essay topics for corrections

152 Prison Essay Topics & Corrections Topics for Research Papers

Welcome to our list of prison research topics! Here, you will find a vast collection of corrections topics, research papers ideas, and issues for group discussion. In addition, we’ve included research questions about prisons related to mass incarceration and other controversial problems.

🏆 Best Essay Topics on Prison

✍️ prison essay topics for college, 👍 good prison research topics & essay examples, 🎓 controversial corrections research topics, 💡 hot corrections topics for research papers, ❓ prison research questions.

Prisons Are Ineffective in Rehabilitating Prisoners
The Comfort and Luxury of Prison Life
Prison System Issues: Mistreatment and Abuse
Norway Versus US Prison and How They Differ
Overcrowding in Prisons and Its Impact on Health
Prison Reform in the US Criminal Justice System
Prison Reform: Rethinking and Improving
How ”Prison Life” Affects Inmates Lifes As statistics indicate, 98% of those released from American prisons, after having served their sentences, do not consider themselves being “corrected”.
The Issue of Overcrowding in the Prison System Similar to terrorist attacks and the financial recession, jail overcrowding is an international issue that concerns all countries, regardless of their status.
Mental Health Institutions in Prisons Mental institutions in prisons are essential and might be helpful to inmates, and prevention, detection, and proper mental health issues treatment should be a priority in prisons.
Rehabilitation Programs Offered in Prisons The paper, am going to try and analyze some of the rehabilitation programs which will try to deter the majority of the inmates from been convicted of many crimes they are involved in.
How Education in Prisons Help Inmates Rehabilitate Criminal justice presupposes punishments for committing offenses, which include the isolation of recidivists from society.
Mass Incarceration in American Prisons This research paper describes the definition of incarceration and focuses on the reasons for imprisonment in the United States of America.
Prison Life in Nineteenth-Century Massachusetts In the article Larry Goldsmith has attempted to provide a detailed history of prison life and prison system during the 19th century.
Security Threat Groups: The Important Elements in Prison Riots Security Threat Groups appear to be an a priori element of prison culture, inspired and cultivated by its fundamental principles of power.
Prison System in the United States Depending on what laws are violated – federal or state – the individuals are usually placed in either a federal or state prison.
Prison Makes Criminals Worse This paper discusses if prisons are effective in making criminals better for society or do they make them worse.
Prison Culture: Term Definition There has been contention in the area of literature whether prison culture results from the environment within the prison or is as a result of the culture that inmates bring into prison.
Discrimination in Prison Problem The problem of discrimination requires a great work of social workers, especially in such establishments like prisons.
Privatization of Prisons in the US, Australia and UK The phenomenon of modern prison privatization emerged in the United States in the mid-1980s and spread to Australia and the United Kingdom from there.
Alcatraz Prison and Its History With Criminals Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary famously referred to as “The Rock”, served as a maximum prison from 1934-1963. It was located on Alcatraz Island.
Prison Population by Ethnic Group and Sex Labeling theory, which says that women being in “inferior” positions will get harsher sentences, and the “evil women hypothesis” are not justified.
Prisons and the Different Security Levels Prisons are differentiated with regard to the extent of security, including supermax, maximum, medium, and minimum levels. This paper discusses prison security levels.
Women Serving Time With Their Children: The Challenge of Prison Mothers The law in America requires that mothers stay with their children as a priority. Prisons have therefore opened nurseries for children of mothers who are serving short terms.
Early Prison Release to Reduce a Prison’s Budget The primary goal of releasing nonviolent offenders before their sentences are finished is cutting down on expenses.
Prison Staffing and Correctional Officers’ Duties The rehabilitative philosophy in corrective facilities continually prompts new reinforced efforts to transform inmates.
“Picking Battles: Correctional Officers, Rules, and Discretion in Prison”: Research Question The “Picking Battles: Correctional Officers, Rules, and Discretion in Prison” aims to define the extent to which correctional officers use discretion in their work.
Researching of the Reasons Prisons Exist While prisons are the most common way of punishing those who have committed a crime, the efficiency of prisons is still being questioned.
Administrative Segregation in California Prisons In California prisons, administrative segregation is applied to control safety as well as prisoners who are disruptive within the jurisdiction.
Drugs and Prison Overcrowding There are a number of significant sign of the impact that the “war on drugs” has had on the communities in the United States.
The Stanford Prison Experiment Analysis Abuse between guards and prisoners is an imminent factor attributed to the differential margin on duties and responsibilities.
The Stanford Prison Experiment’s Historical Record The Stanford Prison Experiment is a seminal investigation into the dynamics of peer pressure in human psychology.
The Lucifer Effect: Stanford County Prison In 1971, a group of psychologists led by Philip Zimbardo invited mentally healthy students from the USA and Canada, selected from 70 volunteers, to take part in the experiment.
The Prison Effect Based on Philip Zimbardo’s Book This paper explores the lessons that can be learned from Philip Zimbardo’s book “The Lucifer Effect” and highlights the experiment’s findings and their implications.
Ethical Decision-Making for Public Administrators at Abu Ghraib Prison The subject of prisoner mistreatment at Abu Ghraib Prison has garnered global attention and a prominent role in arguments over the Iraq War.
Bruce Western’s Book Homeward: Life in the Year After Prison The book by Bruce Western Homeward: Life in the Year after Prison provides different perspectives on the struggles that ex-prisoners face once released from jail.
Psychology: Zimbardo Prison Experiment Despite all the horrors that contradict ethics, Zimbardo’s research contributed to the formation of social psychology. It was unethical to conduct this experiment.
Economic Differences in the US Prison System The main research question is, “What is the significant difference in the attitude toward prisoners based on their financial situation?”
Transgender People in Prisons: Rights Violations There are many instances of how transgender rights are violated in jails: from misgendering from the staff and other prisoners to isolation and refusal to provide healthcare.
The Prison-Based Community and Intervention Efforts The prison-based community is a population that should be supported in diverse spheres such as healthcare, psychological health, social interactions, and work.
The Canadian Prison System: Problems and Proposed Solutions The state of Canadian prisons has been an issue of concern for more than a century now. Additionally, prisons are run in a manner that does not promote rehabilitation.
American Prisons as Social Institutions The prison system of the U.S. gained features that distance it from the theoretical conception of a redemptive control mechanism.
Prisons as a Response to Crimes Prisons are not adequate measures for limiting long-term crime rates or rehabilitating inmates, yet other alternatives are either undeveloped or too costly to ensure public safety.
The State of Prisons in the United Kingdom and Wales Since 1993, there has been a steady increase in the prison population in the UK, hitting a record highest of 87,000 inmates in 2012.
Drug Abuse Demographics in Prisons Drug abuse, including alcohol, is a big problem for the people contained in prisons, both in the United States and worldwide.
My Prison System: Incarceration, Deterrence, Rehabilitation, and Retribution The prison system described in the paper belongs to medium-security prisons which will apply to most types of criminals.
The Criminal Justice System: The Prison Industrial Complex The criminal justice system is the institution which is present in every advanced country, and it is responsible for punishing individuals for their wrongdoings.
Penal Labor in the American Prison System The 13th Amendment allows for the abuse of the American prison system. This is because it permits the forced labor of convicted persons.
Private and Public Prisons’ Functioning The purpose of this paper is to discuss the functioning of modern private and public prisons. There is a significant need to change the approach for private prisons.
Recidivism in the Criminal Justice: Prison System of America One of the main issues encountered by the criminal justice system remains recidivism which continues to stay topical.
The Electronic Monitoring of Offenders Released From Jail or Prison The paper analyzes the issue of electronic monitoring for offenders who have been released from prison or jail.
“Episode 66: Yard of Dreams — Ear Hustle’’: Sports in Prison “Episode 66: Yard of dreams — Ear hustle’’ establishes that prison sports are an important aspect of transforming the lives of prisoners in the correctional system.
The Concept of PREA (Prison Rape Elimination Act) Rape remains among the dominant crimes in the USA; almost every minute an American becomes a victim of it. The problem is especially acute in penitentiaries.
Recidivism in the Criminal Justice: Prison System of America The position of people continuously returning to prisons in the United States is alarming due to their high rates.
Prisonization and Secure Housing Units in Prisons The main issue of SHUs is that the absence of community forces a person to experience a significant mental crisis because humans are social creatures.
Prison’s Impact on People’s Health The paper explains experts believe that the prison situation contributes to the negative effects on the health of the convicted person.
Contribution of Prisons to US Racial Disparities The USA showcases persistent racial disparities, especially in the healthcare system. The discriminatory regime has lasted from systemic inequality within essential systems.
