The Prison Journal

Since the mid-1980s, cigarette-smoking policies have become increasingly restrictive in jails and prisons across the United States. Cigarette black markets of various form and scale often emerge in jails and prisons where tobacco is prohibited or banned. Case studies of 16 jails and prisons were undertaken to understand the effects of cigarette bans versus restrictions on inmate culture and prison economies. This study describes how bans can transform largely benign cigarette “gray markets,” where cigarettes are used as a currency, into more problematic black markets, where cigarettes are a highly priced commodity. Analysis points to several structural factors that affected the development of cigarette black markets in the visited facilities: the architectural design, inmate movement inside and outside, officer involvement in smuggling cigarettes to inmates, and officer vigilance in enforcing the smoking policy. Although these factors affect the influx of other types of contraband into correctional facilities, such as illegal drugs, this study argues that the demand and availability of cigarettes creates a unique kind of black market.

This article investigates how the language and logic of transcarceration renders mentally ill offenders captives of confinement. Both the conceptual tools of constitutive theory and the ethnographic experiences of the researcher are used. Background on three psychiatrically disordered participants and the social and organizational forces they helped to fashion are presented. The manner in which both agency and structure coproduced the discourse of transcarceration is described. The article concludes by speculating on the implications of the analysis for future research on the confinement of mentally ill offenders.

On November 17, 1995, the governor of Pennsylvania signed into law Special Session Act 33 of 1995, which redefined the purpose of Pennsylvania's juvenile justice system to incorporate the principles of the Balanced Approach and Restorative Justice (BARJ) philosophy. This article describes the genesis of the new law, explains the BARJ model, and illustrates the effect that the law is having on the juvenile court system in Allegheny County. The article specifically focuses on the numerous projects that the Allegheny County juvenile probation department has instituted to meet the BARJ obligation.

The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of participation in the Intensive Aftercare Demonstration Project on relationships between youth and their service providers. Successful intensive case supervision often assumes that providers develop positive relationships with their clients. The study employed an experimental research design in which participating youth were randomly assigned to treatment (received intensive aftercare services) or control conditions during the assessment phase of their commitment. A total of 97 youth participating in the pilot study completed survey questionnaires, at up to four separate phases, to assess change over time. Two survey instruments were used to measure youth perceptions of relationships with service providers as well as case manager perceptions of youth strengths. The findings suggest that participation in the experimental group was strongly associated with youth's perceiving positive relationships with their client managers.

Despite the critical importance of process evaluations to enhancing the efficiency and long-term effectiveness of chemical dependency treatment programs, attention to process-related dimensions of treatment programming has been largely neglected. Using data collected on youthful offenders with chemical dependency treatment needs in the Texas Youth Commission, this article provides a systematic and empirical process evaluation of factors associated with successful program progress in the Texas Youth Commission's Chemical Dependency Treatment Program. Analyses focus on appropriate program placement and whether and to what extent risk, dynamic or criminogenic need, behavioral, and treatment amenability factors are related to several key measures of program progress—including completion or expulsion, days to completion or expulsion, and performance—as well as to variation among these outcomes across treatment sites. Policy and research implications of these analyses and of process evaluations are discussed.

Drug offenders develop chronic dependence on the drug economy for subsistence. Brooklyn's Drug Treatment Alternative-to-Prison program seeks to correct this problem by diverting drug-addicted felons into residential treatment with strong educational and vocational training components and by providing job counseling and placement to program graduates through the job developer and a business advisory council. Encouraging preliminary process and outcomes statistics indicate that crime reduction through employment can be successful. But structural changes in the market and ex-offenders' psychological inadequacies need to be addressed for the success to be sustained over time.