Most criminal justice experts believe the United States is guilty of “mass incarceration,” a system that imprisons more people than deserve to be there or good for both prisoners and public. The data say otherwise, writes Barry Latzer. Considering seriousness most prisoners’ crimes high recidivism rates, public best served by keeping offenders behind bars.

Approximately 100,000 youths are currently incarcerated in the US, yet little is known whether such a penalty deters future crime or interrupts human capital formation in a way that increases the likelihood of later criminal behavior. This paper uses the incarceration tendency of randomly-assigned judges as an instrumental variable to estimate causal effects of juvenile incarceration on adult r...

This paper investigates the connection between incarceration dynamics and acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) infection rates, with particular emphasis on the black-white AIDS rate disparity. Using case-level U.S. data spanning 1982–96, we model the dynamic relationship between AIDS infection rates and the proportion of men in the age-, state-, and race-matched cohort that are incarcerat...

INTRODUCTION Persistent retroversion of a gravid uterus (incarceration) in the third trimester is an extremely rare diagnosis and is only scarcely been described. Its prevalence may lead to increased foetal mortality and maternal morbidity. CASE PRESENTATION We present a case where a 35-year-old patient had undiagnosed (recurrent) uterine incarceration at term. Operative delivery proved diffi...

OBJECTIVE The authors measured use of mental health services among young people before and during incarceration. METHODS Administrative data were used to describe mental health services received by 13,919 youths and young adults (ages 12-24) while incarcerated in Ontario, Canada, correctional centers (physician visits, April 1, 2010-March 31, 2012) and, for a subset of the population, during ...

In this study, the authors extend their evaluation of a structured instrument for assessing the persistence of attitudes and behaviors developed by mentally ill offenders during periods of incarceration (Structured Assessment of Correctional Adaptation; SACA) and seek to demonstrate further the clinical significance of the construct of correctional adaptation. The subjects, patients at a state ...

This study examines how prior neighborhood characteristics affect youth’s offending when youths move into an incarceration context. Neighborhood ethnic heterogeneity, residential stability, and disadvantage are often predictive of neighborhood crime, but it is unclear how these neighborhood constructs continue to affect youth’s behavior inside a secure facility. In a sample of recently incarcer...