Prisons - new material (20)
01 December 1996
Driving forces behind prison growth: the mass media Thomas Mathieson. Crime and Social Order in Europe Newsletter No. 4 (July) 1996 pp3-5. This article discusses prison growth in the United States and parts of western Europe in relation to the mass media and envisages the development of "an alternative public space in the area of penal policy" that would limit this growth.
Prison Privatisation Report International. No. 4 (October) 1996. Has a feature article on a critical study of US private prisons by the US Federal Government's General Accounting Office and shorter pieces on UK Detention Services Ltd and the suicide of Neil Kay at Buckley Hall prison in August.
Victimisation in prisons Ian O'Donnell & Kimmet Edgar. Research Findings no. 37 (Home Office Research & Statistics directorate) August 1996 pp4. This report summarises the results of an Oxford University investigation into victimisation in prisons in light of the Prison Service's 1993 anti-bullying strategy. Predictably, it found that victimisation was pervasive and that few incidents were reported to staff.
Prison Watch press release No. 183. Prison Watch 29.9.96. Covers the death by hanging of Paul Taylor in September. It notes a 20% increase in prison suicides this year and points out that Taylor's is the ninth suicide at HMP Leicester since January 1991. Taylor's death was the fiftieth self inflicted prison death in 1996.
On the record : comments on the White Paper of June 1996. Penal Affairs Consortium October 1996 pp8. This report examines government proposals to give employers greater access to job applicants' criminal records. While the PAC supports plans to allow direct access to employers who work with children and other vulnerable groups - with the proviso that there is strict enforcement of a code of practice - they are highly critical of proposals that any employer could require a job applicant to produce a "criminal conviction certificate".
The normalisation of Swedish Prisons Karen Leander. Reprint series no 12. Department of Criminology Stockholm University, S-106 91 Stockholm Sweden.
Crime community and change. NACRO 1996. The Kingsmead Mead estate in Hackney. 35.50. NACRO 169 Clapham Road London SW9 0PU.
NACRO Annual report - 10 key messages about crime. 1995/6 32 pages. From: NACRO 169 Clapham Road London SW9 0PU.