.

Piercing The Prison Uniform Of Invisibility For Black Female Inmates, Michelle S. Jacobs

Michelle S Jacobs

In Inner Lives: Voices of African American Women In Prison, Professor Paula Johnson has written about the most invisible of incarcerated women — incarcerated African American women. The number of women incarcerated in the United States increased by seventy-five percent between 1986 and 1991. Of these women, a disproportionate number are black women. The percentages vary by region and by the nature of institution (county jail, state prison or federal facility), but the bottom line remains the same. In every instance, black women are incarcerated at rates disproportionate to their percentage in the general population. In Inner Lives, Professor Johnson …

Linguistic Isolation: A New Human Rights Violation Constituting Torture, And Cruel, Inhuman And Degrading Treatment, Peter Honigsberg

Peter J Honigsberg

Sunnat was placed in a cell among other detainees in the general prison population. He spoke neither Arabic nor English, the linguae francae of the prison and the only languages spoken by the detainees in neighboring cells. Consequently, for much of his time in Guantanamo, Sunnat talked to no one. He awoke each morning and cried. Sunnat could, of course, reach out and communicate through eye contact, hand signs and facial expressions. However, Sunnat never had meaningful conversations with his neighbors.

Absence of meaningful human contact is a characteristic of isolation and a source of suffering caused by isolation. Sunnat …

Creating Hope: Mental Health In Western Australian Maximum Security Prisons, Jennifer Fleming, Natalie Gately, Sharan Kraemer

Natalie Gately Dr

The status of prisoners’ mental health has wide-reaching implications for prison inmates, prison authorities and institutions, and the general community. This paper presents the mental health findings from the 2008 Health of Prisoner Evaluation (HoPE) pilot project in which 146 maximum security prisoners were interviewed across two prisons in Western Australia. Results revealed significant discrepancies across gender and Indigenous status regarding the history and treatment of mental health complaints, use of prescribed psychiatric medication, and experience of psychosocial distress. Illicit drug use and dependency, as well as patterns of self-harm and suicide are also reported. These findings highlight that imprisonment …

Umd Law Students Travel To Haiti On Fact-Finding Trip, Irene Scharf, Justin Steele

Irene Scharf

During spring break Professor Irene Scharf, director of the Immigration Law Clinic at the UMass School of Law in Dartmouth accompanied a group of UMass law students to the Dominican Republic to engage in fact-finding about the conditions of Haitians in the country. This piece was written by Scharf and Justin Steele, executive articles editor of the UMass Law Review.

International Perspective, Douglass Cassel

Douglass Cassel

No abstract provided.

Book Review: The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration In The Age Of Colorblindness, Nick J. Sciullo

Nick J. Sciullo

Many in the legal academy have heard of Michelle Alexander’s new book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in an Age of Colorblindness. It has been making waves. One need only attend any number of legal conferences in the past year or so, or read through the footnotes in recent law review articles. Furthermore, this book has been reviewed in journals from a number of academic fields, suggesting Alexander has provided a text with profound insights across the university and public spheres. While I will briefly talk about the book as a book, I will spend the majority of this …

Perceptions Of Punishment And Rehabilitation Among Inmates In A Medium Security Prison, Steven Patrick, Robert Marsh

Robert L. Marsh

Inmate perceptions are examined in relation to punishment and rehabilitation as goals of prison. The results from a random sample of inmates in a medium security prison appear to show that inmate perceptions of punishment and rehabilitation are independent of one another but are simultaneously related to different types of inmate relationships with others in the prison. Additionally, inmate perceptions of punishment appear to be related to the physical environment of the prison. This paper discusses structural and policy implications of these findings. It seems that, because perceptions of punishment and rehabilitation are independent it may be possible to increase …

Discrimination Cases In The October 2004 Term, Eileen Kaufman

Eileen Kaufman

No abstract provided.

American Prison Culture In An International Context: An Examination Of Prisons In America, The Netherlands, And Israel, Lucian Dervan

Lucian E Dervan

In 2004, British authorities arrested Abu Hamza al-Masri, an Egyptian born cleric sought by the United States for his involvement in instigating terrorist attacks. As authorities prepared to extradite him in July 2010, the European Court of Human Rights issued a stay. According to the court, al-Masri’s claims that maximum-security prisons in the United States violate European human rights laws prohibiting torture and degrading treatment warranted further examination. Regardless of the eventual resolution of the al-Masri case, the European Court of Human Rights’ inability to summarily dismiss these assertions demonstrates something quite troubling. At a minimum, the court’s actions indicate …

Moving Beyond Soering: Us Prison Conditions As A Argument Against Extradition To The United States, Jeffrey Ian Ross Ph.D.

Jeffrey Ian Ross Ph.D.

No abstract provided.

Sentencing Paris, Jodie O'Leary

Jodie O'Leary

Extract: For a number of years now punishing Paris Hilton may have been on the mind of many a person for different reasons. She is guilty of crimes against fashion some would say. Cries of cruelty to animals could also be heard for, among other things, dressing her Chihuahua Tinkerbell in pink Chanel. Parents scorned her as a bad role model for their children.

Do Kids Belong In Prison? The Answer Will Say A Lot About What Type Of Society We Are, Alan E. Garfield

Alan E Garfield

No abstract provided.

Labor And Employment Law: Tools For Prevention, Investigation And Discipline Of Staff Sexual Misconduct In Custodial Settings, Susan D. Carle

Susan D. Carle

Mentally Ill Prisoners In The California Department Of Corrections And Rehabilitation: Strategies For Improving Treatment And Reducing Recidivism

W. David Ball

California prisons and jails treat more people with mental illness than hospitals and residential treatment centers combined. Mentally ill prisoners receive inadequate medical and psychiatric care, serve longer terms than the average inmate, and are released without adequate preparation and support for their return to society. As a result, these offenders are much more likely to violate parole and return to prison, cycling ever-downward. With the California prison healthcare system currently in receivership, and the state poised to spend more money on prisons than on colleges in the coming fiscal year, this paper addresses a topic that is both underreported …

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

Ira P. Robbins

Legal Aspects Of Prison Riots, Ira P. Robbins

Ira P. Robbins