Rehabilitating incarcerated individuals has become a focal point within corrections, with a variety of programs being implemented within facilities to assist individuals as they return to society from incarceration. Programs such as prison-based animal programs (PAP) provide incarcerated individuals a number of benefits that range from learning an employable skill to psychosocial benefits, which stem from the human animal interactions. Importantly, the current study aims at expanding knowledge on the current, limited literature that exists on public perceptions and opinions towards PAP programs. The importance in measuring the level of support for programs of this nature lies in the role public opinion plays in criminal justice policymaking, being that the public has been reported as having a level of influence on policymaking. A sample of 230 Florida Atlantic University students were surveyed concerning their perceptions towards PAP programs, focusing on whether these programs are beneficial to incarcerated individuals. The focus of this thesis was to examine whether students support PAP programs within correctional facilities and to analyze the differences in perceptions based on multiple demographic characteristics. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.S.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2021. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

One of the more popular areas of study in recent times is public opinion research, in the context of prisons, punishment, and other penal practices. Some of the most notable Canadian literature on this topic was published during the Harper era government, which further transitioned Canada into an increasingly neoliberal society. The gap that can be identified from this literature is that the relationship between politicians and members of the public is the central focus, despite the public not being a monolith of morality, and the obvious reality that there are many social actors who have a stake in punishment and penal practices in Canada. This research analyzed punishment discourses in Canada using the transfer of Terri-Lynne McClintic in 2018 from a medium security penitentiary, to a medium-minimum security Indigenous healing lodge as its case study. Didier Fassin’s moral economy was used to frame this research, combined with a set of three analytical tools; Evelien Tonken’s citizenship regime, Arlie Russel Hochschild’s framing rules and feeling rules, and Jonathan Haidt’s moral emotion families. These concepts were used to make sense of the complex emotions and values that circulate within a moral economy. In order to examine Canada’s moral economy of punishment, 13 news media sources, 4 online comment threads, and 6 Hansard Transcripts were collected and analysed. This research demonstrates how the moral economy of punishment that citizens participate in is actively influenced by neoliberal governance and economics.

No description available.

This dissertation examines the mediation of the public’s encounters with recordings of field hollers, work songs, and blues music collected by the folklorists John and Alan Lomax in prisons of the U.S. South from the 1930s to the 1950s. These recordings have, over the years, reached audiences through numerous songbooks and commercial recordings and have become important documents of the musical and cultural heritage of the United States. At the same time, they raise important issues about prison labor, the profits and practices of ethnography, and the racial politics amplifying both of these issues, given that they were collected by white folklorists and primarily feature the voices of Black men incarcerated in segregated prisons. I trace the histories of the recordings’ acquisition, management, and dissemination—histories that involve not only the Lomaxes and the people whose voices are recorded, but also a variety of individual and institutional agents including prison administrators, public research facilities, non-governmental charitable organizations, and commercial corporations. I argue that these individuals and institutions have dealt with the Lomax prison recordings in a manner that has both responded to and shaped discourses about incarceration, race, gender, class, and morality in the United States. Over four chapters, I track the changing status of the recordings between 1933, when the Lomaxes first traveled to prisons and, in many ways, set the standard for prison song collection going forward, and the present day, when questions of musical heritage, justice, and repatriation largely motivate discussions around the collection and its management. My focus on this changing status over a span of nearly a century requires me to take approaches throughout: extensive archival research, historiographic examination, musical analysis, and an inquiry into heritage studies, among others.

Prisoner rights in Canada have historically been met with disrespect and disregard. Advocates have continuously fought for better protections of prisoner rights and legislation that bans the harmful treatment of prisoners. However, during the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic concerns arose about how prisoners’ rights were affected. Therefore, the question guiding this research is: How have the human rights of prisoners and (anti) carceral advocacy for their rights been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic? To answer this question, a document analysis was conducted, using documents from academics who work in the field, government departments, and advocates working in a variety of areas. This thesis fills the gap in scholarly inquiry that the pandemic has created as the circumstances and the effects of the pandemic are unknown. The government reacted to the pandemic by implementing protocols that suited them with little regard for how prisoner rights could be affected, and neglected advocates recommendations for change. Advocates reacted by shifting their strategies to ensure they could continue advocating during the pandemic. The thesis revealed that during a crisis, both positive and negative reactions can co-occur. The pandemic created a state of exception within the penal system; therefore, an increase in rights violations occurred. However, an opportunity for positive change also emerged. Advocates used this opportunity to change their strategies and maintain their advocacy. By contrast, the government did not seize the same opportunity, as is evidenced by how the recommendations that advocates had been supporting were not implemented properly to protect prisoners.

