Featured Title
- Rethinking America’s Correctional Policies : Commonsense Choices from Uncommon Voices Commonsense Choices from Uncommon Voices:Rethinking America’s Correctional Policies brings together the experiences of men who served time in prison with contemporary research on correctional policy. This
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About Corrections: Concepts, Systems, and Issues
This guide provides selected course-specific resources for MET CJ271: Corrections: Concepts, Systems, and Issues.
Featured Resources: Criminal Justice and COVID-19
"UCLA School of Law has created expansive databases that keep track of developments related to COVID-19 in prisons and jails nationwide. Launched amid the mounting coronavirus crisis — including reports of infections in high-risk places where large numbers of people are packed into tight quarters — the resources address two key areas."
- COVID-19 Correctional Policies & Responses “COVID-19 Correctional Policies & Responses” allows prisoners’ advocates, journalists and others in the public to access or contribute data on how the pandemic is impacting incarcerated people, correctional officers and other personnel.
- Statutory Release Powers “Statutory Release Powers” comprises a state-by-state survey of all sources of legal authority that allow officials including sheriffs, judges and governors to release people from custody in response to the pandemic.
See also:
- A State-by-State Look at Coronavirus in Prisons (The Marshall Project) The Marshall Project is collecting data on COVID-19 infections in state and federal prisons. See how the virus has affected correctional facilities where you live.
- Massachusetts COVID-19 in detention (World Peace Foundation, The Fletcher School, Tufts University) Below you can find data on the COVID-19 outbreak in Massachusetts detention facilities. These include: the Federal prison at Devens; the facilities operated by the Department of Correction (prisons); County-level information about jails and ICE detainees; and juvenile centers. Our data below focuses on the early phase (March 20 – April 15) of the outbreak in DOC prisons and county jails.
- Epidemiology of COVID-19 Among Incarcerated Individuals and Staff in Massachusetts Jails and Prisons (JAMA Network Open) Incarcerated populations have exceptionally high risk of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) transmission and mortality due to overcrowding, movement through facilities, and high rates of chronic illness; hence, physical distancing is not a viable mitigation strategy. As of June 6, 2020, at least 42 107 cases and 510 deaths have occurred among individuals incarcerated in US prisons. Decarceration and increased testing may reduce transmission, but their efficacy is uncertain.
- Tracking COVID-19 in Massachusetts Prisons & Jails (ACLU Massachusetts) View plots in the different tabs to track testing, positive cases, and releases in prisons and jail during the COVID-19 pandemic, as documented in reports made by Massachusetts prisons and jails to the Supreme Judicial Court (SJC).
- COVID-19 Cases in Federal Prisons (Bureau of Prisons) The BOP has 142,255 federal inmates in BOP-managed institutions and 10,552 in community-based facilities. The BOP staff complement is approximately 36,000. As of 04/29/2020, there are 1534 federal inmates and 343 BOP staff who have confirmed positive test results for COVID-19 nationwide. Currently, 414 inmates and 132 staff have recovered. There have been 31 federal inmate deaths and 0 BOP staff member deaths attributed to COVID-19 disease.
- The Marshall Project: Coronavirus The Marshall Project is a nonpartisan, nonprofit news organization that seeks to create and sustain a sense of national urgency about the U.S. criminal justice system. We achieve this through award-winning journalism, partnerships with other news outlets and public forums.
- Rapid Reviews: COVID-19: Reviews of "Prisons and Pandemics" This is a worthwhile contribution that effectively lays out epidemiological, legal, and moral arguments relevant to prisons in the new context of COVID-19. It should be read widely.
- Coronavirus Cases Rise Sharply in Prisons Even as They Plateau Nationwide (New York Times via Nexis Uni, 16 June 2020) Prison officials have been reluctant to do widespread virus testing even as infection rates are escalating.
- COVID: How Europe’s prisons have fared in the pandemic (Github) Prisons make fertile breeding grounds for viruses, yet administrations have revealed little about COVID-19 cases, deaths and vaccinations in Europe’s prisons. Data from 29 countries show the pandemic’s impact on prisons.
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This guide was originally authored by Chris Smith, April, 2023.