Women in the Province of Manitoba are discharged daily from provincial jails back to their communities after an interruption in their lives of anywhere from days to years. Many of these women cycle in and out of jail on a regular basis. This hermeneutic phenomenological study explored the daily lifeworlds of re-imprisoned women during their return to the community. Twelve women (nine Aboriginal, three Caucasian) were interviewed. Analysis of the study themes using van Manen’s existentials: temporality, spatiality, relationality, and corporeality revealed the complex multi-systemic issues that affect women’s lived experiences. The essence of the women’s accounts provides some insight into how the role of intergenerational, personal trauma and accumulated trauma impacted their lived experiences and continues to do so when they re-enter the community. The opportunities and options that women had to make positive life changes were obscured by insidious barriers and challenges impairing their ability to avoid re-imprisonment. / May 2016

A presente pesquisa consistiu em identificar, a partir de um enfoque crítico e clínicocriminológico, o que caracteriza e singulariza a Reintegração Social frente às demais propostas político-criminais tradicionalmente aplicadas ao cenário da execução penal. A partir deste objetivo, foram sendo desdobradas as filigranas das clássicas estratégias político-criminais (tratamento penitenciário e ressocialização) a fim de investigar a proximidade os limites teóricos entre elas e a Reintegração Social, além de se debruçar na idéia que propõe uma filosofia dialogal como mecanismo de aproximação e identificação plurais entre a sociedade e o cárcere. / The present research was to identify, from a critical, clinical and criminological, which characterizes the Social Reintegration against other proposals for criminal policy traditionally applied to the landscape of criminal enforcement. From this goal, the watermarks have been deployed on classical criminal policy (prison treatment and social rehabilitation) to investigate the theoretical limits of the closeness between them and Social Reintegration, and to address the idea that proposes a dialogical philosophy as a mechanism approach and identification of plural society and prison.

Partant d’une pratique clinique en milieu pénitentiaire, nous nous sommes rendus compte de l’importance de la violence tant de celle contenue dans les motifs d’incarcération que celle amenée comme une énigme silencieuse dans les problématiques subjectives pouvant se faire entendre à la faveur des entretiens à visée thérapeutique que nous avons avec les personnes incarcérées.Au moyen d’outils prélevés dans des champs de recherche se référant à la méthode expérimentale, nous avons procédé à des observations et les avons traduites au moyen de traitements statistiques pour en tirer des conclusions faisant écho aux hypothèses formulées en amont. Cette approche a été confrontée à celle de la clinique en psychologie en prenant appui sur l’analyse et la construction de cas. Des cas et vignettes ont été exposés dans le but d’en prélever la part transversale ou généralisable d’un fonds singulier.Cette méthodologie comparative est utilisée comme une opportunité pour nous permettre d’interroger le choix épistémologique parfois implicite auquel nous nous sommes référés. Ce détour s’est présenté comme une nécessité didactique, propice, à consolider notre désir de savoir et, à être soumis à un examen critique.Ce parcours heuristique nous a permis de mettre à l’étude les énigmes toujours particulières que nous lègue chaque patient et parmi elles, des blessures anciennes et silencieuses qui accompagnent un malaise postcolonial dont l’un des modes prévalents d’expression sans parole est l’agir violent. Ce qui ne fait pas équivaloir l’agir violent à une maladie mais à une rupture en quête de sens ou encore à une manifestation d’un défaut de sens.Le travail thérapeutique avec les personnes détenues reçues comme patients montre que le traitement par la parole peut être une opportunité pour initier une autre forme d’élaboration subjective par le truchement d’un moment de reconnaissance. / Initiating from a clinical practice at a penitentiary, we realized the importance of violence both on grounds for incarceration and presented as a silent enigma in the subjective problems that can be heard through therapeutic interviews that we have with prisoners.Using tools taken from research fields based on the experimental method, observations were made and translated using statistical methods to draw conclusions in relation with the hypothesis formulated beforehand.This approach was compared with that of clinical psychology supported by analysis and case construction. Cases and thumbnails have been exhibited in order to extract the common factor of a singular framework.This comparative methodology’s purpose allow us to interrogate the sometimes implicit epistemological choice by which we are driven. This detour presented itself as a didactic necessity, conducive at consolidating our desire to know and to be subjected to a critical examination.This heuristic path allowed us to study the ever-present enigmas left to us by each patient and among them the old and silent wounds that accompany postcolonial discomfort, one of the prevalent modes of speechless expression is act violently. This does not equate violent action as a disease but as a fracture in the search for meaning or as a demonstration of a deficience of meaning.The therapy sessions of the detainees received as patients shows that treatment via speech can be an opportunity to initiate another form of subjective elaboration through a moment of recognition.

