Issues and Challenges in the Carceral Environment

Session Submission Type: Complete Thematic Panel

Abstract/Description

This panel brings together three papers that each explore different challenges in the carceral environment. The first examines how racial/ethnic disparities among the incarcerated population manifest through attitudes and perceptions, drawing upon data from a survey of five prisons in various departments of corrections. The second explores reproductive health in prison, examining how prison policies and practices often serve to limit the agency of incarcerated people to make decisions about reproductive needs. The third uses data from a survey of correctional officers to explore whether job satisfaction is associated with policies that promote the rehabilitation and wellbeing of incarcerated people. All of the papers start from the normative foundation that carceral environments should do their best to promote the wellbeing, humanity, and agency of those who live and work in them.

Sub Unit

• Area VI. The Criminal Justice System / 48. Jails & Prisons

Individual Presentations

• Racial/Ethnic Disparities in Attitudes about Incarceration - Alice Galley, Urban Institute; David Pitts, Urban Institute

• Reproductive Health in Prison: What We Know and Future Research Through a Reproductive Justice Lens - Azhar Gulaid, The Urban Institute; Evelyn McCoy, Urban Institute

• Correctional Staff Job Satisfaction and the Prison Environment: Evidence from a Survey of Correctional Staff and Incarcerated People - David Pitts, Urban Institute

Chair

• Janeen Buck Willison, The Urban Institute