By David M. Doyle and consisted of Dr. Avril Brandon, Dr. Joe Garrihy, r. Amina Adanan and Prof. Denis Bracken  The Irish Penal Reform Trust and  h Maynooth University School of Law and Criminology

The Irish Penal Reform Trust launched an independently commissioned exploratory research study on the rights and experiences of foreign national and minority ethnic groups in the Irish penal system on Thursday 27 April 2022. "Sometimes I'm missing the words": The rights, needs, and experiences of foreign national and minority ethnic groups in the Irish penal system were supported by the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (IHREC) under the Human Rights and Equality Grant Scheme 2020-2021. Very little information exists on the needs and lived experiences of minority ethnic and foreign national people in prisons and on probation in Ireland. This report aims to bridge that gap and consider these needs and experiences within the context of relevant policy and law. The report was commissioned by IPRT from the Maynooth University School of Law and Criminology.

The need for reform is outlined in 18 recommendations made in the report.

Findings from the research include: 

• Based on an analysis of the quantitative data provided by the Irish Prison Service (IPS), it was found that foreign nationals may receive longer sentences than Irish nationals for controlled drug offenses and sexual offenses.

• Further analysis, along with interviews from professional stakeholders, established that the IPS data – while including statistics on prisoners’ nationality – was deficient in the areas of ethnicity and religion of the prison population.

• Interview data revealed that there were significant challenges faced by foreign nationals and minority ethnic people in prison concerning access to services, respect for different religious backgrounds, as well as language and communication barriers.

• Experiences of racism at different stages of the criminal justice process had the effect of limiting trust with any part of the penal system.

Dublin: Irish Penal Reform Trust, 2022. 73p.

By: Scrutinize and The Center on Race, Inequality, and the Law at NYU School of Law.

Increased focus on state judiciaries has significant potential to improve the criminal legal system. Recognizing the need for evaluation metrics for judges, this report pioneers a data-driven, evidence-based approach to assessing the judiciary. We analyze written appellate decisions to quantify individual trial court judges' decisions and impacts. This methodology transforms complex judicial texts into accessible data, creating metrics of judicial performance for use by policymakers and the public. This report introduces ‘excessive sentence findings’ as a method to assess individual judges’ decisions and their impact. In New York, appellate courts review sentences for excessiveness and can reduce them in the “interest of justice,” a rare and clear signal—from highly respected institutional actors—that a lower court judge made an exceptionally troubling choice. We identify lower court judges with sentences reduced by appellate courts for being excessive and calculate the total number of years reduced from those sentences. The study reveals patterns of repeated excessive sentencing by several specific judges, raising questions about judicial accountability in New York.

Key Findings:

• Sixty-five lower court judges were found to have engaged in excessive sentencing more than once between 2007 and 2023.

• The 12 judges with five or more most excessive sentence findings had their sentences reduced by a total of 1,246 years.

• Two judges had a total of 39 excessive sentence findings between them, with the appellate court reducing a total of 684.5 years from the sentences they imposed.

Recommendations:

• New York’s court system should increase its transparency by releasing detailed, judge-level sentencing data.

• New York’s court system should publish annual reports summarizing excessive sentence findings and detailing the judges involved, the legal arguments made, and the appeal outcomes.

New York: The Authors, 2024. 32p.