Prisons in the United States In the present day, prisons may be regarded as the critical components of the federal criminal justice system.
Understanding the U.S. Prison System This study will look at the various issues surrounding the punishment and rehabilitative aspects of U.S. prisons and determine what must be done to improve the system.
American Criminal Justice System: Prison Reform Public safety and prison reform go hand-in-hand. Rethinking the way in which security is established within society is the first step toward the reform.
Private Prisons: Review In the following paper, the issues that are rife in connection with contracting out private prisons will be examined along with the pros and cons of private prisons’ functioning.
Crimes and the Federal Prison Comparison Boesky and Milken admitted to the charges and sought guilty plea favour while Martha was defensive of not having committed any crime.
Arkansas Prison Scandals Regarding Contaminated Blood A number of scandals occurred around the infamous Cummins State Prison Farm in Arkansas in 1967-1969 and 1982-1983.
State Prison System v. Federal Prison System The essay sums that the main distinction between these two prison systems is based on the type of criminals it handles, which means a difference in the level of security employed.
Prisons in the United States Analysis The whole aspect of medical facilities in prisons is a very complex issue that needs to be evaluated and looked at critically for sustainability.
Sex Offenders and Their Prison Sentences Both authors do not fully support this sanction due to many reasons, including medical, social, ethical, and even legal biases, where the latter is fully ignored.
Criminal Punishment, Inmates on Death Row, and Prison Educational Programs This paper will review the characteristics of inmates, including those facing death penalties and the benefits of educational programs for prisoners.
Prison System for a Democratic Society This report is designed to transform the corrections department to form a system favorable for democracy, seek to address the needs of different groups of offenders.
Healthcare Among the Elderly Prison Population The purpose of this article is to address the ever-increasing cost of older prisoners in correctional facilities.
Women’s Issues and Trends in the Prison System The government has to consider the specific needs of the female population in the prison system and work on preventing incarceration.
What Makes Family Learning in Prisons Effective? This paper aims to discuss the family learning issue and explain the benefits and challenges of family learning in prisons.
Overcrowding in Jails and Prisons In a case of a crime, the offender is either incarcerated, placed on probation or required to make restitution to the victim, usually in the form of monetary compensation.
Unethical and Ethical Issues in the Prison System of Honduras Honduras has some of the highest homicide rates in the world and prisons in Honduras are associated with high levels of violence.
Prison Reform in the US Up until this day, the detention facilities remain the restricting measure common for each State. The U.S. remains one of the most imprisoning countries.
The Stanford Prison Experiment Review The video presents an experiment held in 1971. In general, a viewer can observe that people are subjected to behavior and opinion change when affected by others.
Whether Socrates Should Have Disobeyed the Terms of His Conviction and Escaped Prison? Socrates wanted to change manners and customs, he denounced the evil, deception, undeserved privileges, and thereby he aroused hatred among contemporaries and must pay for it.
The Role of Culture in the School-to-Prison Pipeline The school-to-prison pipeline is based on many social factors and cannot be recognized as only an outcome of harsh disciplinary policies.
Psychological and Sociological Aspects of the School-to-Prison Pipeline The tendency of sending children to prisons is examined from the psychological and sociological point of view with the use of two articles regarding the topic.
School-to-Prison Pipeline: Roots of the Problem The term “school-to-prison pipeline” refers to the tendency of children and young adults to be put in prison because of harsh disciplinary policies within schools.
US Prisons Review and Recidivism Prevention This research paper will focus on prison life in American prisons and the strategies to decrease recidivism once the inmates are released from prison.
Meditation in American Prisons from 1981 to 2004 Staggering statistics reveal that the United States has the highest rate of imprisonment of any country in the world, with the cost of imprisonment of this many people is now at twenty-seven billion dollars.
Impact of the Stanford Prison Experiment Have on Psychology This essay will begin with a brief description of Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Experiment then it will move to explore two main issues that arose from the said experiment.
Use of Contingent Employees at the Federal Bureau of Prisons Contingent employment is a staffing strategy that the Federal Bureau of Prisons can use to address its staffing needs as well as achieve its budgetary target.
Death Penalty from a Prison Officer’s Perspective The death penalty can be considered as an ancient form of punishment in relation to the type of crime that had been committed.
Recidivism in American Prisons At present, recidivism is a severe problem for the United States. Many prisoners are released from jails but do not change their criminal behavior due to a few reasons.
The Grizzly Conditions Prisoners Endure in Private Prisons The present paper will explore the issue of these ‘grizzly’ conditions in public prisons, arguing that private prisons need to be strictly regulated in order to prevent harm to inmates.
Keeping Minors and Adult Inmates Separate to Address the Problem of Violence in Prisons Managing aggressive behaviors in prison and preventing the instances of violence is a critical issue that warrants a serious discussion.
Evaluation of the Stanford Prison Experiment’ Role The Stanford Prison Experiment is a study that was conducted on August 20, 1971 by a group of researchers headed by the psychology professor Philip Zimbardo.
Women in Prison in the United States: Article and Book Summary A personal account of a woman prisoner known as Julie demonstrates that sexual predation/abuse is a common occurrence in most U.S. prisons.
American Prison Systems and Areas of Improvement The current operation of the prison system in America can no longer be deemed effective, in the correctional sense of this word.
Prison Crowding in the US Most prisons in the United States and other parts of the world are overcrowded. They hold more prisoners that the initial capacity they were designed to accommodate.
School-to-Prison Pipeline in Political Aspect This paper investigates the school-to-prison pipeline from the political point of view using the two articles concerning the topic.
School-to-Prison Pipeline in American Justice This paper studies the problem by reviewing two articles regarding the school-to-prison pipeline and its aspects related to justice systems.
The Stanford Prison Experiment The Stanford prison experiment is an example of how outside social situations influence changes in thought and behavior among humans.
Prison Population and Healthcare Models in the USA This paper focuses on the prison population with a view to apply the Vulnerable Population Conceptual Model, and summarizes US healthcare models.
Prisoners’ Rights and Prison System Reform Criminal justice laws are antiquated and no longer serve their purposes. Instead, they cause harms to society, Americans and cost taxpayers billions of dollars.
Contracting Out Private Prisons The issue of contracting the private prisons for accommodating the inmates has been challenged by various law suits over the quality of service that this companies offer to the inmates.
Prison Dog Training Program by Breakthrough Buddies
Prison Abuse and Its Effect On Society
The Truth About the Cruelty of Privatized Prison Health Care
Prison Incarceration and Its Effects On The United States
The United States Crime Problem and Our Prison System
Prison Overcrowding and Its Effects On Living Conditions
General Information about Prison and Capital Punishment Impact
Problems With The American Prison System
Prison and County Correctional Faculties Overcrowding
People Who Commit Murder Should Be A Prison For An Extended
African American Men and The United States Prison System
Prison Gangs and the Community Responsibility System
Prison Overcrowding and Its Effects On The United States
Prison Should Not Receive Free College Education
Pregnant Behind Bars and The United States Prison System
Prison Life and Strategies to Decrease Recidivism
Penitentiary Ideal and Models Of American Prison
The Various Rehabilitation and Treatment Programs in Prison
Prison and Mandatory Minimum Sentences
Prisoner Visit and Rape Issue In Thai Prison
Private Prisons Are Far Worse Than Any Maximum Security State Prison
Prison Gangs and Their Effect on Prison Populations
Overview of Prison Overcrowding and Staff Violence
Classification and Prison Security Levels
Prison and Positive Effects Rehabilitation Assignment
Can Prison Deter Crime?
What Are the Two Theories Regarding How Inmate Culture Becomes a Part of Prison Life?
What Prison Is Mentioned in the Movie “Red Notice”?
What’s the Worst Prison in Tennessee?
What Causes Students to Enter the School of Prison Pipeline?
How Can the Prison System Rehabilitate Prisoners So That They Will Enter the Society as Equals?
Should Prison and Jail Be the Primary Service Provider?
How Can Illegal Drugs Be Prevented From Entering Prison?
How Does the Prison System Treat Trans Inmates?
What Is the Deadliest Prison in America?
Should Prison and Death Be an Easy Decision for a Court?
Why Is It Called Black Dolphin Prison?
Does Prison Strain Lead to Prison Misbehavior?
Why Is the American Prison System Failing?
What Country Has the Best Prison System?
Does Prison Work for Offenders?
Should Prison for Juveniles Be a Crime?
What Is the Most Infamous Prison in America?
What Is the World’s Most Secure Prison?
What Do Russian Prison Tattoos Mean?
What Causes Convicted Felons to Commit Another Crime After Release From Prison?
What Are the Implications of Prison Overcrowding and Are More Prisons the Answer?
Can Private Prisons Save Tax Dollars?
Is Incarceration the Answer to Crime in Prison?
What Are Prison Conditions Like in the US?
Who Escaped From Brushy Mountain Prison?
Why Does the Public Love Television Show, Prison Break?
What Is the Scariest Prison in the World?
When Did Brushy Mountain Prison Close?
Which State Has the Most Overcrowded Prison?

