By Andrzej Uhl, Justin T Pickett

Are public preferences for the type or amount of punishment stable? Instability over short periods would complicate empirical desert by undercutting the value of public preferences as policy guides. Using longitudinal, cross-national survey data from Central Europe, we examined within-person stability in punishment preferences along several dimensions: type, amount, and rank order. Individual-level instability was common; respondents frequently changed their punishment preferences across waves. In the aggregate, public opinion was more stable. Our findings support the ‘qualified public input’ model of policy making—aggregate preferences should provide loose guidance for policymakers, with individual-level instability suggesting the ‘latitude of acceptance’ or ‘zone of acquiescence’. Better-educated respondents exhibited more preference stability, thus greater weight should be given to informed public opinion.

The British Journal of Criminology, 2024, XX, 1–20 pages

By The Global Commission on Drug Policy

The Global Commission on Drug Policy’s report, Beyond Punishment: From Criminal Justice Responses to Drug Policy Reform, exposes how punitive drug policies have driven mass incarceration and grave human rights violations. In 2023 alone, over 3.1 million people were arrested for drug-related offenses, with 20% of the global prison population detained for such crimes - nearly half for simple possession.

The report underscores the devastating consequences of prohibitionist policies, including over one million overdose deaths in the U.S. in the past two decades and 40,000 in Canada in just eight years. It also highlights systemic inequities, such as Indigenous peoples in Canada being six times more likely to face drug-related arrests than white counterparts. Furthermore, the report illustrates the disproportionate burdens on women and children, deepening cycles of poverty and marginalization.

It examines the broad spectrum of criminal justice responses to drug offenses, ranging from stop-and-search practices that disproportionately target marginalized communities to extreme measures like the death penalty and enforced treatment. These approaches often violate human rights, perpetuate stigma, and fail to address the root causes of substance use.

Offering a roadmap for reform, the report advocates for evidence-based strategies, including harm reduction measures (e.g., Overdose Prevention Centers, naloxone distribution, and safer supply programs), decriminalization and the legal regulation of drug markets. These approaches not only save lives but also reduce societal harms, foster dignity, and promote health and equity.

Geneva: Global Commission on Drug Policy, 2024. 56p.

By The Correctional Association of New York

The Humane Alternatives to Long-Term (HALT) Solitary Confinement Law (hereinafter “the HALT Law” or “the HALT Solitary Law”) passed on March 31, 2021, and went into effect on March 31, 2022, following years of grassroots organizing and advocacy. The Correctional Association of New York (CANY) – an organization that has been monitoring prison conditions since its founding in 1844 and is the only independent organization in New York State with authority to monitor state prisons and publicly report findings – has been monitoring implementation of the HALT Law in state prisons.1 The HALT Law is considered the most expansive and progressive legislative change in the United States concerning the practice of solitary confinement, known more generally as segregation. HALT dictates fundamental shifts in the duration and definition of segregation; perhaps even more significantly, the law prescribes a sea change in the philosophical underpinnings of behavior management in prisons. Implementation of the law has been met with harsh critique and resistance by some staff within the Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS), who have linked the law to reported increases in violence in the prisons; various data outlined in this report raise questions about the connection between any increase in violence and the implementation of HALT. Other corrections staff acknowledge that the Department had relied too heavily on segregation in the past and embrace the opportunity to expand programming, even as they navigate the challenges. This report presents CANY’s findings and recommendations regarding implementation of the law in state prisons thus far, based on CANY’s prison monitoring activities in the time leading up to implementation and between April and December 2022. The findings presented here should be considered in that context: CANY has monitored the first eight months of implementation of a law that seeks to transform practices that have been in place for decades. In anticipation of the HALT Law taking effect, DOCCS ended the practice of keeplock (a form of segregation or solitary confinement) starting in late 2021. The HALT Law has also led to a reduction in the use of Special Housing Units (SHU), another form of segregation or solitary confinement, and a reduction in the amount of time people are kept in SHU. In addition, some incarcerated people who had spent years and decades in SHU have been moved to alternative units or to the general population. Moreover, DOCCS is operating alternative units, known under the law as Residential Rehabilitation Units (RRUs), that are providing opportunities for out-of-cell programming and engagement. DOCCS has also published a variety of administrative data and reports in compliance with the law, representing an increase in information-sharing, transparency, and accountability.

