prisoners

Children and young people in custody 2010-11

Report that describes children and young people’s own perception of imprisonment. The seventh report to be published, it outlines the responses from surveys carried out annually in all young offender institutions holding children and young people aged 15 to 18 years old.

Findings are summarised from 1,052 young men from all nine male establishments and 40 young women from four female establishments.

Equal but different?: An inspection of the use of alternatives to custody for women offenders

The increase in the female prison population between 1997 and 2000 caused such concern that it triggered a review of the existing initiatives for working with women. The subsequent report signalled the introduction of the Women’s Offending Reduction Programme which aimed to link strategic initiatives across government departments to address women’s offending and pursue alternatives to custody. This thematic inspection report was conducted by HMI Probation, HMCPSI and HMI Prisons.

Women in focus: an evaluation

A report for South West Scotland Community Justice Authority. It documents the evaluation of the Women in Focus service, which resulted from the concerns that many practitioners, policy-makers and others expressed in relation to the increasing imprisonment of women in Scotland (and internationally).

Legitimacy and procedural justice in prisons

A functioning correctional system depends on the orderly reproduction of a stable and acceptable prison environment. The argument in this paper has two parts: first, a key factor in the social order of a prison is the legitimacy of the prison regime in the eyes of inmates; and second, the legitimacy of authorities depends in large part upon the procedural fairness with which officers treat prisoners.

'Prove me the bam!’: victimisation and agency in the lives of young women who commit violent offences

This article reviews the evidence regarding young women’s involvement in violent crime and, drawing on recent research carried out in HMPYOI Cornton Vale in Scotland, provides an overview of the characteristics, needs and deeds of young women sentenced to imprisonment for violent offending. Through the use of direct quotations, the article suggests that young women’s anger and aggression is often related to their experiences of family violence and abuse, and the acquisition of a negative worldview in which other people are considered as being ‘out to get you’ or ‘put one over on you’.