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StudyCorgi . "152 Prison Essay Topics & Corrections Topics for Research Papers." December 21, 2021. https://studycorgi.com/ideas/prison-essay-topics/.

StudyCorgi . 2021. "152 Prison Essay Topics & Corrections Topics for Research Papers." December 21, 2021. https://studycorgi.com/ideas/prison-essay-topics/.

These essay examples and topics on Prison were carefully selected by the StudyCorgi editorial team. They meet our highest standards in terms of grammar, punctuation, style, and fact accuracy. Please ensure you properly reference the materials if you’re using them to write your assignment.

This essay topic collection was updated on January 9, 2024 .

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104 Criminal Justice Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

Inside This Article

Criminal justice is a broad and complex field that encompasses various aspects of law enforcement, corrections, and the judicial system. If you are studying criminal justice or planning to pursue a career in this field, you will likely be required to write essays on various topics related to criminal justice. To help you get started, here are 104 criminal justice essay topic ideas and examples:

The evolution of criminal justice systems over the years.
The role of technology in modern law enforcement.
The impact of media on public perception of criminal justice.
The relationship between poverty and crime rates.
The effectiveness of community policing in reducing crime.
The ethical implications of using artificial intelligence in criminal justice.
The use of body cameras by police officers and its impact on accountability.
The role of forensic science in solving crimes.
The challenges of investigating and prosecuting white-collar crimes.
The impact of mandatory minimum sentencing on the criminal justice system.
The causes and consequences of wrongful convictions.
The role of rehabilitation in the criminal justice system.
The effectiveness of drug courts in reducing recidivism.
The relationship between mental illness and criminal behavior.
The ethical considerations of capital punishment.
The impact of racial profiling on minority communities.
The role of restorative justice in repairing harm caused by crime.
The challenges of addressing cybercrime in the digital age.
The impact of the war on drugs on criminal justice policies.
The role of victim services in the criminal justice system.
The effectiveness of probation and parole in reducing recidivism.
The relationship between poverty and overrepresentation in the criminal justice system.
The impact of the criminal justice system on marginalized communities.
The role of criminal profiling in solving serial crimes.
The challenges of addressing domestic violence within the criminal justice system.
The impact of the "war on terror" on civil liberties.
The role of eyewitness testimony in criminal trials.
The effectiveness of alternative dispute resolution methods in reducing court congestion.
The relationship between drug addiction and criminal behavior.
The impact of mandatory reporting laws on child abuse cases.
The role of private prisons in the criminal justice system.
The challenges of addressing human trafficking within the criminal justice system.
The impact of social media on criminal investigations.
The role of forensic psychology in criminal profiling.
The effectiveness of anti-gang initiatives in reducing gang-related crimes.
The relationship between gun control laws and crime rates.
The impact of the "three strikes" law on recidivism rates.
The role of community-based corrections programs in reducing incarceration rates.
The challenges of addressing police misconduct within the criminal justice system.
The impact of DNA evidence on criminal investigations and convictions.
The relationship between immigration policies and crime rates.
The effectiveness of sex offender registration laws in protecting communities.
The role of social programs in preventing juvenile delinquency.
The challenges of addressing hate crimes within the criminal justice system.
The impact of surveillance technologies on privacy rights.
The role of criminal justice policies in addressing the opioid crisis.
The effectiveness of rehabilitation programs for incarcerated individuals.
The relationship between mental health treatment and recidivism rates.
The impact of mandatory sentencing for drug offenses on minority communities.
The role of community-based organizations in reducing gang violence.
The challenges of addressing police brutality within the criminal justice system.
The impact of globalization on transnational crimes.
The role of forensic anthropology in identifying human remains.
The effectiveness of diversion programs for first-time offenders.
The relationship between poverty and juvenile delinquency.
The impact of the Fourth Amendment on law enforcement practices.
The role of victim impact statements in sentencing decisions.
The challenges of addressing elder abuse within the criminal justice system.
The impact of technology on the privacy rights of individuals.
The role of criminal justice policies in addressing human rights violations.
The effectiveness of drug education programs in preventing substance abuse.
The relationship between mental health courts and recidivism rates.
The impact of the "school-to-prison pipeline" on marginalized communities.
The role of forensic entomology in estimating time of death.
The challenges of addressing child exploitation within the criminal justice system.
The impact of mandatory drug testing for welfare recipients on poverty rates.
The role of community supervision in reducing recidivism.
The relationship between police presence and crime rates.
The effectiveness of victim-offender mediation in addressing the harm caused by crime.
The impact of the Fifth Amendment on interrogation practices.
The role of criminal justice policies in addressing human trafficking.
The challenges of addressing cyberbullying within the criminal justice system.
The impact of surveillance cameras on crime prevention.
The role of forensic linguistics in analyzing written evidence.
The effectiveness of gun buyback programs in reducing gun violence.
The relationship between mental health treatment and criminal behavior.
The impact of mandatory arrest policies on domestic violence cases.
The role of criminal justice policies in addressing environmental crimes.
The challenges of addressing police corruption within the criminal justice system.
The impact of eyewitness misidentification on wrongful convictions.
The relationship between substance abuse and child neglect.
The effectiveness of reentry programs for formerly incarcerated individuals.
The role of criminal justice policies in addressing hate crimes.
The impact of predictive policing on law enforcement practices.
The challenges of addressing human rights violations within the criminal justice system.
The role of forensic odontology in identifying human remains.
The effectiveness of community-based drug treatment programs.
The relationship between poverty and gang involvement.
The impact of the exclusionary rule on the criminal justice system.
The role of criminal justice policies in addressing environmental justice.
The challenges of addressing cyberstalking within the criminal justice system.
The impact of community surveillance programs on crime prevention.
The role of forensic accounting in investigating financial crimes.
The effectiveness of gun control policies in reducing gun-related crimes.
The relationship between substance abuse treatment and recidivism rates.
The impact of mandatory reporting laws on elder abuse cases.
The role of criminal justice policies in addressing animal cruelty.
The challenges of addressing corruption within the criminal justice system.
The impact of false confessions on wrongful convictions.
The relationship between substance abuse and intimate partner violence.
The effectiveness of diversion programs for mentally ill offenders.
The role of criminal justice policies in addressing cybercrime.
The impact of community-based restorative justice programs on crime reduction.
The challenges of addressing international crimes within the criminal justice system.