This dissertation conceptualized and evaluated the moderating effect of the treatment group on treatment responsiveness and recidivism among a sample of drug-involved offenders who received in-prison substance abuse treatment. Few studies of drug treatment simultaneously consider individual level variables and the context of group treatment. Those that have typically operationalize the treatment context with organizational indicators such as attributes of the staff, staff perceptions of the program, therapeutic orientation, and program accreditation. In contrast, the current work operationalized context from the perspective of the participant using as indicators client-based measures of treatment progress and satisfaction. The study expands existing theoretical models and extends what is known about treatment effectiveness by considering how the social group - the collection of individuals that constitute the prison unit in which the inmates received their 12 months of substance abuse treatment - may or may not moderate the influence of psychosocial functioning and treatment process variables and later outcomes. Such moderating impacts have theoretical implications for understanding the connections between treatment context, individual differences, and outcomes. Moderating impacts also have implications for the ways practitioners monitor treatment group climate and processes, thereby potentially improving service delivery. Finally, the present study contributes to the treatment literature by examining group influences of treatment on measures of recidivism - reincarceration and rearrest - that are of particular interest to practitioners and policymakers. The research was guided by three central questions: 1) Do significant differences on recidivism exist between treatment groups? 2) Does the treatment group moderate the impacts of psychosocial and treatment process variables on recidivism? 3) Does treatment modality have an effect on recidivism? To examine these questions, data from an evaluation of the treatment programs at the State Correctional Institution (SCI) at Chester, PA, were used (Welsh, 2006). The sample consisted of 618 adult male offenders who were randomly assigned to either the therapeutic community (TC) or the less-intensive group counseling treatment modality, each of which was 12 months in duration. A multilevel framework was applied to the data, as the offenders (level-1) were nested within 12 treatment units (level-2) in a single prison. The level-2 grouping was the prison unit where the offenders were housed and where they participated in the 12 months of treatment, and these units can be considered self-contained treatment programs. The predictors of primary importance were treatment responsiveness measures that were collected in the last month of the treatment experience. These included second-order factor analysis scores of measures of depression, anxiety, hostility, therapeutic engagement, trust in the treatment group, and peer support among others. Each was theoretically and empirically related to group functioning and later outcomes. Controls for other factors related to reoffending included time at risk, prior substance abuse and criminal history, age and race/ethnicity of the offender. These variables were all entered at level-1. A single level-2 variable was entered to examine and control for the effect of the type of treatment received (TC or group counseling). The data were analyzed using hierarchical generalized linear modeling (HGLM). This was the appropriate method because the data were nested and the outcomes were the binary measures of reincarceration and rearrest. Notably, multilevel models revealed significant variation on the reincarceration outcome across treatment units (level-2), controlling for treatment modality. This supported the first hypothesis that treatment effects could be attributed to something other than individual level variables or type of treatment received. A similar significant finding across treatment units (level-2), however, was not detected for the rearrest variable. Further, this method allowed for the examination of treatment group impacts on the individual psychosocial functioning and treatment process measures controlling for the type of treatment received. The second hypothesis stated that the treatment group would differentially affect the impact of these variables on recidivism. To reduce the number of individual-level predictors, the various subscales were entered into a second order principal components factor analysis. Three factors emerged: negative affect, positive attitude, and treatment satisfaction. Controlling for the composition of the group, the negative affect factor had a significant, positive direct effect on reincarceration. When the slopes of the three factors were allowed to vary, the model with treatment satisfaction and positive attitude as random effects fit the model best, as the treatment group significantly affected the impact these variables had on reincarceration. With regard to the third research question, in no analyses conducted did the treatment modality have a significant effect on the outcome. The third hypothesis that stated TC participants would have lower rates of reincarceration and rearrest, therefore, was not supported. This was a surprising result, as TCs have been found to be effective at reducing recidivism in previous research. In none of the existing studies, however, did the comparison group receive professional treatment services as the group counseling participants at SCI-Chester received. Several findings have implications for treatment research and policy. First, reincarceration significantly varied across the treatment units, even when controlling for the treatment modality and time at risk in the community. Second, the analysis of level-2 group impacts on individual level variables and recidivism were new contributions to the research in this area. These findings have implications for both theory (macro-to-micro theoretical effects of substance abuse treatment) and treatment delivery to those in prison. This research supported the first and second hypotheses that the group-level dimensions of prison-based substance abuse treatment have not been adequately considered in prior studies. This study takes an important first step in the direction of a more complete view of treatment experiences and outcomes that considers individuals nested within treatment groups. / Criminal Justice

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Yes / This chapter examines an innovative experience in prison management pioneered in the 1990s in São Paulo state, Brazil, whereby small, decentralised prison units were co-managed by community-based NGOs and the state prison authorities. These Resocialisation Centres (Centros de Ressocialização - CRs) were human rights compliant, run at half the cost of mainstream prisons, and emphasised rebuilding humane relationships between prisoners, and prisoners and their families. The CRs were inspired by Catholic volunteers completely taking over local jails, which came to be known as APACs. The chapter contrasts the APAC and CR ethos and practice. The former insisted on Christian faith, voluntarism and a sceptical view of the state as a penal actor. The latter preferred a secular approach, semi-professionalised NGOs, and formal partnerships that see the state as potentially capable of meeting its human rights and democratic legal commitments to those it incarcerates. The CR model of co-production of offender rehabilitation and desistance thus enables the local community to assist the state’s ‘moral performance’ within its penal institutions. The CR experiment is analysed in relation to competing models of prison governance (including forms of semi-privatization), and competition between criminal justice, civil society and religious actors for ‘ownership’ of the offender.

Thesis (doctoral)--Universität, Köln, 1997.