New York: CANY, 2023. 65p

By The Correctional Association of New York

The Correctional Association of New York (CANY) is a non-profit organization, mandated by law to inspect, monitor and report on conditions in New York State (NYS) correctional facilities. CANY has repeatedly documented that across NYS incarcerated people report a lack of access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food and the systemic mechanisms to secure it. This report sheds light on key issues affecting food access and quality, and highlights opportunities to strengthen and expand existing DOCCS policies and programs to improve food and nutrition in NYS correctional facilities. The report covers three key areas: Part I: DOCCS food service. Part I of this report provides an overview and analysis of policies and practices scaffolding DOCCS menu design and planning, food production, and service. This includes an overview of the DOCCS “cook chill” food production center, based at Mohawk Correctional Facility in Rome, New York. The food production center is where most DOCCS meals are batch cooked, chilled and then shipped to the 44 DOCCS facilities to be reheated and served in the mess hall. Part I also includes analysis of both administrative and qualitative data regarding people’s experiences with food served in the mess hall. This encompasses an overview of concerns related to the quality, palatability, nutritional value, variety, and accessibility of food. Part II: Supplemental food sources and self-prepared meals. A significant number of incarcerated people reported that they either avoid the mess hall, or that mess hall meals are insufficient to meet their dietary needs. As a result of this, many people reported that they choose to prepare their own food using supplemental food sources, purchased from the commissary and/or outside vendors via the DOCCS package program. CANY consistently heard concerns about the accessibility and affordability of food in the commissary or through packages. CANY also observed that there are inconsistencies in access to cooking and food storage equipment for incarcerated people to self-prepare meals. Part II provides an overview of these challenges. Part III: DOCCS food and nutrition programming and initiatives. Part III provides an overview of current DOCCS food-related programming including Culinary Arts, Horticulture, Harvest Now, and other special events and programs which present an opportunity to increase the variety of foods available to incarcerated people. This part also highlights promising initiatives, like the recent pilot initiative launched by DOCCS to connect incarcerated people to Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits up to 30-days prior to release. There is significant potential to strengthen and expand these promising initiatives to improve food and nutrition, including increasing training and certification for incarcerated people working in food service, and better integration of food programming and DOCCS food service. Based on CANY monitoring data, DOCCS’ administrative data, and research and analysis, this report makes key findings about issues affecting food access and quality in DOCCS facilities. It concludes that there are significant current and future opportunities to improve food and nutrition for people incarcerated in NYS prisons. These recommendations, if implemented, would increase meaningful access to food options that help incarcerated people thrive, improve health outcomes for an exceedingly marginalized population, and create replicable infrastructure for healthy food within other state facilities and jurisdictions.

New York: Correctional Association of New York, 2024. 61p.

By Johanna Higgs and Manith Chhoeng

In 2020, Amnesty International released a report detailing serious abuses against people held in drug rehabilitation centers and prisons in Cambodia, highlighting the severe overcrowding caused by the anti-drug campaign that began in 2017. As of March 2020, Cambodia’s prisons had an estimated capacity of 26,593, but the number of people held exceeded 38,990. Four years later, Cambodia’s Ministry of Interior reported that, as of March 2024, 45,122 people were imprisoned, with 21,644 (48%) held for drug offenses and 2,214 being minors. The General Department of Prisons' response to overcrowding has been to request the construction of new drug rehabilitation centers and prisons.

International standards, such as the United Nations Rules for the Treatment of Women Prisoners and Non-custodial Measures for Women Offenders (the Bangkok Rules), the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for Non-custodial Measures (the Tokyo Rules), and the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (Mandela Rules), call for detention to be used only as a last resort and promote non-custodial measures, particularly for women and children. Organizations working in Cambodia, like IDPC partner This Life (TLC), aim to address these challenges through programs that improve outcomes for at-risk youth and families. These initiatives align with international standards, advocating for alternatives to incarceration and providing support services.

While Cambodia’s Drug Control Law (2012) gives prosecutors and courts discretion to divert drug offenders from imprisonment in favor of "voluntary" treatment programs, it has not been effectively implemented to reduce detention or imprisonment. TLC offers programs that provide vocational training and family support to juveniles in conflict with the law, aiming to reduce recidivism and promote reintegration. The organization also engages with government ministries, law enforcement, and community leaders to create holistic solutions that strengthen Cambodia's justice system and support vulnerable populations.

