Search Results (3)

Unless the views of parole officials are unpacked and understood with regard to rehabilitating offenders in correctional centres with limited resources in South Africa, there will be less effort devoted towards ensuring the effectiveness of the parole system. This paper captures the working experiences of the parole officials at Brits Community Corrections in South Africa with regard to the use of parole in the rehabilitation of offenders. Using a qualitative approach and an exploratory descriptive design, the study employed total population purposive sampling to ensure the inclusion of all parole officials in the study to provide their working experience. In-depth interviews that provided data saturation with four parole officials were analysed thematically, critically discussed and compared to existing literature. The major findings were that the challenges faced by parolees in the communities were the main problems preventing the successful implementation of parole services. This led to endemic frustrations among the parole officials in the execution of parole services in the Brits area. This paper recommends relevant holistic approaches as interventions to improve the parole systems in the area and improve the working experiences of parole officials. Full article

Parole decision—the decision to release an incarcerated individual from prison conditionally—is one of the most critical decisions across justice systems around the world. The decision carries with it significant consequences: for the freedom of the individual awaiting release (the parolee); for the safety of the community in which they will return; and for the correctional system overall, especially its organizational capacity. The current study attempts to add to the parole decision-making literature by specifically analyzing the role that mental health factors may play in explaining parole decisions. Research to date is inconclusive on whether or not mental illness is a risk factor for criminal behavior; despite this, individuals with mental health problems generally fare worse on risk assessment tools employed in justice decisions. The study relies on a 1000+ representative sample of parole-eligible individuals in Pennsylvania, United States. To increase reliability, the analyses test for several mental health factors based on information from different sources (i.e., self-reported mental health history; risk assessment tool employed by the Parole Board; and risk assessment tool employed by the Department of Corrections). To address validity concerns, the study controls for other potential correlates of parole decisions. Although the multivariate models explained a considerable amount of variance in parole decisions, the inclusion of mental health variables added relatively little to model fit. The results provide insights into an understudied area of justice decision making, suggesting that despite the stigmatization of mental illness among criminal justice populations, parole board members in Pennsylvania, United States, appear to follow official guidelines rather than to consider more subjective notions that poor mental health should negate parole release. Full article

“Life means life” is a mantra of elected state officials who would rather spend already-compromised state budgets on increasing the use of imprisonment as a punishing tool rather than being viewed by their constituents as “soft on crime”. As a result of tough-on-crime initiatives, approximately 160,000 out of 2.2 million inmates being held in jails and prisons in the United States are serving life sentences. While surviving imprisonment is a challenge for most individuals, prisoners who serve long sentences—including “life”—have different adaptation mechanisms, and for them, adaptation is a longer, more complex process. Further, while persons serving life sentences include those who present a serious threat to public safety, they also include those for whom the length of sentence is questionable. In particular, life without parole (LWOP) sentences often represent a misuse of limited correctional resources and discount the capacity for personal growth and rehabilitation that comes with the passage of time. The purpose of this article is to explore the “doing life” experiences of a man who has chosen to redirect the focus of his life by transforming himself and helping others. Full article