These essay topics provide a starting point for your research and analysis in the field of criminal justice. Remember to choose a topic that interests you and aligns with your academic goals and career aspirations. Good luck with your essays!

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155 Criminal Justice Essay Topics

Courses related to the study of criminal justice usually require students to complete an essay at some point. If you have been asked to write a criminal justice essay, there are several things that you will need to keep in mind to ensure that your essay ticks all of the right boxes.

This article will take you through some essential tips on writing a criminal justice essay and provide 155 criminal justice essay topics to get students’ creative juices flowing.

What Is Criminal Justice?

Any discussion of how to write a criminal justice essay must begin with a clear understanding of what the term ‘criminal justice’ actually refers to. In short, criminal justice can be defined as the system responsible for dealing with crime. This system includes everything from law enforcement and the courts to prisons and probation services.

When writing a criminal justice essay, students will usually be asked to focus on one particular area of the criminal justice system. For example, they may be asked to write about the police, the courts, or prisons. Be sure that your subject matter can directly be linked back to the criminal justice system in order to make the most impact on the reader.

Types of Criminal Justice Essays

There are many types of criminal justice essays, and each style will have different requirements in terms of content and structure. Here are some of the most popular types of criminal justice essays that students may be asked to write:

Criminal Justice Research Essays

Research essays will require students to conduct extensive research on a particular topic within the criminal justice system. Students will need to collect evidence from multiple reliable sources and use this evidence to support their argument.

Criminal Justice Argumentative Essays

An argumentative essay on criminal justice will ask students to take a particular stance on an issue within the criminal justice system and then defend their position using evidence. These types of essays usually require students to have a strong understanding of both sides of the argument before taking a stance.

Criminal Justice Compare and Contrast Essays

A compare and contrast essay will ask students to consider two or more topics within the criminal justice system and identify their similarities and differences. Compare and contrast essays often require students to have a strong understanding of both topics in order to make effective comparisons.

Criminal Justice Cause and Effect Essays

A cause and effect essay will look at why something happens within the criminal justice system and its effects on society or an individual. These types of essays often require students to carry out extensive research in order to identify the causes and consequences of a particular issue.

Criminal Justice Problem-Solution Essays

A problem-solution essay will ask students to identify a problem within the criminal justice system and put forward a solution for this problem. These types of essays often require students to have a strong understanding of both the problem and the potential solutions before they can offer a solution.

Criminal Justice Critical Analysis Essays

Students will be asked to conduct a critical analysis of a criminal justice system issue in a critical analysis essay. These essays often require students to have a strong understanding of the issues at hand in order to offer a well-rounded analysis.

No matter what type of criminal justice essay you are asked to write, be sure to carefully read the instructions to determine what is required of you. Once you understand the task at hand, you can begin planning and writing your essay.

General Tips for Writing a Criminal Justice Essay

When writing a criminal justice essay, there are a few general tips that you can follow to make sure that your essay is of the highest quality.

Before you start writing your essay, it is essential to take some time to plan out what you are going to say. This will help to ensure that your writing flows smoothly and that all of the critical points are covered.

If your essay requires you to carry out research, be sure to do so thoroughly. Collect evidence from several sources and make sure that this evidence is reliable. Also, make sure to cite all of your sources in the appropriate MLA, Chicago, or APA style.

Your essay should follow a logical path from beginning to end. Use headings and subheadings to help break up your writing and make it easy to read.

Proofreading

Once you have finished writing your essay, be sure to proofread it carefully in order to catch any mistakes. It is also good to have someone else read over your essay to give you feedback.

Make sure that you follow these tips when writing your criminal justice essay to give yourself the best chance of success.

With the guide above detailing the possible types of criminal justice essays you may be asked to write and some general tips for writing a criminal justice essay, you may now be wondering what topics you could write about. To help get you started, we have provided a list of 155 criminal justice essay topics below:

Criminal Justice Research Essay Topics

The impact of social media on the criminal justice system
The use of DNA evidence in the criminal justice system
The role of technology in the criminal justice system
Racial bias in the criminal justice system
The death penalty in the United States
The juvenile justice system
Police brutality in the United States
The war on drugs in the United States
The prison system in the United States
Rehabilitation vs. punishment in the criminal justice system

Criminal Justice Argumentative Essay Topics

Is the death penalty an effective form of punishment?
Should juveniles be tried as adults?
Is the prison system in the United States effective?
Should rehabilitation be the main aim of the criminal justice system?
Is social media a help or a hindrance to the criminal justice system?
Should DNA evidence be used in all criminal cases?
Should police officers be armed?
Should the age of adulthood be lowered to 16 in criminal cases?
Should there be a national registry for sex offenders?
Is stop and search an effective police tactic?

Criminal Justice Problem Solution Essay Topics

How can police brutality be reduced in the United States?
How can the war on drugs be won?
How can the juvenile justice system be improved?
How can rehabilitation be made more effective in the criminal justice system?
How can the use of DNA evidence be improved in the criminal justice system?
How can social media be used to help solve crimes?
How can racism be eliminated from the criminal justice system?
How can the prison system be improved in the United States?
How can the death penalty be made more effective?
What can be done to reduce crime rates in the United States?

Criminal Justice Opinion Essay Topics

Do you believe that the death penalty is an effective form of punishment?
Do you believe that juveniles should be tried as adults?
Do you believe that the prison system in the United States is effective?
Are police officers more or less effective when they are armed?
How do you feel about stop and search police tactics?