For the past several decades, the county jail in a large metropolitan city in the southeast United States has been overcrowded, which has resulted in violence within the jail, excessive costs to the Sheriff's Office, and a requirement of Federal oversight of the jail from 2005 to 2015. In spite of these events, little is understood about why jail overcrowding is prevalent in the county and what impacts overcrowding may have on the communities around the jail. Using Shaw and McKay's social disorganization theory as the foundation, the purpose of this case study was to understand the unique circumstances around in the geographic region that may contribute to overcrowding in order to avoid the risk of future federal government intervention. Data were collected through interviews with jail administrators and staff, commissioners, and judges. Additionally, publicly available data related to the operations of the jail were collected. These data were inductively coded and then subjected to a thematic analysis procedure. Key findings identified the primary causes of overcrowding to include increases in the number of correctional clients with mental health problems, increases in the number of youthful offenders, and deficiencies in capacity at the primary jail facility that has not kept pace with population changes in the county. Positive social change implications include recommendations to jail administrators and lawmakers to use statutory authority to alleviate some of the problems in and around the jail facility. These recommendations may reduce the financial and legal risk for the county and promote public safety both within and outside the jail.

A series of psychiatric hospital closures has led to a movement of care for individuals with mental illness from state-run facilities to managed care centers. Many of the individuals who no longer reside in psychiatric hospitals have become ensnared in the criminal justice system. Correctional facilities have an increased burden to care for the needs of the mentally ill, but lack the training and facilities to do so adequately. In this study, the lived experiences of correctional staff who have experienced the process of a hospital closure were examined. Psychiatric rehabilitation and gatekeeper theories served as the theoretical framework for the study. Data were collected using focus group interviews with 17 correctional officers and individual interviews with 3 administrative staffers at a jail in a southern U.S. state. Data were recorded and transcribed and then analyzed for themes. Six themes emerged: (a) open the psychiatric hospital back up, (b) training, (c) they don't need to be here, (d) mental health housing/they can't function in general population, (e) public awareness, and (f) they didn't think it through. Analysis of study data resulted in the identification of several gaps in community supports that can improve the lives of mentally ill individuals. These include avoiding future hospital closures, improving correctional mental health bed space, and providing correctional-specific training for staff at the jail. The study has positive social change implications for both correctional staff and mentally ill inmates in that the study can inform the improvement of officer training and the development of new community supports, which can reduce negative outcomes for mentally ill individuals.

New Zealand prisons were a colonial construct established by early colonial administrations to deal with criminal behaviour occurring at the time of European settlement. Like the prison system, prison chaplaincy also had its origins in colonial experiences from the United Kingdom where chaplains were employed to meet the spiritual needs of those in institutions such as schools, hospitals, colleges, the military and legations. This thesis addressed the question of how the partnership between Church and State administrators in New Zealand for the provision of chaplaincy services developed between 1840 and 2006. Four phases were identified in the evolution of prison chaplaincy: phase one 1840-to-1950, characterised by ad hoc arrangements between clergy and local prison management; phase two 1951-to-1989 when Secretary for Justice Samuel Barnett established a formal relationship with the National Council of Churches and the Roman Catholic Church to provide chaplains for penal institutions; phase three identified as ‘prisons in change’ 1990-1999, when the Interim Chaplaincy Advisory Board and Prison Chaplaincy Advisory Board worked in tandem with the Departments of Justice and Corrections to administer the Prison Chaplaincy Service, arising from the recommendations of the Roper and Perry Reports; and phase four 2000-to-2006, a period when the Prison Chaplaincy Service of Aotearoa New Zealand was contracted to the Department of Corrections to employ prison chaplains. The research adopted a multi-faceted approach, consisting of phenomenology, ethno-methodology and hermeneutics to understand attitudes and experiences of key players and institutions in the evolution of Prison Chaplaincy. Data was collected through interviews of key informants, critical evaluation of published and unpublished material in public and private collections. The study identified six key factors that influenced the development of Prison Chaplaincy in New Zealand. These were: the nature of the Church-State interface, the impact of biculturalism, the influence of theological and ecclesiastical trends, and the impact of inter-church politics, the influence of socio economic trends and developments, and changes in Government policy. It also found that while there were tensions, the Church-State partnership had positive benefits for the spiritual outcomes for prisoners.