There are alternative measures in place for children. The Juvenile Justice Law of Cambodia, promulgated on July 14, 2016, aims to protect the rights of children in conflict with the law, supporting their rehabilitation and reintegration into society. It also provides alternatives to detention, such as diversion, probation, community service, and mediation. This law is seen as a milestone in promoting and protecting children's rights in Cambodia, aligning with the Convention on the Rights of the Child and other international standards. Non-governmental organizations like This Life are committed to evidence-based interventions that promote human rights, reduce inequality, and create opportunities for marginalized communities. Their work complements the goals of the Juvenile Justice Law by focusing on the rehabilitation and reintegration of youth in conflict with the law.

Amnesty International, 2024. 18p

By Nidhi Kalra, Brian G. Vegetabile, Shawn D. Bushway, and Greg Baumann

In this paper from RAND, the authors argue that the recidivism statistics cited most often in debates about the collateral consequences of criminal conviction are not appropriate to answer the questions inherent in those debates. In particular, the behaviors of criminal justice cohorts are too often mistakenly used to describe, or are entangled with descriptions of, behaviors of the overall population of people who have ever had a conviction, served time in prison, or experienced some other event in the criminal justice system. This confusion has consequences.

This paper demonstrates that the most-cited recidivism statistics often are based on criminal justice cohort samples that disproportionately contain frequent participants in the criminal justice system and, as a result, have higher recidivism rates compared with the broader population of concern.

Santa Monica, RAND, 2022, 16p.

By Margaret Colgate Love

The problem of collateral consequences calls to mind Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.’s famous line: “The life of the law has not been logic: it has been experience.” U.S. criminal law itself is not theoretically pure. In the area of civil law, in particular commercial law, dozens of uniform laws are on the books, drafted by experts, many of which, such as the Uniform Commercial Code, have been widely adopted. But in a country where we evaluate criminal justice polices based on a melange of principles - retributivist, utilitarian, economic, religious, pragmatic, intuitive, and emotional - there is and could be no Uniform Penal Code.1 Criminal law is inconsistent across states, and even within states, in its underlying justification or rationale, and the reasons that particular rules or practices exist. The Model Penal Code has been widely influential, but—as designed—states adopted only the pieces they liked, and heavily modified them. Disagreement about how to treat someone who has been arrested or prosecuted after their criminal case is concluded is, if anything, even more intense. The collateral or indirect consequences of their experience may be divided into four main types: Loss of civil rights, limits on personal freedom (such as registration or deportation), dissemination of damaging information, and deprivation of opportunities and benefits, each of which may be justified and criticized for different reasons. Accordingly, criminal law practitioners and scholars disagree about the fundamental nature and purpose of collateral consequences. To the extent the public at large ever thinks about them, they also hold a range of views. There is no consensus about whether collateral consequences in general or particular ones should be understood as further punishment for crime or prophylactic civil regulation, as a reasonable effort to control risk or as an unconstitutional and immoral perpetuation of Jim Crow, or, perhaps, understood in some other way. Advocates, analysts, and lawmakers will never be in a position to argue persuasively “because collateral consequences rest on Principle X, it follows that they should apply in and only in Condition Y, and must be relieved under Circumstance Z.” Yet, the practical problem of collateral consequences looms large. With their massive expansion in recent decades, those who experience collateral consequences firsthand know that they cannot become fully functioning members of the community without finding a way to overcome them. The economic dislocations caused by the Covid-19 pandemic underscore the practical implications of collateral consequences: With individuals desperate for money and opportunity, and businesses hungry for workers, the need for a sensible policy to minimize employer concerns about risk is clear. And while there remains no compelling necessity for all states to have the same penalties for armed robbery or cattle rustling, collateral consequences are a national economic problem affecting whole communities that might justify a federal, or at least a uniform, solution. Fortunately, agreement on underlying principles is not required to agree on particular policies.2 Most Americans agree that people arrested or convicted of crime should not be relegated to a permanent subordinate status regardless of the passage of time, successful efforts at rehabilitation and restitution, and lack of current risk to fellow Americans. Finding ways to restore their legal and social status is a compelling necessity, given the array of collateral consequences adversely affecting tens of millions of Americans, their families and communities, the economy, and public safety itself. To adapt a line from Justice Anthony Kennedy’s 2003 speech on criminal justice to the ABA, too many people are subject to too many collateral consequences for too long. At the same time, substantial majorities likely agree that public safety requires excluding those convicted of recent criminal conduct from situations where they present a clear and present danger of serious harm. Even if it is impossible to identify a s

Washington, DC: Collateral Consequences Resource Center (CCRC) , 2022. 129p.

