Your First Five Crime Studies of April 18
All of today's research relates to incarceration
I'm Aaron Jacklin, and this is Explaining Crime, an independent newsletter that helps you explain crime to your audience.
Your First Five is a daily series (M-F) that publishes a curated selection of recent research related to crime and justice. Each post is more a tip sheet than an article and contains links to new studies (each related to a single topic) that I hope will enhance your work explaining crime. The publication schedule is in flux for the moment.
These new studies related to criminology and criminal justice were published recently by journals I monitor.
1. The Golden Anniversary of Mass Incarceration in America, published in The Prison Journal.
The year 2023 marked the 50th anniversary of mass incarceration in the United States. For six decades, the U.S. incarceration rate has been near the top among all countries worldwide. In five major sections, this article offers a brief retrospective on mass incarceration.
2. Testing the Assumption that People Incarcerated for Sex Crimes Against Children are at an Increased Risk of Violent Victimization in Prison, published in Victims & Offenders.
[Our analysis] found that people convicted of sex crimes against adults were the most likely to suffer prison victimization out of the four groups, contrary to the assumption of incarcerated people committing violence to avenge child victims.
3. Suicide While Locked Up in Texas: Risk Factors for Death by Suicide in Custody, published in Journal of Interpersonal Violence.
In the United States, suicide is a leading cause of death in prisons and jails, with incarcerated individuals being nine times more likely to die by suicide than the general population. Identifying vulnerabilities at each stage of custody (prebooking, jail, prison) and factors that increase suicide risk can improve prevention efforts.
4. How Prison Dog Programs Challenge the Racial Code in Correctional Settings and Beyond, published in Corrections.
Specifically, narratives from participants describe how lived experiences in the PDPs [prison dog programs] lead to internal and interpersonal shifts that dismantle racialized constructs and move toward a humanizing, empathetic view of others. Ultimately, this study finds that changes resulting from participation in the PDP contribute meaningfully to long-term, successful reentry.
5. Gender-responsive Classification of Women in Prison: A Typology Based on Mental Health Symptoms and Coping Strategies, published in International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology.
Despite the increase in the incarceration rates of women, most correctional practices are still normed on male samples, including prison classification. Moreover, those classifications do not take into account women’s particular experiences, needs, and unique pathways to criminality.
I might cover some of these studies further in Understanding Crime. If one sounds interesting or important, let me know in the comments.
If you’ve seen a few of these posts and are wondering: Yes, I use a template. As I’ve mentioned elsewhere, these posts are intended more as tip sheets than articles. “These posts” and the directories (next coming Monday!) are the output of my research discovery system, which I’ve been working on and streamlining. That system is intended to furnish a wide variety of crime research and facilitate choices of what new research to actually report on, both for myself and for the journalists out there. I hope others will find these tip sheets interesting and useful for reasons that I haven’t even thought of.
I'd love to know if and how you've used Your First Five.