Criminal Justice Compare and Contrast Essay Topics

The criminal justice system in the United States vs. the criminal justice system in the UK
The death penalty vs. life in prison
DNA evidence vs. eyewitness testimony
Police brutality in the United States vs. police brutality in other countries
The juvenile justice system in the United States vs. the juvenile justice system in France
The prison system in the United States vs. the prison system in other countries
Rehabilitation vs. punishment

Criminal Justice Definition Essay Topics

The term “social justice”
The term “police brutality”
The term “white-collar crime”
The term “organized crime”
The term “street crime”
The term “cybercrime”
The term “capital punishment”
The term “juvenile delinquency”
The term “recidivism”
The term “restorative justice”

Criminal Justice Cause and Effect Essay Topics

The cause of police brutality in the United States
The effects of the war on drugs in the United States
The cause of juvenile delinquency
The effects of the prison system in the United States
The cause of recidivism
The effects of rehabilitation in the criminal justice system
The cause of white-collar crime
The effects of capital punishment
The cause of cybercrime
The effects of social media on the criminal justice system

Criminal Justice Essay Topics About Famous Cases

The O.J. Simpson case
The Trayvon Martin case
The Rodney King case
The Michael Brown case
The Eric Garner case
The Ferguson riots
The Baltimore riots
The Charleston church shooting
The Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting
The Orlando nightclub shooting
The Las Vegas mass shooting
The Parkland school shooting
The Waco siege
The Ruby Ridge standoff
The Oklahoma City bombing

Criminal Justice Essay Topics About Legislation

The USA PATRIOT Act
The Patriot Act of 2001
The Homeland Security Act of 2002
The USA FREEDOM Act
The Voting Rights Act of 1965
The Civil Rights Act of 1964
The Fair Housing Act of 1968
The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965
The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986
The Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996
The Border Patrol Act of 1925
The USA PATRIOT Improvement and Reauthorization Act of 2005
The Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act of 2006

Criminal Justice Essays About Social Issues

The war on drugs
Police brutality
Racial profiling
Mass incarceration
The school-to-prison pipeline
Private prisons
Capital punishment
Juvenile justice
Forensic science
Gun control

Criminal Justice Essay Topics About Reform

Prison reform
Sentencing reform
Drug policy reform
Police reform
Judicial reform
Immigration reform
Electoral reform
Gun control reform
Innovations in criminal justice system reform in the United States

Criminal Justice Narrative Essay Topics

A day in the life of a police officer
A day in the life of a prison guard
A day in the life of a probation officer
A day in the life of a parole officer
A day in the life of a court clerk
A day in the life of a prosecutor
A day in the life of a death row inmate
A day in the life of a public defender
A day in the life of a private attorney
A day in the life of a jury member
A day in the life of a bailiff
A day in the life of a judge
A day in the life of a victims’ advocate

Criminal Justice Essay Topics About Ethics

The ethics of the death penalty
The ethics of solitary confinement
The ethics of plea bargaining
The ethics of mandatory minimum sentencing
The ethics of asset forfeiture
The ethics of police brutality
The ethics of stop and frisk
The ethics of racial profiling
The ethics of the war on drugs
The ethics of mass incarceration
The ethics of private prisons
The ethics of juvenile justice
The ethics of the school-to-prison pipeline
The ethics of forensic science

Criminal Justice Essay Topics About Career Options

A career as a police officer
A career as a detective
A career as a crime scene investigator
A career as a forensic scientist
A career as a criminal defense attorney
A career as a prosecutor
A career as a judge
A career as a paralegal
A career as a court reporter
A career as a bailiff
A career in corrections
A career in probation and parole
A career in victim advocacy
A career in law enforcement administration
A career in private security
A career in intelligence and counterterrorism

Every topic in this list offers students the chance to explore an issue of importance to the criminal justice system and share their own insights and perspectives on that issue. Remember that writing a criminal justice essay can be quite challenging, especially if you have never written one before. However, with a little bit of planning and some help from online resources, it is possible to write a great criminal justice essay that will earn you a good grade.

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Prison Journalism Project

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Writing Prompts

What stories might a correspondent from inside prison write? Below are suggestions. We will prioritize the publication of timely dispatches, articles and reported essays. Breaking news such as reports about COVID-19 outbreaks should include the label NEWS in the Special Projects line in the header.

If you choose any of these, please include the label “ATTN: PJP TOPIC” in ALL CAPS above the headline and mention the topic name. Tip : Don’t answer all the questions. Focus your piece on one or two of them.

PANDEMIC: How have fears about the omicron variant changed the situation? Is your prison experiencing another COVID-19 outbreak? How is the pandemic affecting your family or your relationship with your loved one? If you have lost someone, write a eulogy. What is your suggestion for how prisons should manage the next pandemic based on your experience?

PRISON JOBS: Tell us about your job. What are the best jobs? What are the worst jobs? What are the highest-paying and lowest-paying jobs in your institution? Tell us about a unique job that would surprise people outside. What is the difference in lifestyle between someone who makes 17 cents an hour and someone who makes $1 an hour? Are there socio-economic classes in prison? Beyond jobs, tell us about how you make money and how you spend it. By connecting the reports by various writers, we hope to see a picture of whether there are differences between regions, institutions, men/women’s prisons, federal/state prisons, etc.

NATURAL DISASTERS: Natural disasters — hurricanes, blizzards, wildfires, earthquakes — are intense experiences for humans everywhere. But that intensity can be multiplied many times over for incarcerated people. Over the years, we’ve heard stories about prisoners sitting for days up to their chests in water after Hurricane Katrina; about guards fleeing during lockdowns after earthquakes; about heat failures during blizzards. With climate change heating up the world, these events are happening more and more often. Have you experienced a natural disaster in prison? Tell us about your memories of an earthquake, blizzard, wildfire, hurricane, tornado, etc. Write about how prisons can do better.

WOMEN IN PRISON: The U.S. holds more than 230,000 women in jails and prisons, which is over 30% of the world’s incarcerated women. Tell us about the challenges of being imprisoned in a system designed for men. How are you getting access to proper medical care, including ob/gyn services, breast exams and birth control. Are you able to get access to ethnic hair supplies, makeup, and skincare? Do you have access to educational opportunities and programs? Tell us about your prison family.

BOOK/TV SHOW/MOVIE REVIEWS: Review any book, TV show or movie that depicts prison life. Tell us why you liked or didn’t like a book, show or movie. Be specific. How did it get the prison experience wrong? If they got it right, how was it different than most others you see?

PRISON RECIPES: Much of prison life revolves around ways to avoid eating prison food. Send a recipe for meals, snacks and desserts that you make inside prison and tell us a story about them. This might be about how you came to create this recipe or memories of the dish outside that you were trying to replicate. Or it could be about an occasion that you had this dish. If you are an artist, include an illustration of the dish or a scene showing an occasion where it was served.

COMMUNITY VOICES: A new section of our site will be devoted to showcasing the various voices inside your community – Black, Asian, White, indigenous, LGBTQ+, female, military vets, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, Death Row, LWOP, former gang, etc. (the list is endless). What do you want readers to know about what it’s like to be in that community inside prison? Share an aspect of that community, including how you celebrate your religion, keep faith or how you try to support each other. Tell us about a change that you’d like to see happen in the way the criminal justice system treats your community.

Q&A: Write a question and answer style interview story with someone you want to highlight because of a leadership role they play, because they have had an experience you want to draw attention to or because they are representative of a larger group. Interview the person first, and then provide a 4-6 paragraph introduction of the person with an explanation of why you are writing about this person. Follow with a list of no more than 10 questions and condensed answers. Even though you are submitting this in writing, it should be an in-person interview, not a written questionnaire .