By Margaret Love & Rob Poggenklass

At the beginning of each year since 2017, CCRC has issued a report on legislative enactments in the year just ended, new laws aimed at reducing the barriers faced by people with a criminal record in the workplace, at the ballot box, and in many other areas of daily life. These annual reports document the steady progress of what our 2020 report characterized as “a full-fledged law reform movement” aimed at restoring rights and dignity to individuals who have successfully navigated the criminal law system. In the three years between 2019 and 2021, more than 400 new record reforms were enacted. Many states enacted new laws every year, and all but two states enacted at least one significant new law during this period. A full appreciation of the scope of this movement can be gained by reviewing the detailed 50-state charts and state-by-state profiles in our Restoration of Rights Project. The modern law reform movement reflected in our annual reports is bipartisan, grounded in and inspired by the circumstance that almost a third of adults in the United States now have a criminal record, entangling them in a web of legal restrictions and discrimination that permanently excludes them from full participation in the community. It reflects a public recognition that the “internal exile” of such a significant portion of society is not only unsafe and unfair, but it is also profoundly inefficient. We are pleased to present our report on new laws enacted in 2022, titled The Frontiers of Dignity: Clean Slate and Other Criminal Record Reforms in 2022. While this report shows that the legislative momentum gathering since 2018 slowed somewhat in the past year, there has still been progress, with more new laws enacted this year than in 2018 when the current reform movement took off in earnest.

Washington, DC: Collateral Consequences Resource Center, 2023. 43p.

By Justin D. Strong, Keramet Reiter, Gabriela Gonzalez, Rebecca Tublitz, Dallas Augustine, Melissa Barragan, Kelsie ChesnutI, Pasha Dashtgard, Natalie Pifer, Thomas R. Blair

We examine how solitary confinement correlates with self-reported adverse physical health outcomes, and how such outcomes extend the understanding of the health disparities associated with incarceration. Using a mixed methods approach, we find that solitary confinement is associated not just with mental, but also with physical health problems. Given the disproportionate use of solitary among incarcerated people of color, these symptoms are most likely to affect those populations. Drawing from a random sample of prisoners (n = 106) in long-term solitary confinement in the Washington State Department of Corrections in 2017, we conducted semi-structured, in-depth interviews; Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale (BPRS) assessments; and systematic reviews of medical and disciplinary files for these subjects. We also conducted a paper survey of the entire long-term solitary confinement population (n = 225 respondents) and analyzed administrative data for the entire population of prisoners in the state in 2017 (n = 17,943). Results reflect qualitative content and descriptive statistical analysis. BPRS scores reflect clinically significant somatic concerns in 15% of sample. Objective specification of medical conditions is generally elusive, but that, itself, is a highly informative finding. Using subjective reports, we specify and analyze a range of physical symptoms experienced in solitary confinement: (1) skin irritations and weight fluctuation associated with the restrictive conditions of solitary confinement; (2) un-treated and mis-treated chronic conditions associated with the restrictive policies of solitary confinement; (3) musculoskeletal pain exacerbated by both restrictive conditions and policies. Administrative data analyses reveal disproportionate rates of racial/ethnic minorities in solitary confinement. This analysis raises the stakes for future studies to evaluate comparative prevalence of objective medical diagnoses and potential causal mechanisms for the physical symptoms specified here, and for understanding differential use of solitary confinement and its medically harmful sequelae.

PLoS ONE, 2020, 20 p.

