The Dilemma of Penal Reform. By Dr. Hermann Mannheim, with a preface by Prof. A. M. Carr-Saunders. Allen & Unwin. 1939. pp. 228. 7s. 6d. This book is based on a course of public lectures given at the London School of Economics in 1938-9. Professor Carr-Saunders points ?ut that for the constructive development of Penal Reform we need, firstly, accurate systematic sociological and psychological s...

This article looks at how global flows of people and policies affect penal subjectivity among prisoners in Lithuania. Those who had previously been incarcerated abroad perceive their punishment in Lithuania's reforming penal system in comparative terms. We find that international prison experience may either diminish or increase the sense of the severity of the current punishment. Respondents o...

Oh to be in Grendon now that group therapy's there. Frank Norman's book, sub-titled 'Reform of the Penal System', is not just a plea for psychiatric treatment of offenders and praise for Britain's first psychiatric prison, Grendon Underwood. But the mood is captured in the final chapter where he writes: 'Quite simply, in Sweden, the penal authorities take a far more enlightened view of criminal...

The contours of mass incarceration are, by now, broadly familiar. The U.S. incarceration rate began an unprecedented ascent in the 1970s. This trend continued through 2007, when 760 of every 100,000 U.S. residents— nearly 1 in 100 adults—lived behind bars, five million others were on probation or parole, more than ten million were booked into jail, and nearly one in three U.S. residents had a c...

This article discusses the growing prominence of “faith-based” programs in American corrections and the historical context of penal regime change during periods of economic crisis. The article traces areas of overlap and divergence in recent discussions of penal reform in the U.S. The article suggests a new American penitentiary movement is emerging, noting central tenets of faith-based program...