Empirical research indicates that correctional job stress results in many negative outcomes, both on the job and at home. Although research has explored job stress among correctional officers in the United States, few studies have explored job stress in non-Western nations. Focusing on six job-related factors, namely routinization, role overload, perceived dangerousness of the job, training views, quality supervision, and instrumental communication, the current research among Chinese prison staff indicates that the negative outcomes of job-related stress among correctional officers in China are similar to many of the variables that affect U.S. prison staff.
This study examines the technological modernization of the Hungarian penal system between 2015 and 2025 through qualitative document analysis. By analyzing the effects of electronic remote monitoring, remote court hearings, telemedicine, administrative processes, and artificial intelligence-based security technology, this analysis highlights that the Hungarian model does not aim at full automation, but rather for data-driven, regulated operations subject to human oversight, seeking a balance between security, reintegration, and legal safeguards.
As correctional systems shift toward decarceration, reentry risks have become a central policy concern. Yet, the needs of deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) individuals remain largely unexplored. This study examines the reentry expectations of 16 incarcerated DHH individuals in the southeastern United States using semi-structured interviews and thematic analysis. Findings reveal a tension between aspirations for employment and family reunification and anticipated vulnerabilities, particularly related to communication barriers, physical safety, and discrimination. Participants highlighted limited access to sign-fluent services and accessible resources. The study underscores the need for communication-accessible, culturally competent reentry planning to reduce isolation and support successful reintegration.
Life Course Theory has shaped criminology's understanding of desistance. Yet, its applications often overlook the relational and structural dimensions of incarceration and reentry. Drawing on qualitative interviews with returning citizens, this article introduces Relational Life Course Criminology (RLCC) and the concept of constrained developmental agency to show how agency emerges early through survival, caregiving, and adaptation under structural adversity. Findings position incarceration and reentry as intergenerational, relational processes unfolding across linked lives, expanding criminological applications of Life Course Theory to better account for structural inequality, identity reconstruction, family systems, and lived experience over time.
Despite the extensive literature on organizational deviance, little is known about how such behaviors emerge and persist through relational dynamics in correctional settings in Türkiye. Drawing on 284 newspaper-reported cases (2000–2025), this study employs thematic analysis to examine the relational production of deviance in inmate–staff interactions. The findings demonstrate that deviance is collectively and institutionally sustained through silence, hierarchy, and mutual dependency. Three forms are identified: deviance against inmates, deviance against the institution, and inmate-initiated deviance. The study advances the literature by conceptualizing a relational continuity–normalization–institutionalization trajectory and underscores the need for multilevel accountability, independent oversight, and ethics training.
This qualitative study examines the trauma histories, mental health profiles, socioeconomic circumstances and reintegration concerns of 50 women incarcerated for homicide in four North Indian prisons. Applying a feminist pathways framework, semistructured interviews were analysed using reflexive thematic analysis. Four themes emerged: cumulative victimisation, untreated psychological distress, structural entrapment and reintegration precarity, reflecting widespread domestic violence, psychological distress, poverty, and fear of community rejection among participants. Findings indicate that homicide in this population was predominantly reactive, rooted in chronic victimisation and structural marginalisation, and underscore the need for trauma-informed prison mental health care, legal aid reform and gender-responsive reintegration support.
Despite advances in understanding prison violence through individual-level and institutional predictors, less is known about situational characteristics of violent incidents, particularly those that result in serious injury. This study draws on 2,178 violent incident reports across five U.S. states representing diverse regions to examine variations in situational characteristics across violence types and their association with injuries among staff and incarcerated people. Results showed significant differences in situational characteristics across violent incident types, and revealed distinct predictors of injury, including weapon use, location, and security level, with implications for improving institutional safety and security.
Some recent reentry program efforts have adopted a housing-focused approach, including partnerships between community housing providers and financial assistance for housing costs. Using a sample of eight studies and 32 effect sizes, our meta-analysis summarized evidence about the impact of housing-focused reentry programs on recidivism outcomes. Results showed a moderate and significant negative association between housing-based programs and recidivism. Compared to the control groups, participants in housing-focused reentry programs experienced a 19.9% reduction in the odds of recidivism. Importantly, results from the subgroup analysis found the impact of housing-focused programs was statistically similar across each type of recidivism outcome examined.
This study examines family visiting experiences with incarcerated loved ones, drawing on multiple years of immersive ethnographic research. For many children in the United States, visiting jails or prisons becomes a recurring aspect of their lives. Although visits provide time with a family member, research reveals they frequently involve aggressive encounters with correctional staff. Thus, visits can exacerbate feelings of hopelessness and absence while exposing families to harsh treatment. To understand how families cope, this study introduces the concept of complex emotional preparedness, a framework for examining how families navigate these challenging realties, and offers policy recommendation to improve correctional visits.
The predictive validity of the Psychological Inventory of Criminal Thinking Styles (PICTS) Fear-of-Change (FOC) scale was evaluated in 1,101 male prison inmates following their released from custody. The predictive validity of the FOC was tested using a Cox proportional-hazards regression analysis. Results revealed a small but significant predictive effect, implying that fear of change may serve as a barrier to change in correctional populations. The theoretical and practical implications of these results include shifting attention away from an exclusive focus on risk factors in favor of barriers and obstructions to change, while targeting fear of change for intervention.
This qualitative study explored the social-emotional challenges of correctional staff working with violent detainees, together with their perceived collegial and organizational support. Since discussing such challenges is generally taboo among correctional staff, rigorous methodological strategies were employed to ensure safety and confidentiality, resulting in interviews with the majority of the multidisciplinary staff at the Dutch Facility for Uncontrollably Violent Detainees. Applying thematic analysis to transcripts, the results revealed significant opportunities to enhance staff's social-emotional well-being, highlighting that emotional safety, collegial interaction, and organizational support are more critical concerns than the violent population itself.