By Laurin Bixby, Stacey Bevan, and Courtney Boen

Disabled people are disproportionately incarcerated and segregated from society through a variety of institutions. Still, the links between disability and incarceration are underexplored, limiting understanding of how carceral institutions punish and contribute to the social exclusion of disabled people. Using data from the 2016 Survey of Prison Inmates, we estimated disability prevalence in state and federal prisons, assessing disparities by race, ethnicity, and sex, and we examined inequities in previous residence in other “punitive” and “therapeutic” institutions. Sixty-six percent of incarcerated people self-reported a disability, with Black, Hispanic, and multiracial disabled men especially overrepresented in prisons. Compared with nondisabled incarcerated people, disabled incarcerated people were more likely to have previously resided in other institutions, such as juvenile detention facilities and psychiatric hospitals. Together, our findings advance the understanding of disability in carceral institutions, highlighting the need for policy interventions redressing the mechanisms contributing to the high incarceration risks of disabled people and the disabling nature of prisons and other carceral institutions.

Health Affairs Vol. 41, NO. 10, 2022, 28 p.

By James René Jolin, Benjamin A. Barsky, Carrie G. Wade

By expanding health insurance to millions of people in the US, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) may have important health, economic, and social welfare implications for people with criminal legal involvement—a population with disproportionately high morbidity and mortality rates. OBJECTIVE To scope the literature for studies assessing the association of any provision of the ACA with 5 types of outcomes, including insurance coverage rates, access to care, health outcomes, costs of care, and social welfare outcomes among people with criminal legal involvement. EVIDENCE REVIEW - The literature search included results from PubMed, CINAHL Complete, APA Psycinfo, Embase, Social Science Database, and Web of Science and was conducted to include articles from January 1, 2014, through December 31, 2023. Only original empirical studies were included, but there were no restrictions on study design. FINDINGS Of the 3538 studies initially identified for potential inclusion, the final sample included 19 studies. These 19 studies differed substantially in their definition of criminal legal involvement and units of analysis. The studies also varied with respect to study design, but difference-in-differences methods were used in 10 of the included studies. With respect to outcomes, 100 unique outcomes were identified across the 19 studies, with at least 1 in all 5 outcome categories determined prior to the literature search. Health insurance coverage and access to care were the most frequently studied outcomes. Results for the other 3 outcome categories were mixed, potentially due to heterogeneous definitions of populations, interventions, and outcomes and to limitations in the availability of individual-level datasets that link incarceration data with health-related data. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE- In this scoping review, the ACA was associated with an increase in insurance coverage and a decrease in recidivism rates among people with criminal legal involvement. Future research and data collection are needed to understand more fully health and nonhealth outcomes among people with criminal legal involvement related to the ACA and other health insurance policies—as well as the mechanisms underlying these relationships.

JAMA Health Forum, 2024, 10 p.

By Keramet Reiter, Joseph Ventura, David Lovell, Dallas Augustine, Melissa Barragan

Objectives. To specify symptoms and measure prevalence of psychological distress among incarcerated people in long-term solitary confinement. Methods. We gathered data via semistructured, in-depth interviews; Brief PsychiatricRating Scale (BPRS) assessments; and systematic reviews of medical and disciplinary filesfor 106 randomly selected people in solitary confinement in the Washington StateDepartment of Corrections in 2017. We performed 1-year follow-up interviews and BPRS assessments with 80 of these incarcerated people, and we present the results of our qualitative content analysis and descriptive statistics.Results. BPRS results showed clinically significant symptoms of depression, anxiety, orguilt among half of our research sample. Administrative data showed disproportionately high rates of serious mental illness and self-harming behavior compared with general prison populations. Interview content analysis revealed additional symptoms, including social isolation, loss of identity, and sensory hypersensitivity.Conclusions. Our coordinated study of rating scale, interview, and administrative data illustrates the public health crisis of solitary confinement. Because 95% or more of all incarcerated people, including those who experienced solitary confinement, are even-tually released, understanding disproportionate psychopathology matters for developing prevention policies and addressing the unique needs of people who have experienced solitary confinement, an extreme element of mass incarceration.

Am J Public Health. 2020, 7 p.