ABSTRACTThe purpose of this thesis is to investigate the role architecture plays in both causing and ameliorating cycles of crime and punishment. To accomplish this task, the study combines an investigation of historical prison typologies, with an investigation into the philosophical and ethical questions surrounding the practice of imprisonment itself, as well as in depth sociological and criminological studies of the ways in which crime and incarceration affect the health of communities over time. It then employs the tools and conclusions of these studies to investigate the change over time in a singe community in North Memphis, Tennessee from its roots as a thriving, multi-racial industrial hub to a community defined by endemic crime, poverty, and violence and, finally, to suggest a way to improve the health of the community through the prison system itself. The study concludes that the prison system as it currently exists must undergo a fundamental philosophical and physical change in order to actually meet the goals of reducing crime and improving community health for which it was intended. To that end, the thesis suggests a vision of an incarceration facility for a single community in North Memphis that uses architecture as a vehicle to instrumentalize the key emotion that defines imprisonment -- how to escape from it -- in order to reconcile prisoners back to the communities they have offended.

A lack of reliable knowledge regarding the problems facing Indian and Metis people has hindered the development of intelligent programs and policies to facilitate their healthy integration into the larger Canadian society. Two large scale studies (Hawthorn, Belshaw, & Jamieson, 1958; Lagassé, 1959) have attempted to alleviate this problem by collecting extensive data on such aspects of Indian and Metis life as the community and family, resources, employment, education, relations with the law, social welfare needs, liquor and administration.<p> These broad studies dealt only indirectly with Indian and Metis philosophies, personalities and modes of thought, areas in which a comprehensive understanding will have to be achieved to thoroughly comprehend the nature of the problems facing people of Indian ancestry. The Hawthorn study stressed that other research which might follow should include topics such as those which lie within the vast area of psychology.

A lack of reliable knowledge regarding the problems facing Indian and Metis people has hindered the development of intelligent programs and policies to facilitate their healthy integration into the larger Canadian society. Two large scale studies (Hawthorn, Belshaw, & Jamieson, 1958; Lagassé, 1959) have attempted to alleviate this problem by collecting extensive data on such aspects of Indian and Metis life as the community and family, resources, employment, education, relations with the law, social welfare needs, liquor and administration.<p> These broad studies dealt only indirectly with Indian and Metis philosophies, personalities and modes of thought, areas in which a comprehensive understanding will have to be achieved to thoroughly comprehend the nature of the problems facing people of Indian ancestry. The Hawthorn study stressed that other research which might follow should include topics such as those which lie within the vast area of psychology.

Mental health courts have recently emerged with goals to reduce recidivism and improve clinical outcomes for people with serious mental illness in the criminal justice system. The present study is a review of mental health court literature assessing their effectiveness in reducing recidivism and improving clinical outcomes for participants using meta-analytic techniques. A total of 20 studies that included sufficient information to compute the standardized mean difference effect size, focused on adult populations, and were within the United States were included in the analysis. Only experimental and quasi-experimental research designs were obtained. Using Cohen's d (1988) guidelines, mental health courts were found to have a small effect on reducing recidivism (0.32, p<.05) and a nonsignificant effect for improving clinical outcomes for participants. Several moderator analyses were conducted and indicated that the nature of the control group (whether they were a treatment as usual or participants who "opted-out") was found to be significant between groups (Q=22.33, p<.001) as a possible moderating effect.