More than 600,000 prisoners are released from incarceration each year in the United States, and most end up residing in metropolitan areas, clustered within a select few neighborhoods. Likely consequences of this concentration of returning prisoners include higher rates of subsequent crime and recidivism. In fact, one-half of released prisoners return to prison within only 3 y of release. The r...

administer effectively the "promise of punishment", that is, discipline, isolation, and rehabilitation, given budgetary constraints and the prevalent view in free society (and even in the Penitentiary Administration itself) that criminals, once tainted by the experience of prison, were inevitably doomed to become social pariahs. The most stimulating chapter in the book, although the most scanti...

Education in Polish and Hungarian penitentiaries aims at the successful social reintegration of prisoners. Penitentiary institutions support prisoners by education primary, secondary, vocational training. Forms learning within prisons prepare for release integration into labour market. This study to review most important concepts possible interpretations criminal pedagogy cultural life prisons....

BACKGROUND Although HIV and tuberculosis (TB) prevalence are high in prisons throughout sub-Saharan Africa, little research has been conducted on factors related to prevention, testing and treatment services. METHODS To better understand the relationship between prison conditions, the criminal justice system, and HIV and TB in Zambian prisons, we conducted a mixed-method study, including: fac...

BACKGROUND Substance use in general has been shown to predict criminal recidivism. The present study aimed to examine potential predictors of criminal recidivism, including substance-specific substance use patterns, in prisoners with substance use. METHODS A cohort of prisoners with substance use problems (N = 4,152) were assessed with the Addiction Severity Index (ASI) in the Swedish crimina...

Criminal activity often involves considerable risks. It is therefore not surprising that criminals have been speculated to differ from noncriminals in risk attitude. Yet, few data exist to support this assumption. Moreover, the psychological underpinnings of differences in risk attitude are currently little understood. We presented prisoners and controls with sets of risky decision tasks and mo...

BACKGROUND Healthcare discrimination based on race/ethnicity is associated with decreased healthcare access and utilization among racial/ethnic minority patients. Discrimination based on criminal record may also negatively impact healthcare access and utilization among ex-prisoners. METHODS We conducted a secondary analysis of data from a cross-sectional survey of 172 men recently released fr...

Serious mental illness is a prominent and vexing problem within the correctional systems of North America. Simpson and colleagues draw attention to the epidemiology, special characteristics, and management problems relevant to Canadian inmates with serious mental illness. Of great interest to those in the forensic psychiatric field is the matter of continuation of care for mentally ill prisoner...