WORD ON THE STREET: Pick something in the news that people inside might have a unique perspective on (e.g. Derek Chauvin’s conviction or a new criminal justice policy, political candidate, or law that is being considered in the U.S. or in your state). Interview 5-10 people around you, and write an article about their reactions and thoughts. Include the majority and minority points of view and direct quotes. If the interview subjects do not want to provide their names, include a description of them (e.g. your cellie in his 18th year of prison). Include race if it’s relevant.

HOLIDAYS AND AWARENESS MONTHS: Shed light on a particular aspect of prison life or conditions timed with Black History Month (Feb), Women’s History Month (March), Mental Health Awareness Month (May), LGBT Pride Month (June) or another awareness month or holiday (Valentine’s, Eid, Easter, Fourth of July, etc.). Write about how you celebrate inside or what it’s like to be away from your family during this time.

PJP SPECIAL PROJECT: WHAT IS IT LIKE TO BE YOU? This is an anonymous project. One of our goals is to de-stigmatize the incarceration experience by introducing readers who are untouched by incarceration to perspectives and stories from behind walls. We want everyone to see you and connect with you as fellow humans. However, we also know that it’s difficult to be open about your past, present and future if you have to put your name on it.

In this project, we invite you to take ONE piece of blank paper and anonymously answer the question – WHAT IS IT LIKE TO BE YOU? You can answer the question however you want as long as it’s true. It can be a journal entry, letter, poem, song, art. Put your state location at the bottom, and your name on the back . We hope you’ll also invite others around you to submit something. Or collect them and send them to us on their behalf. This is a special project that should be sent to PJP WILT Project, 3501 Southport Ave., #204, Chicago, IL 60657 .

Other Prompts

Topics of particular interest are bolded .

Prompts About Race and Black Lives Matter

How have your thoughts on race been changed by incarceration and the prison environment? Has incarceration made you more conscious of race? Do you feel more racial pride now than you did before you were incarcerated?
Tell a story about your experience with race relations inside the prison system.
Are you comfortable with your racial designation inside prison? If you are mixed-race, explain how that might have complicated your place inside prison.
How did you become aware of the color of your skin and how the world viewed you?

Prompts About Prison Conditions

Write about an aspect of prison that you want people outside to know about? (Be specific about how you know each fact).
Tell us about a policy you’d like to see changed. Include your reasons as well as what opponents would say, and your response to them.
Take the reader on a tour of your cell, yard, library or another place in prison.
Write about your first day or your first year in prison.
What is solitary confinement like? If you are on Death Row, what is it like to live alongside death?

Prompts About Life Before Prison

Write about your upbringing and circumstances that might have eventually led you to prison.
Does your earlier life shed light on the foster-to-prison pipeline or the cycle of incarceration and poverty that has particularly impacted communities of color? Tell us.
If you had problems in school, write about your experience. What might have made a difference?
Did you have a parent or a relative who was incarcerated? What kind of impact did that have?

Prompts About Sustaining Relationships Behind Bars

Describe the biggest challenges you have faced as an incarcerated parent or the child of an incarcerated parent.
What have you learned about being a parent once you became incarcerated?
What are the challenges of a romantic relationship across both sides of the wall?
Tell us about your mentor inside prison or someone you mentor.

Prompts About Identity, Growth, Spirituality and Inner Life

What advice would you give a young teenager who has been incarcerated for the first time? Incorporate your own experience.
Write about LGBTQ+ issues and relationships inside the walls. How has being immersed in a single-sex population altered or solidified your identity?
What is it like to age in prison? What are your challenges and fears?
Write about developing a new skill or learning a new subject while incarcerated.
How do you celebrate your culture? How do you observe religious holidays?

Prison Life, Society and Culture

What advice would you give to a new prisoner who had never been incarcerated before?
Write a “how-to” article on how to navigate an aspect of prison life (e.g. how to keep your cell clean, how to get along with your cellie).
Write about an event (spiritual, cultural, sports, etc.) inside. Include who/what/when/where/why.
How do you stay in shape inside prison? Write about your workouts or a sport you play if offered.
Write about an activity, program, educational class or certification that has had an impact on you.
Write about your prison pet or a hobby.
Write about your most prized possession and explain its significance.

Prompts About Reentry

Write an explanatory article about what it is like to go before the parole board.
Write a “how to” story on preparing to go home.
Describe your plans, dreams, or fears about reentry.
If you have already left prison, what were the challenges in getting resettled? What advice would you give to those coming after you?

Visual Prompts

Illustrate a scene of prison life. Scenes to consider: your cell or dorm space, chow hall, educational rooms, places of worship, the Yard, library, visiting room, waiting room in medical. (Please send a few sentences describing the meaning behind your work, so we can share the story behind it.)

Poetry Prompts Below is a list of topics poets submitting to PJP often write about. Try to incorporate into your poem the answers to questions like who, what, where, when, how, which one, and what kind. Consider both your thoughts and your feelings. Use your best poetic language and be specific in your examples.

Childhood and parenthood
Family
Neighborhood and neighbors
Friends and enemies
The natural world
Prized possessions
God, spirituality, religion, the next world
Race, identity, belonging
Life inside compared to life outside
Justice and injustice
Dreams and nightmares
COVID-19 realities
Hope and discouragement
Courage and fear
Do-overs and transformation

Don’t like any of our prompts? We invite you to come up with your own.

Download a PDF of our complete Submission Guidelines .

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Journalism Guide
Story Submission Checklist

A better path forward for criminal justice: Changing prisons to help people change

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Christy visher and christy visher professor - university of delaware john eason john eason associate professor - university of wisconsin.

17 min read

Below is the third chapter from “A Better Path Forward for Criminal Justice,” a report by the Brookings-AEI Working Group on Criminal Justice Reform. You can access other chapters from the report here .

Prison culture and environment are essential to public health and safety. While much of the policy debate and public attention of prisons focuses on private facilities, roughly 83 percent of the more than 1,600 U.S. facilities are owned and operated by states. 1 This suggest that states are an essential unit of analysis in understanding the far-reaching effects of imprisonment and the site of potential solutions. Policy change within institutions has to begin at the state level through the departments of corrections. For example, California has rebranded their state corrections division and renamed it the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. For many, these are not only name changes but shifts in policy and practice. In this chapter, we rethink the treatment environment of the prison by highlighting strategies for developing cognitive behavioral communities in prison—immersive cognitive communities. This new approach promotes new ways of thinking and behaving for both incarcerated persons and correctional staff. Behavior change requires changing thinking patterns and cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is an evidence-based strategy that can be utilized in the prison setting. We focus on short-, medium-, and long-term recommendations to begin implementing this model and initiate reforms for the organizational structure of prisons.

Level Setting

The U.S. has seen a steady decline in the federal and state prison population over the last eleven years, with a 2019 population of about 1.4 million men and women incarcerated at year-end, hitting its lowest level since 1995. 2 With the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, criminal justice reformers have urged a continued focus on reducing prison populations and many states are permitting early releases of nonviolent offenders and even closing prisons. Thus, we are likely to see a dramatic reduction in the prison population when the data are tabulated for 2020.