By Anneliese N. Luck

Jail incarceration remains an overlooked yet crucial component of the U.S. carceral system. Although a growing literature has examined the mortality costs associated with residing in areas with high levels of incarceration, far less is known about how local jails shape this burden at the intersection of race, sex, and age. In this study, I examine the relationship between county-level jail incarceration and age-specific mortality for non-Hispanic Black and White men and women, uniquely leveraging race-specific jail rates to account for the unequal racial distribution of jail exposures. This study finds evidence of positive associations between mortality and jail incarceration: this association peaks in late adulthood (ages 50–64), when increases in jail rates are associated with roughly 3% increases in mortality across all race–sex groups. However, patterns vary at the intersection of race, sex, and age. In particular, I find more marked and consistent penalties among women than among men. Additionally, a distinctly divergent age pattern emerges among Black men, who face insignificant but negative associations at younger ages but steep penalties at older ages—significantly larger among those aged 65 or older relative to their White male and Black female counterparts. Evidence further suggests that the use of race-neutral incarceration measures in prior work may mask the degree of harm associated with carceral contexts, because the jail rate for the total population underestimates the association between jail rates and mortality across nearly all race–age–sex combinations. These findings highlight the need for future ecological research to differentiate between jail and prison incarceration, consider the demographic distribution of incarceration's harms, and incorporate racialized measures of exposure so that we may better capture the magnitude of harm associated with America's carceral state.

Demography (2024) 61 (5): 1455–1482.

By Mia Schlicht

Australia’s imprisonment rate has increased sharply in the last four decades and governments are spending increasing amounts of taxpayer funds on maintaining overburdened prison systems.

The author argues that Australia's over-reliance on incarceration, particularly for non-violent offenders, is not only financially unsustainable but also fails to effectively address crime and often perpetuates a cycle of recidivism. The essay advocates for a shift in focus towards alternative sentencing options, such as electronic incarceration, offender-employment programs, and youth rehabilitation ranches, coupled with increased investment in proactive policing and community-based initiatives.

Key recommendations

• Reverse the bureaucratisation of police forces, focusing police efforts on law and order, and redirecting savings from reduced incarceration of non-violent offenders.

• Implement electronic incarceration for non-violent crimes, using technology to monitor and restrict the movements of offenders, allowing them to continue working and contributing to society.

• Non-violent offenders should be given the opportunity to work for willing businesses, earning award wages and contributing to society while providing restitution to victims.

• Require offenders to pay a significant portion of their income as tax until the total amount wrongfully obtained is repaid threefold – with one-third going to the victim and two-thirds to the state.

• Establish youth rehabilitation ranches to provide education, skills training, and support for young offenders.

Melbourne: Institute of Public Affairs, 2024. 64p.

By The Confederation of European Probation.

Probation organisations are dynamic organisations that usually have a tradition of accommodating and assimilating appropriate working methods commonly accepted within the society in which they operate. In a probation context, these working methods broadly aim to support both the essence and goals of probation. We can see evidence of this in the ongoing professional discussions, development projects, and technology being used and incorporated into probation practice. The purpose of these practice recommendations is to support jurisdictions to reflect upon certain issues before developing and using technology, undergoing digitalisation or considering hybrid working models. First, it is recommended for all organisations providing probation services to consider the goals of probation when considering using technology and digitising services. The second recommendation is to consider the essence of probation and the goals of probation when choosing technology or digitalised working processes. In practice, this could mean, for example, that the chosen technology should enhance building a positive and constructive working relationship with the client and facilitating rehabilitation and undertaking change work with the probation client. Another practical positive impact could be that co-work with other stakeholders and service providers becomes more flexible. The third aim of the practice recommendations is to share the benefits and good practices in using technology and digitalisation with members of the Confederation of European Probation (CEP) and other counterparts. The core purpose of these practice recommendations is to highlight the recommendations of the Council of Europe, such as the Probations Rules, Recommendations on community sanctions and measures, Electronic Monitoring and Artificial Intelligence defined, regarding the use of technology and digitalisation in probation. The fourth aspect is that all members of the European Union must consider and comply with the EU Directive on Data Protection and Security (GDPR). 

Utrecht, NETH: CEP Expert Group on Technology , 2024. 33p.

