‘They all here call me índio’: Indigenous identification and the criminal justice system in Northern Minas Gerais

The article analyses the interaction between the criminal justice system and persons of the Xakriabá Indigenous people facing criminal prosecution in the Manga district in Northern Minas Gerais. To do so, I draw on the material gathered in the fieldwork I carried out in the region in early 2020, as well as on current legislation, selected jurisprudence from the Supreme Court, and documents produced by the bodies responsible for the criminal and prison policies in Brazil. I argue in the paper that the category of 'Indigenous person' mobilized by state agents differs from that conceived by the Xakriabá themselves, and that this dissonance often implies the lack of ethnic recognition of these persons throughout the criminal process and the failure to record their presence in official prison management documents. As a consequence, what is seen is the violation of the right to self-identification and the non-enforcement of legal guarantees granted to all Indigenous persons by the Brazilian legal system.

Recordkeeping and the Management of Prisons in Guyana

Learning about prison management in Guyana since independence in 1966 is fraught with difficulty due to the paucity of surviving records. This paper investigates attitudes towards and practices of recordkeeping in order to start developing a historical sociology of recordkeeping in Guyana. Within this framework, prison recordkeeping is explored for the colonial and post-independence periods. The paper ends with a consideration of other sources and methods that are needed to provide a fuller picture of both prison management and the experiences had in prison by prisoners and prison officers.

From rehabilitation to penal communication: The role of furlough and visitation within a retributivist framework

Retributivism is one of the most prevalent theories in contemporary penal theory. However, despite its popularity it is frequently argued that too little attention has been paid to the implications of retributivism for prison management and prison life, including prison visits and furlough. More so, it has been questioned both whether the various forms of retributivism found in the philosophical literature on criminal punishment have anything to say about what prison life ought to be like and whether they are able to criticize deeply contested rules and practices, such as those that deny inmates contact with family-members for the sake of prison discipline. In this paper, we argue that prison visits and furlough have a crucial role in a prison system based on retributivist principles. In particular, we argue that the communicative theory of punishment has important theoretical resources for proving a strong and compelling rationale for both furlough and visitation on retributivist grounds. Besides exploring this rationale, we also discuss the practical implications of this view for the penal policy.

Cameras in Corrections: Exploring the Views of Correctional Officers on the Introduction of Body-Worn Cameras in Prisons

In this article, we present the findings of a mixed-methods study of correctional officers’ views on the introduction of body-worn cameras (BWCs) within prisons. Using a statewide survey and in-depth interviews with correctional officers in Queensland, Australia, this study explored officer support for BWCs and the relationship between officer support and several key variables. We found widespread support for the use of BWCs among correctional officers. Female officers and those who held more positive views about the perceived functionality of BWCs and the implementation and training process were most supportive. However, the introduction of BWCs also raises some important considerations for prison management that may impact officer support, including whether to allow officers to access BWC footage for report writing or officer training. Consideration must also be made regarding turn-on policies for BWCs given concerns that more frequent recording has the potential to damage rapport with incarcerated individuals.

LGBT People in Prison: Management Strategies, Human Rights Violations, and Political Mobilization

In the 21st century, an unprecedented rise in the visibility of and social acceptance for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people has been accompanied by exponential growth in scholarship on LGBT people generally and their experiences in diverse communities and institutional contexts in the United States and around the globe. A growing body of literature draws on first-person accounts, qualitative analyses, and statistical assessments to understand how and why LGBT people end up in prisons and other types of lock-up facilities, as well as how they experience being imprisoned and the collateral consequences of those experiences. Scholarship in this body of work focuses on (a) the range of abuses inflicted on LGBT prisoners by other prisoners and state officials alike, including mistreatment now widely recognized as human rights violations; (b) the variety of ways LGBT people are managed by prison officials, in the first instance whether their housing arrangements in prison are integrationist, segregationist, and/or some combination of both, including the temporary and permanent isolation of LGBT prisoners; and (c) the range of types of political mobilization that expose the status quo as unacceptable, define, and document the treatment of LGBT people behind bars as human rights violations, demand change, and advocate new policies and practices related to the carceral state’s treatment of LGBT people in the United States and across the globe. The study of LGBT people in prisons and other detention facilities is compatible with larger calls for the inclusion of sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression in criminology and criminal justice research by advancing theoretical and empirical understandings of LGBT populations as they interact with the criminal justice system, and by incorporating this knowledge into broader criminological conversations.