However, it is undeniable that the U.S. will continue to use incarceration as a sanction for criminal behavior at a much higher rate than in other Western countries, in part because of our higher rate of violent offenses. Consequently, a majority of people incarcerated in the U.S. are serving a prison sentence for a violent offense (58 percent). The most serious offense for the remainder is property offenses (16 percent), drug offenses (13 percent), or other offenses (13 percent; generally, weapons, driving offenses, and supervision violations). 3 Moreover, the majority of people in U.S. prisons have been previously incarcerated. The prison population is largely drawn from the most disadvantaged part of the nation’s population: mostly men under age 40, disproportionately minority, with inadequate education. Prisoners often carry additional deficits of drug and alcohol addictions, mental and physical illnesses, and lack of work experience. 4

According to data compiled by the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, the average sentence length in state courts for those sentenced to confinement in a state prison is about 4 years and the average time served is about 2.5 years. Those sentenced for a violent offense typically serve about 4.7 years with persons sentenced for murder or manslaughter serving an average of 15 years before their release. 5 Thus, it is important to consider the conditions of prison life in understanding how individuals rejoin society at the conclusion of their sentence. Are they prepared to be valuable community members? What lessons have they learned during their confinement that may help them turn their life around? Will they be successful in avoiding a return to prison? What is the most successful path for helping returning citizens reintegrate into their communities?

Regrettably, prison life is often fraught with difficulty. Being sentenced to incarceration can be traumatic, leading to mental health disorders and difficulty rejoining society. Incarcerated individuals must adjust to the deprivation of liberty, separation from family and social supports, and a loss of personal control over all aspects of one’s life. In prison, individuals face a loss of self-worth, loneliness, high levels of uncertainty and fear, and idleness for long periods of time. Imprisonment disrupts the routines of daily life and has been described as “disorienting” and a “shock to the system”. 6 Further, some researchers have described the existence of a “convict code” in prison that governs behavior and interactions with norms of prison life including mind your own business, no snitching, be tough, and don’t get too close with correctional staff. While these strategies can assist incarcerated persons in surviving prison, these tools are less helpful in ensuring successful reintegration.

Thus, the entire prison experience can jeopardize the personal characteristics required to be effective partners, parents, and employees once they are released. Coupled with the lack of vocational training, education, and reentry programs, individuals face a variety of challenges to reintegrating into their communities. Successful reintegration will not only improve public safety but forces us to reconsider public safety as essential to public health.

Despite the toll of difficult conditions of prison, people who are incarcerated believe that they can be successful citizens. In surveys and interviews with men and women in prison, the majority express hope for their future. Most were employed before their incarceration and have family that will help them get back on their feet. Many have children that they were supporting and want to reconnect with. They realize that finding a job may be hard, but they believe they will be able to avoid the actions that got them into trouble, principally committing crimes and using illegal substances. 7 Research also shows that most individuals with criminal records, especially those convicted of violent crimes, were often victims themselves. This complicates the “victim”-“offender” binary that dominates the popular discourse about crime. By moving beyond this binary, we propose cognitive behavioral therapy, among a host of therapeutic approaches, as part of a broader restorative approach.

Despite having histories of associating with other people who commit crimes and use illegal drugs, incarcerated individuals have pro-social family and friends in their lives. They also may have some personality characteristics that make it difficult to resist involvement in criminal behavior, including impulsivity, lack of self-control, anger/defiance, and weak problem-solving and coping skills. Psychologists have concluded that the primary individual characteristics influencing criminal behavior are thinking patterns that foster criminal activity, associating with other people who engage in criminal activity, personality patterns that support criminal activity, and a history of engaging in criminal activity. 8 While the context constrains individual behavior and choices, the motivation for incarcerated individuals to change their behavior is rooted in their value of family and other positive relationships. However, most prison environments pose significant challenges for incarcerated individuals to develop motivation to make positive changes. Interpersonal relationships in prison are difficult as there is often a culture of mistrust and suspicion coupled with a profound absence of empathy. Despite these challenges, cognitive behavioral interventions can provide a successful path for reintegration.

Many psychologists believe that changing unwanted or negative behaviors requires changing thinking patterns since thoughts and feelings affect behaviors. Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) emerged as a psycho-social intervention that helps people learn how to identify and change destructive or disturbing thought patterns that have a negative influence on behavior and emotions. It focuses on challenging and changing unhelpful cognitive distortions and behaviors, improving emotional regulation, and developing personal coping strategies that target solving current problems. 9 In most cases, CBT is a gradual process that helps a person take incremental steps towards a behavior change. CBT has been directed at a wide range of conditions including various addictions (smoking, alcohol, and drug use), eating disorders, phobias, and problems dealing with stress or anxiety. CBT programs help people identify negative thoughts, practice skills for use in real-world situations, and learn problem-solving skills. For example, a person with a substance use disorder might start practicing new coping skills and rehearsing ways to avoid or deal with a high-risk situation that could trigger a relapse.

Since criminal behavior is driven partly by certain thinking patterns that predispose individuals to commit crimes or engage in illegal activities, CBT helps people with criminal records change their attitudes and gives them tools to avoid risky situations. Cognitive behavioral therapy is a comprehensive and time-consuming treatment, typically, requiring intensive group sessions over many months with individualized homework assignments. Evaluations of CBT programs for justice-involved people found that cognitive restructuring treatment was significantly effective in reducing criminal behavior, with those receiving CBT showing recidivism reductions of 20 to 30 percent compared to control groups. 10 Thus, the widespread implementation of cognitive behavioral therapy as part of correctional programming could lead to fewer rearrests and lower likelihood of reincarceration after release. CBT can also be used to mitigate prison culture and thus help reintegrate returning citizens back into their communities.

Thus, the widespread implementation of cognitive behavioral therapy as part of correctional programming could lead to fewer rearrests and lower likelihood of reincarceration after release.

Even the most robust CBT program that meets three hours per week leaves 165 hours a week in which the participant is enmeshed in the typical prison environment. Such an arrangement is bound to dilute the therapy’s impact. To counter these negative influences, the new idea is to connect CBT programming in prison with the old idea of therapeutic communities. Therapeutic communities—either in prison or the community—were established as a self-help substance use rehabilitation approach and instituted the idea that separating the target population from the general population would allow a pro-social community to develop and thereby discourage antisocial cognitions and behaviors. The therapeutic community model relies heavily on participant leadership and requires participants to intervene in arguments and guide treatment groups. Inside prisons, therapeutic communities are a separate housing unit that fosters a rehabilitative environment.

Cognitive Communities in prison would be an immersive experience in cognitive behavioral therapy involving cognitive restructuring, anti-criminal modeling, skill building, problem-solving, and emotion management. These communities would promote new ways of thinking and behaving among its participants around the clock, from breakfast in the morning through residents’ daily routines, including formal CBT sessions, to the evening meal and post-dinner activities. Blending the best aspects of therapeutic communities with CBT principles would lead to Cognitive Communities with several key elements: a separate physical space, community participation in daily activities, reinforcement of pro-social behavior, use of teachable moments, and structured programs. This cultural shift in prison organization provides a foundation for restorative justice practices in prisons.

Accordingly, our recommendations include:

Short-Term Reforms

Create Transforming Prisons Act

Accelerate decarceration begun during pandemic.

Medium-Term Reforms

Encourage Rehabilitative Focus in State Prisons

Foster greater use of community sanctions.

Long-Term Reforms

Embrace Rehabilitative/Restorative Community Justice Models

Encourage collaborations between corrections agencies and researchers, short-term reforms.

