The Watchman

<p>Over the course of the last five years, the female prison population in New Zealand has risen more than 56%. As these numbers remain exponentially increasing, the ability to uphold successful facilitation for each and every inmate is weakening. This is largely a result of poor and incorrect implementation of criminal rehabilitation schemes. Upon release, confusion, fear, and the sheer overwhelm of exposure to the culture contained within modern day society gives appeal to recidivism, and leads to the escalation of the prison population crisis. In response to this escalating crisis — advancing the search for alternative means of successful criminal rehabilitation — this research explores the enablement of architecture to have a rehabilitative function within a prison environment, as well as the reduction of recidivism through didactic architectural experience. This research proposes that the decommissioned Mount Crawford Prison in Wellington New Zealand can be redesigned to test this opportunity. As a research site, it can be used to test how design can enhance the rehabilitation process of a prisoner in the cultural transition from incarceration to society. The research approach integrates Michel Foucault’s theory “Of Other Spaces” to address the first principle objective of this research investigation, and develop architecture that encourages prison inhabitants to reinterpret dystopian experience through the lens of heterotopia; Cathy Ganoe’s theory “Design as Narrative: A theory of inhabiting space” to address the second principle objective of this research investigation, and develop architecture that establishes a spatial experiential narrative about a person’s transforming interpretation of their surroundings; Daniel Merritt Hewett’s theory “Architecture and the Productive Implications of Pause” to address the third principle objective of this research investigation, as a means of establishing strategic points of pause along the journey of the spatial experiential narrative, that enable enhanced understanding of heterotopia. Kalervo Oberg’s theory of culture shock is also integrated as a means of developing an understanding of the cultural transition from incarceration to liberation.</p>

The Watchman

<p>Over the course of the last five years, the female prison population in New Zealand has risen more than 56%. As these numbers remain exponentially increasing, the ability to uphold successful facilitation for each and every inmate is weakening. This is largely a result of poor and incorrect implementation of criminal rehabilitation schemes. Upon release, confusion, fear, and the sheer overwhelm of exposure to the culture contained within modern day society gives appeal to recidivism, and leads to the escalation of the prison population crisis. In response to this escalating crisis — advancing the search for alternative means of successful criminal rehabilitation — this research explores the enablement of architecture to have a rehabilitative function within a prison environment, as well as the reduction of recidivism through didactic architectural experience. This research proposes that the decommissioned Mount Crawford Prison in Wellington New Zealand can be redesigned to test this opportunity. As a research site, it can be used to test how design can enhance the rehabilitation process of a prisoner in the cultural transition from incarceration to society. The research approach integrates Michel Foucault’s theory “Of Other Spaces” to address the first principle objective of this research investigation, and develop architecture that encourages prison inhabitants to reinterpret dystopian experience through the lens of heterotopia; Cathy Ganoe’s theory “Design as Narrative: A theory of inhabiting space” to address the second principle objective of this research investigation, and develop architecture that establishes a spatial experiential narrative about a person’s transforming interpretation of their surroundings; Daniel Merritt Hewett’s theory “Architecture and the Productive Implications of Pause” to address the third principle objective of this research investigation, as a means of establishing strategic points of pause along the journey of the spatial experiential narrative, that enable enhanced understanding of heterotopia. Kalervo Oberg’s theory of culture shock is also integrated as a means of developing an understanding of the cultural transition from incarceration to liberation.</p>

What is Criminal Rehabilitation?

It is often said that the institutions of criminal justice ought or—perhaps more often—ought not to rehabilitate criminal offenders. But the term ‘criminal rehabilitation’ is often used without being explicitly defined, and in ways that are consistent with widely divergent conceptions. In this paper, we present a taxonomy that distinguishes, and explains the relationships between, different conceptions of criminal rehabilitation. Our taxonomy distinguishes conceptions of criminal rehabilitation on the basis of (i) the aims or ends of the putatively rehabilitative measure, and (ii) the means that may be used to achieve the intended end. We also explore some of the implications of each conception, some of the payoffs of a taxonomy of the kind we offer, and some areas for future work.

Spiritual Jewish Criminology: The Basic Premises and the Pyramid

Religion and spiritual traditions entail vast wisdom and knowledge which have proved their productivity in achieving criminal rehabilitation, crime desistance, and crime prevention. Unfortunately, the literature on their role is relatively scarce and was not, until recently, regarded as part of mainstream criminology. This study used a hermeneutic phenomenological approach in which 39 participants were interviewed and many of the religious scriptures selected at their recommendation were analyzed. The findings reveal three central and unique themes that deal with the purpose of creation, human nature, and the question of free will. Through these premises, this study suggests that Spiritual Jewish criminology, a faith-based theory stemming from Jewish scriptures, offers a universal paradigm that explains a person’s life as a spiritual journey, completed according to the Pyramid Model. The pyramid is built on two axes that describe a person’s desirable movement: the first ranges from egocentrism to altrocentrism, while the second ranges from materialism to the spiritual. The study’s discussion deals with the Pyramid Model’s ability to explain the causes of delinquency, the onset of a criminal career, and the way out of this criminal world through treatment and rehabilitation.

Prisons as Schools: Inmates’ Participation in Vocational and Academic Programs in Chinese Prisons

Although the idea of criminal rehabilitation in China has a long history, research on offender rehabilitation in contemporary China is limited. Although Chinese scholars generally agree that rehabilitation through correctional education helps inmates with social reintegration and reduces recidivism, few have examined factors associated with prisoners’ participation in such programs. Building on relevant theory and studies in Western societies, this study examines how Chinese prisoners’ participation in vocational and academic programs is associated with a range of push and pull factors. Our research questions are addressed with binary and multinomial logistic regressions based on a unique prisoner data set collected in Zhejiang, China. Results show that some factors found to affect inmate participation in the West failed to demonstrate significant relationships with participation among Chinese prisoners. Furthermore, factors most significantly associated with participation appear to be incarceration related, such as prison visits, prison phone calls, and sentence lengths. We conclude with a discussion of the implications of our results.

Working for Redemption: Formerly Incarcerated Black Women and Punishment in the Labor Market

This article uses 18 months of ethnographic observations with formerly incarcerated black women to contend that they are subjected to what I term rehabilitation labor—a series of unwritten state practices that seek to govern the transformation of formerly incarcerated people from criminals to workers. I reveal that employment is subjectively policed by state agents and must meet three conditions to count as work: reliable, recognizable, and redemptive. I find that women who are unable to meet these employment conditions are framed by state agents as failing to demonstrate an appropriate commitment to their moral—and therefore criminal—rehabilitation, and consequently experience perceived threats of reincarceration. Building a theory of intersectional capitalism, I argue that rehabilitation labor is situated within a broader historical project of making black women legible to the state through the labor market.