By Mia Bird, Mia, Alissa Skog and Molly Pickard

 The California prison system is designed to house and provide rehabilitative services to people sentenced to prison for felony offenses. Although most people in prison are serving multi-year sentences, 39.6% of people released during the past ten years spent one year or less in prison custody. The proportion of people released after these short stays (of one year or less) increased from about one-third of all releases in 2014 to about one-half in 2023. In 2020 and 2023, the Committee on Revision of the Penal Code recommended that short prison stays of one year or less be served in county jails. This recommendation was designed to build on California’s Public Safety Realignment Act from 2011 which required people convicted of less serious felony offenses to serve their sentence in county jail instead of prison. The Legislature has not yet adopted this recommendation, but given the State’s focus on reducing prison system costs while maintaining public safety, it remains a policy option. In this fact sheet, we explore how the number and share of people released after short stays has changed over time in California. We also explore the demographic, offense, sentencing, and county characteristics of people who have short stays in prison. To do so, we draw on data from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) for the years 2014 through 2023. KEY FINDINGS Short stays have increased as a share of all releases since 2014. Over the past decade, 39.6% of all people released from prison had stays of one year or less. However, the proportion of those with short stays increased over this period from 36.3% of all releases in 2014 to 49.5% of all releases in 2023 (Figure 1). During this period, 15.4% of people released had very short stays of six months or less. The share of people released with very short stays also increased, from 13.4% in 2014 to 21.2% in 2023. This increase in short stays was concentrated in the period following the COVID-19 pandemic. During the first year of the pandemic, people may have spent more time in jail before they were convicted, sentenced, and transferred to prison. This was due to delays in court processing and suspensions of prison transfers. In addition, public health releases to reduce the spread of COVID-19 may have also led to shorter stays in prison.1 The share of people released from short stays continued to increase in 2022 and 2023. It remains to be seen whether this trend will continue in 2024.   

Los Angeles: California Policy Lab, 2024. 7p.

By David Macdonald

Truth in Sentencing laws eliminates discretion in prison release. This decreases the incentive for rehabilitative effort among prisoners. I use a regression discontinuity design to exploit a change in these incentives created by the introduction of TIS in Arizona. Before prison, I found that sentences were reduced by 20% for TIS offenders. Further, I find that rule infractions increased by 22% to 55% and education enrolment fell by 24%. After release, I found offenders were 4.8 p.p. more likely to re-offend. I further find that recidivism and infraction effects are largest among drug and violent offenders. Finally, I show that the reduction in sentences resulted in a broad equalization of time served at the cutoff, which indicates that the removal of early-release incentives by TIS was the main mechanism driving results.

Unpublished paper, 2024. 84p.

By Sian Galsworthy

In 2019 Joseph McCann was sentenced to 33 life sentences for committing violent and sexual offences whilst subject to supervision by the National Probation Service (NPS), following his release from prison on license earlier that year. The subsequent Serious Further Offence (SFO) report prompted an independent review from His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation (HMIP) which put forward several recommendations for change, to ensure the probation service could safely and effectively protect the public. This report presents the findings from an evaluation of His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) Complex Cases pilot within the East of England Probation Region. Complex Cases have been defined as cases that meet six of eight specified criteria, which deem them complex and challenging for Probation Practitioners (PP) to manage. The pilot process consisted of triaging those cases that met six of the eight pre-determined criteria. If the practitioner required further support with their case following triage, the case was then referred to and heard at a multi-disciplinary panel which consisted primarily of senior members of Probation and Prison staff who could advise on how to best manage the case. The pilot formed part of the commitment to address the recommendation (8) put forward in the Joseph McCann HMIP report which was to: “Ensure probation staff have adequate time to become familiar with complex cases for which they assume responsibility” (HMIP, 2020) This evaluation has explored the views and experiences of those who have participated in the Complex Cases pilot, to identify how its development and subsequent roll out has been perceived so far, and if there is any early/indicative learning which can be identified for future scale-up of the pilot. The pilot commenced in the Summer of 2021, it is still active and expanding across the pilot Probation Region.   The objectives of this evaluation were: 1. To explore what has been successful about the initial roll out of the Complex Cases Pilot 2. To explore which aspects of the Complex Cases Pilot require improvement 3. To explore the effects of the Complex Cases Pilot on Probation Practitioners sense of confidence in managing the complexities of the case and practice/case management

His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service , 2024. 60p.

By The National Consumer Law Center

Consumer protection laws apply to incarcerated people. However, because of incarcerated people’s limited and highly regulated contact with the outside world, they struggle to report consumer problems such as identity theft and fraud, as well as abusive practices perpetrated by the private companies that they must rely on for essential services and goods within correctional facilities. Barriers to reporting these problems can render consumer protections toothless for this vulnerable population. Government agencies and correctional facilities can take a meaningful first step towards alleviating these consumer harms by ensuring incarcerated people can easily submit complaints without having to rely on loved ones and advocates who are not incarcerated.