Effective service delivery by correctional officers (COs) requires timely responses to critical incidents, making physical fitness essential. Research across public safety sectors links regular exercise to improved mental well-being, job satisfaction, and self-esteem. However, little qualitative research has examined how fitness shapes COs' experiences, addresses the occupational barriers tied to exercising, and assesses its impact on officer mental and social well-being. This study analyzes 126 interviews with federal COs employed by Correctional Service Canada (CSC) to address this gap. The study explores the evolution of fitness experiences over the course of officers' careers, the degree to which fitness supports well-being and performance, and the structural challenges to fitness practices in correctional environments. The article concludes with recommendations to strengthen CO fitness opportunities and outlines policy changes CSC could implement to support officer wellness and retention.
This article advances a modular architectural framework for correctional facilities that reconciles security, rehabilitation, and operational sustainability. Drawing on historical and contemporary prison models, it identifies persistent tradeoffs between control and normalization and the absence of scalable, adaptable typologies. The proposed Panoptic Module System (PMS) employs prefabricated radial pods, centralized hardened infrastructure, layered surveillance, and tamper-resistant design to reduce violence, contraband, and staffing burdens while supporting education, vocational programming, and psychological well-being. Integrated micro grids and water recycling position prisons as community infrastructure assets. The article argues that modular, technology-enabled design can improve safety, cost-efficiency, and rehabilitative capacity across correctional contexts.
Prison violence is often managed through staff-led strategies, yet little research examines incarcerated people's role in prevention. This study explores peer-driven violence interruption in a high-security prison after a major disturbance. Drawing on interviews with 24 incarcerated men and ethnographic observation, findings highlight four themes: creation of an alternative unit, continuous "temperature checks," credibility-based intervention, and structural constraints such as lockdowns and staff mistrust. Violence interruption emerged as a staged, situational process requiring judgment about engagement and withdrawal. The research underscores incarcerated persons as active agents in co-producing safety, and offers implications for correctional policy and peer-led prevention.
This study explored the relationship between prison food satisfaction and experienced severity of imprisonment (ESI). Confirmatory factor analyses were conducted to verify distinct food satisfaction aspects, and regression analyses were estimated to examine their association with ESI. The findings revealed a negative relationship between food satisfaction and ESI, particularly for satisfaction with food choice and variety, highlighting food as a key domain through which incarcerated persons experience autonomy, dignity, and deprivation. Expanding food-related autonomy may help mitigate the burdens of imprisonment. Integrating food policy into wider institutional strategies may offer a promising avenue for promoting humane and rehabilitative correctional environments.
A valuable goal for correctional settings is the application of workforce development education for incarcerated individuals as they prepare for the reentry process. Exploring the transitional bridge from prison to society signifies the need for "employment skills" that empower the formerly incarcerated to achieve employment success and avoid recidivism. The U-Work Program student volunteers teach reentry classes focused on workplace employment skills, including financial literacy, communications, resume writing, interviewing, and technology. This article showcases the themes that emerged from incarcerees' responses in an exploratory study of the U-Work Program at a low-security federal facility in the Northeast, illustrating the importance of workforce development education in the reentry process.
Embedded within a larger randomized controlled trial assessing implementation strategies for delivering medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD) in jails and during transition to community treatment, this article focuses on barriers to MOUD. Twenty-three qualitative interviews representing 19 organizations were conducted to understand these barriers. The three that surfaced as most pertinent are: policy, organizational structure, and stigma related to addiction and incarceration. This study also found a double stigma for those incarcerated and struggling with addiction, amplifying barriers to MOUD. Improving MOUD implementation is essential to reducing fatal overdoses, enhancing care postrelease, and expanding treatment access in the community.
This article examines how the United States Federal Bureau of Prisons (FBOP) violates specific provisions of the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (Nelson Mandela Rules). Through systematic analysis of accommodation standards, healthcare services, and solitary confinement practices, this article identifies fourteen distinct violations across these three domains. Drawing on peer-reviewed research, government reports, investigative journalism, and bipartisan congressional investigations, the study demonstrates that FBOP facilities fail to meet internationally recognized minimum standards for humane detention. The article concludes with specific recommendations for bringing FBOP practices into compliance with the Mandela Rules and discusses potential enforcement mechanisms.
The attitudes of staff and of males incarcerated for non-sexual offences toward males incarcerated for sexual offences are measured using the Attitudes to Sex Offenders Scale ( Hogue & Harper, 2019). Overall, staff had more favorable attitudes toward males incarcerated for sexual offences than males incarcerated for non-sexual offences did. Results also demonstrated that staff and those incarcerated in the prison that does not segregate males incarcerated for sexual offences from the mainstream population had more favorable attitudes toward males incarcerated for sexual offences than staff and those incarcerated in the prison that segregates males incarcerated for sexual offences. Implications for prison administrators in creating rehabilitative prison social climates are discussed.
Victims often face not only primary trauma but also secondary victimization from adversarial justice systems, exposing psychological blind spots. This study conceptually examines how trauma-informed justice aligns with victimology and restorative justice to advance empathetic and equitable legal responses. Using a conceptual normative method, it synthesizes secondary data sources through thematic triangulation. Findings reveal that trauma-informed justice is guided by five principles-safety, trust, collaboration, empowerment, and choice-shift justice toward healing and accountability. Originality lies in framing trauma-informed justice as a bridge between victim-centered and restorative paradigms, contributing a theoretical foundation for trauma-responsive reforms in Global South contexts.