By Margaret Colgate Love

The problem of collateral consequences calls to mind Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.’s famous line: “The life of the law has not been logic: it has been experience.” U.S. criminal law itself is not theoretically pure. In the area of civil law, in particular commercial law, dozens of uniform laws are on the books, drafted by experts, many of which, such as the Uniform Commercial Code, have been widely adopted. But in a country where we evaluate criminal justice policies based on a melange of principles - retributivist, utilitarian, economic, religious, pragmatic, intuitive, and emotional - there is and could be no Uniform Penal Code.1 Criminal law is inconsistent across states, and even within states, in its underlying justification or rationale, and the reasons that particular rules or practices exist. The Model Penal Code has been widely influential, but—as designed—states adopted only the pieces they liked and heavily modified them. Disagreement about how to treat someone who has been arrested or prosecuted after their criminal case is concluded is, if anything, even more intense. The collateral or indirect consequences of their experience may be divided into four main types: Loss of civil rights, limits on personal freedom (such as registration or deportation), dissemination of damaging information, and deprivation of opportunities and benefits, each of which may be justified and criticized for different reasons. Accordingly, criminal law practitioners and scholars disagree about the fundamental nature and purpose of collateral consequences. To the extent the public at large ever thinks about them, they also hold a range of views. There is no consensus about whether collateral consequences in general or particular ones should be understood as further punishment for crime or prophylactic civil regulation, as a reasonable effort to control risk or as an unconstitutional and immoral perpetuation of Jim Crow, or, perhaps, understood in some other way. Advocates, analysts, and lawmakers will never be in a position to argue persuasively “because collateral consequences rest on Principle X, it follows that they should apply in and only in Condition Y, and must be relieved under Circumstance Z.”  Yet, the practical problem of collateral consequences looms large. With their massive expansion in recent decades, those who experience collateral consequences firsthand know that they cannot become fully functioning members of the community without finding a way to overcome them. The economic dislocations caused by the COVID-19 pandemic underscore the practical implications of collateral consequences: With individuals desperate for money and opportunity, and businesses hungry for workers, the need for a sensible policy to minimize employer concerns about risk is clear. And while there remains no compelling necessity for all states to have the same penalties for armed robbery or cattle rustling, collateral consequences are a national economic problem affecting whole communities that might justify a federal, or at least a uniform, solution. Fortunately, agreement on underlying principles is not required to agree on particular policies.2 Most Americans agree that people arrested or convicted of a crime should not be relegated to a permanent subordinate status regardless of the passage of time, successful efforts at rehabilitation and restitution, and lack of current risk to fellow Americans. Finding ways to restore their legal and social status is a compelling necessity, given the array of collateral consequences adversely affecting tens of millions of Americans, their families and communities, the economy, and public safety itself. To adapt a line from Justice Anthony Kennedy’s 2003 speech on criminal justice to the ABA, too many people are subject to too many collateral consequences for too long. At the same time, substantial majority likely agree that public safety requires excluding those convicted of recent criminal conduct from situations where they present a clear and present danger of serious harm. Even if it is impossible to identify a s     

Arnold, MO: Collateral Consequences Resource Center (CCRC) , 2022. 129p.

By Margaret Love

This report deals with a form of relief from the collateral consequences of a criminal conviction that is less far-reaching than expungement or other forms of record clearing but is potentially available to more people at an earlier point in time. These so-called “certificates of relief” do not limit public access to a person’s record, but they may be effective in reducing many conviction-related disadvantages in the workplace, including by providing employers and others with protection against the risk of being sued for negligence. At least as long as expungement and sealing remain unavailable to many people with a felony conviction record, or are available only after lengthy waiting periods, certificates of relief can provide an important addition to a state’s reentry scheme, and serve as a bridge to a more thorough forms of record relief like expungement. We believe that, rather than competing as alternative forms of relief, certificates, and expungement can operate as complementary parts of a structured system of serially available criminal record relief. Yet it appears that certificates have been largely ignored in many states by courts that are empowered to dispense them, as well as by the advocacy community whose clients might benefit from them. State court systems have failed to collect, track, or aggregate basic data like the number of certificate applications, grants, and denials, a failure that makes it almost impossible to evaluate a certificate’s effectiveness in a given state. At the same time, in a promising development, certificates are being used by prison and parole agencies to facilitate reentry for those exiting prison or completing supervision. Given the perceived limits of record clearing as a comprehensive reentry strategy, social science researchers have become interested in studying the effect of laws that aim to increase the positive information about individuals with a criminal record to counter the negative effect of the record itself. This report is intended to support these research efforts by describing the state of the law relating to certificates of relief in the 21 states that now offer them. A follow-up study will look at the state of executive pardoning  

Arnold, MO: Collateral Consequences Resource Center, 2024. 42p.