Boston: National Consumer Law Center, 2024. 5p.

 By Kourtnie Rodgers, Thomas Strauss 

In response to a critical need of the clients they serve, Twin Falls County Adult Misdemeanor Probation began a program to offer vouchers for clients with financial need in 2007. Vouchers are paid for with funding from the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant Program and can be used for required pieces of probation including drug testing, substance abuse treatment, and assessments. The goal of providing these vouchers is to reduce the burden of fees for clients who cannot afford to pay for their required conditions and ultimately to reduce recidivism of drug- and/or alcohol-related offenses. Clients are also able to access treatment providers that they may otherwise not be able to afford. This evaluation presents the Idaho Statistical Analysis Center’s (ISAC) review of the program through data collected by Twin Falls County Adult Misdemeanor Probation between October 2018 and September 2021. 

Meridian, ID: Idaho Statistical Analysis Center, 2022. 19p.

By  Wendy Betts

This is a policy brief that outlines recommendations for how to hold perpetrators accountable for sexual violence in Ukraine. The recommendations include:

• Legal pathways: Outlining legal pathways for accountability

• Documentation: Best practices for documenting conflict-related sexual violence

• Coordination: How to coordinate cooperation between documenters, support services, and the Ukrainian government

• Qualified professionals: Expanding the number of qualified professionals who can conduct forensic medical evaluations

• Legislative reforms: Legislative reforms to empower survivors in the justice process

• Medico-legal documentation: Developing standardized medico-legal documentation tools

• Capacity-building: Implementing capacity-building initiatives to ensure trauma-informed, survivor-centered approaches 

• The brief also calls on Ukrainian officials to build on their progress and reform systems so that survivors can access care, support, and justice. 

  The international community must react swiftly and respond in a survivor-oriented way toward justice

Global Initiative for Justice, Truth and Reconciliations (GIJTR) 2024. 37p.

By Howard League for Penal Reform

The prison system in England and Wales is running out of space, reaching record highs of more than 88,000 in recent months. Not only that but the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) has been flagging the likelihood of this happening in its prison population projections since 2021 (MoJ, 2021). Billions of pounds are being spent on new prison places but this will not be enough to match supply to demand. It is time for a new government to address the capacity problem head-on and determine a more positive future for the prison system. The problem is not going away, with the latest prison population projections estimating an increase by more than 30% within the next four years (MoJ, 2024c). The new Labour government has recognised that tackling the crisis must be an urgent priority, with the Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, commenting at his first Downing Street press conference that “we have too many prisoners” (BBC, 2024). During the election campaign the Prison Governors’ Association (PGA) took the unprecedented step of writing to all the main party leaders, warning that “it is a matter of days before prisons run out of space, and that the entire Criminal Justice System stands on the precipice of failure. Within a matter of weeks, it will put the public at risk” (PGA, 2024). The Police Federation has also expressed concerns that police officers are being asked to hold people unlawfully in police custody because prison cells are not available (Police Federation, 2024). It has been suggested that Operation Brinker, a ‘one-in-one-out’ system, would be deployed as prisons approach zero capacity (iNews, 2024). The main driver behind population growth is an increase in the determinate sentenced population due to greater levels of prosecutorial activity, the court backlog, and changes in sentencing policy. Examples include changes to the timing of release for those serving certain determinate sentences (from release at halfway to two-thirds of the sentence) and the introduction of mandatory starting points or whole-life orders for certain offences. Such reforms mean that more people will spend longer in prison. Legislative reforms such as Schedule 21 (introduced in 2003) and responses to single-issue campaigns have introduced mandatory minimum terms for custodial sentences for certain types of offences (and in some cases have resulted in the creation of new offences). These political interventions have distorted proportionality in sentencing and driven up sentence lengths.   

London: Howard League for Penal Reform, 2024. 19p