For 55 years, the international community has used the “Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners” as a guideline for structuring their criminal justice and penal systems. The document had never been amended (aside from one additional rule in 1977), let alone revised, until this year. On May 22nd, the United Nations ushered in
By Joseph Erbentraut It should come as no surprise that with the worst incarceration rate in the world, the United States has a massive problem on its hands. With roughly 716 of every 100,000 U.S. residents behind bars, the U.S. locks up nearly one-quarter of the entire world’s prison population. Worse yet, when American inmates
Once Virginia’s chief executioner, Jerry Givens, put 62 people to death over 17 years from 1982 to 1999. Then he had an epiphany that pushed him to use his experience to advocate against the death penalty. Givens, 60, supported capital punishment at an early age. While attending a house party when he was 14, he
By Christia Mercer On a recent Friday night, a student and I were playing dead on the cold linoleum floor of a prison. The woman standing over us was proudly proclaiming the cold-blooded murder of her no-good husband and his unwilling mistress. As a professor at Columbia University, I’ve asked lots of students to act
By Scott McLemee The United States has the highest incarceration rate of any country in the world. It has come down a sliver over the past six years: the all-time peak rate was in 2008, with 754 prisoners per 100,000 population. As of 2013, that figure had fallen to 716, but the U.S. has retained
The study, conducted by legal commentator Christopher Zoukis, concludes that offering post-secondary and academic education to prisoners can cut $60 billion from the national budget every year – without scrapping existing programs. Zoukis has compiled his research and findings into College for Convicts: The Case for Higher Education in American Prisons, a game-changing new book
By Troy Lee Wooley So, the Democrats and Republicans have joined teams to develop this fabulous new bill; great…NOT!! Corrections Oversight, Recidivism Reduction, and Eliminating Costs for Taxpayers in Our National System (CORRECTIONS) Act…A lot of words that add up to spell BULL-PUCKY! The bill says it EXCLUDES ALL sex offenders, terrorist offenders, repeat offenders,
Finding a job and somewhere to live are probably the two most critical factors determining whether a released offender will do well or end up back in prison. In the United States, up to 90% of those who are sent back to prison are unemployed. In the U.K., the one-year recidivism rate for released offenders