By Anneliese N. Luck

Jail incarceration remains an overlooked yet crucial component of the U.S. carceral system. Although a growing literature has examined the mortality costs associated with residing in areas with high levels of incarceration, far less is known about how local jails shape this burden at the intersection of race, sex, and age. In this study, I examine the relationship between county-level jail incarceration and age-specific mortality for non-Hispanic Black and White men and women, uniquely leveraging race-specific jail rates to account for the unequal racial distribution of jail exposures. This study finds evidence of positive associations between mortality and jail incarceration: this association peaks in late adulthood (ages 50–64), when increases in jail rates are associated with roughly 3% increases in mortality across all race–sex groups. However, patterns vary at the intersection of race, sex, and age. In particular, I find more marked and consistent penalties among women than among men. Additionally, a distinctly divergent age pattern emerges among Black men, who face insignificant but negative associations at younger ages but steep penalties at older ages—significantly larger among those aged 65 or older relative to their White male and Black female counterparts. Evidence further suggests that the use of race-neutral incarceration measures in prior work may mask the degree of harm associated with carceral contexts, because the jail rate for the total population underestimates the association between jail rates and mortality across nearly all race–age–sex combinations. These findings highlight the need for future ecological research to differentiate between jail and prison incarceration, consider the demographic distribution of incarceration's harms, and incorporate racialized measures of exposure so that we may better capture the magnitude of harm associated with America's carceral state.

Demography (2024) 61 (5): 1455–1482.

By James René Jolin, ; Benjamin A. Barsky, ; Carrie G. Wade; et alMeredith B. Rosenthal, PhD3,5

 IMPORTANCE - By expanding health insurance to millions of people in the US, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) may have important health, economic, and social welfare implications for people with criminal legal involvement—a population with disproportionately high morbidity and mortality rates. OBJECTIVE To scope the literature for studies assessing the association of any provision of the ACA with 5 types of outcomes, including insurance coverage rates, access to care, health outcomes, costs of care, and social welfare outcomes among people with criminal legal involvement. EVIDENCE REVIEW - The literature search included results from PubMed, CINAHL Complete, APA Psycinfo, Embase, Social Science Database, and Web of Science and was conducted to include articles from January 1, 2014, through December 31, 2023. Only original empirical studies were included, but there were no restrictions on study design. FINDINGS Of the 3538 studies initially identified for potential inclusion, the final sample included 19 studies. These 19 studies differed substantially in their definition of criminal legal involvement and units of analysis. The studies also varied with respect to study design, but difference-in-differences methods were used in 10 of the included studies. With respect to outcomes, 100 unique outcomes were identified across the 19 studies, with at least 1 in all 5 outcome categories determined prior to the literature search. Health insurance coverage and access to care were the most frequently studied outcomes. Results for the other 3 outcome categories were mixed, potentially due to heterogeneous definitions of populations, interventions, and outcomes and to limitations in the availability of individual-level datasets that link incarceration data with health-related data. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE-  In this scoping review, the ACA was associated with an increase in insurance coverage and a decrease in recidivism rates among people with criminal legal involvement. Future research and data collection are needed to understand more fully health and nonhealth outcomes among people with criminal legal involvement related to the ACA and other health insurance policies—as well as the mechanisms underlying these relationships.  

JAMA Health Forum. 2024;5(8):e242640. doi:10.1001/jamahealthforum.2024.2640

By Heather Schoenfeld, Kimberly Rhoten, and Michael C. Campbell

In recent years US prisons have failed to meet legally required minimum standards of care and protection of incarcerated people. Explanations for the failure to protect prisoners in the United States focus on the effects of the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) and the lack of adequate external oversight. However, very little scholarship empirically examines how different systems of accountability for prisoners’ rights work (or do not work) together. In this article, we introduce an accountability framework that helps us examine the prisoners’ rights “accountability environment” in the United States. We then compare two post-PLRA case studies of failure to protect incarcerated women from sexual assault in two different states. We find that the prisoners’ rights accountability environment is a patchwork of legal, bureaucratic, professional, and political systems. The patchwork accountability environment consists of a web of hierarchical and interdependent relationships that constrain or enable accountability. We argue that ultimately the effectiveness of prisoners’ rights accountability environments depends on whether protecting prisoners’ rights aligns with the priorities of dominant political officials. Our argument has implications for efforts to improve prison conditions and incarcerated people’s well-being. 

Law & Social Inquiry Volume 00, Issue 00, 1–30, 2024