To begin transforming prisons to help prisons and people change, a new funding opportunity for state departments of correction is needed. We propose the Transforming Prisons Act (funded through the Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Assistance) which would permit states to apply for funds to support innovative programs and practices that would improve prison conditions both for the people who live in prisons and work in prisons. This dual approach would begin to transform prisons into a more just and humane experience for both groups. These new funds could support broad implementation of Cognitive Communities by training the group facilitators and the correctional staff assigned to the specialized prison units. Funds could also be used to broaden other therapeutic programming to support individuals in improving pro-social behaviors through parenting classes, family engagement workshops, anger management, and artistic programming. One example is the California Transformative Arts which promotes self-awareness and improves mental health through artistic expression. Together, these programs could mark a rehabilitative turn in corrections.

While we work to change policies and practices to make prisons more humane, we also need to work towards decarceration. The COVID-19 crisis has enabled innovations in diverting and improving efforts to reintegrate returning citizens in the U.S. During the pandemic, many states took bold steps in implementing early release for older incarcerated persons especially those with health disorders. Research shows that returning citizens of advanced age and with poor health conditions are far less likely to commit crime after release. This set of circumstances makes continued diversion and reintegration of this population a much wiser investment than incarceration.

MEDIUM-TERM REFORMS

In direct response to calls to abolish prisons and defund the police, state prisons should move away from focusing on incapacitation to rehabilitation. To assist in this change, federal funds should be tied to embracing a rehabilitative mission to transform prisons. This transformation should be rooted in evidence-based therapeutic programming, documenting impacts on both incarcerated individuals and corrections staff. Prison good-time policies should be revisited so that incarcerated individuals receive substantial credit for participating in intensive programming such as Cognitive Communities. With a backdrop of an energized rehabilitative philosophy, states should be supported in their efforts to implement innovative models and programming to improve the reintegration of returning citizens and change the organizational structure of their prisons.

In direct response to calls to abolish prisons and defund the police, state prisons should move away from focusing on incapacitation to rehabilitation.

As the country with the highest incarceration rate in the world, current U.S. incarceration policies and practices are costly for families, communities, and state budgets. Openly punitive incarceration policies make it exceedingly difficult for incarcerated individuals to successfully reintegrate into communities as residents, family members, and employees. A long-term policy goal in the U.S. must be to reduce our over-reliance on incarceration through shorter prison terms, increased reliance on community sanctions, and closing prisons. The COVID-19 pandemic revealed that decarceration poses minimal risk to community safety. Given this steady decline in the prison population and decline in prison building in the U.S. since 2000, we encourage other types of development in rural communities to loosen the grip of prisons in these areas. Alternative development for rural communities is important because the most disadvantaged rural communities are both senders of prisoners and receivers of prisons with roughly 70 percent of prison facilities located in rural communities.

LONG-TERM REFORMS

Public safety and public health goals can be achieved through Community Justice Centers—these are sites that act as a diversion preference for individuals who may be in a personal crisis due to mental health conditions, substance use, or family trauma. Recent research demonstrates that using social or public health services to intervene in such situations can lead to better outcomes for communities than involving the criminal justice system. To be clear, many situations can be improved by crisis intervention expertise specializing in de-escalation rather than involving the justice system which may have competing objectives. Community Justice Centers are nongovernmental organizations that divert individuals in crisis away from law enforcement and the justice system. Such diversion also helps ease the social work burden on the justice system that it is often ill-equipped to handle.

Researchers and corrections agencies need to develop working relationships to permit the study of innovative organizational approaches. In the past, the National Institute of Justice created a researcher-practitioner partnership program , whereby local researchers worked with criminal justice practitioners (generally, law enforcement) to develop research projects that would benefit local criminal justice agencies and test innovative solutions to local problems. A similar program could be announced to help researchers assist corrections agencies and officials in identifying research projects that could address problems facing prisons and prison officials (e.g., safety, staff burnout, and prisoner grievance procedures).

Recommendations for Future Research

Some existing jail and prison correctional systems are implementing broad organization changes, including immersive faith-based correctional programs, jail-based 60- to 90-day reentry programs to prepare individuals for their transition to the community, Scandinavian and other European models to change prison culture, and an innovative Cognitive Community approach operating in several correctional facilities in Virginia. However, these efforts have not been rigorously evaluated. New models could be developed and tested widely, preferably through randomized controlled trials, and funded by the research arm of the Department of Justice, the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), or various private funders, including Arnold Ventures.

Correctional agencies in some states may be ready to implement the Cognitive Community model using a separate section of a prison or smaller facility not in use. Funding is needed to evaluate these pilot efforts, assess fidelity to the model standards, identify challenges faced in implementing the model, and propose any modifications to improve the proposed Cognitive Community model. Full-scale rigorous tests of the Cognitive Community model are needed which would randomly assign eligible inmates to the Cognitive Community environment or to continue to carry out their sentence in a regular prison setting. Ideally, these studies would observe the implementation of the program, assess intermediate outcomes while participants are enrolled in the program, follow participants upon release and examine post-release experiences in the post-release CBT program, and then assess a set of reentry outcomes at several intervals for at least one year after release.

Prison culture and environment are essential to community public health and safety. Incarcerated individuals have difficulty successfully reintegrating into their communities after release because the environment in most U.S. prisons is not conducive to positive change. Normalizing prison environments with evidence-based programming, including cognitive behavioral therapy, education, and personal development, will help incarcerated individuals lead successful lives in the community as family members, employees, and community residents. States need to move towards less reliance on incarceration and more attention to community justice models.

Topics in Corrections

What is a Topic page? Topic pages each contain a collection of the best NIC publications, videos, and media as well as news articles and resources from the field on a given corrections subject. They are designed as a starting point to learn about a topic and take an initial dive into the subject matter. After reading and watching the resources, you should have moderate to expert knowledge about the topic and know what to search for next if you need to continue learning about the subject.

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Correctional Officer Safety and Wellness — What We Learned from the Research Literature

Correctional officers play a pivotal role within the prison system. Yet, working as a correctional officer brings with it stressful and dangerous conditions that are unique to this line of work. Research has shown that correctional officers experience high stress levels, burnout, and a variety of other mental health-related consequences as a result of their jobs.

Together, the negative physical and mental health outcomes for correctional officers can have harmful effects on the wider prison institution. Staffing shortages and officers missing work create a dangerous cycle where low officer-to-incarcerated person ratios and high turnover in staffing threaten a correctional facility’s ability to implement appropriate security mandates.

The dangers that correctional officers face are explored in an NIJ-supported paper that analyzes existing research. In drafting this paper, the authors identified risks officers confront in their work environment, assessed the officers’ perspectives regarding workplace risk, noted key limitations in literature related to this topic, and recommended policies designed to enhance officer well-being.

As documented by the research on institution-related dangers, officers in today’s correctional environments are being asked to accomplish more with fewer resources, which elevates their mental health risks. For prison facilities to operate efficiently, it’s important that they be staffed with officers who are physically and mentally sound and able to respond to the numerous challenges that this line of work presents.

The authors identified three broad categories of dangers correctional officers confront: work-related, institution-related, and psycho-social dangers. These categories cover everything from gangs and contraband, to demanding work obligations, to work and family conflicts.

Each category is associated with a number of negative outcomes for correctional officers and corrections agencies, including negative health effects such as higher stress levels and injuries. Diminished work performance, burnout, and absenteeism among officers, for example, can lead to higher incarcerated person-to-officer ratios and reduced security levels within entire penitentiaries.

This research also shows that correctional officers are aware of the dangers they face. Even low-level security and juvenile detention facility officers expressed some degree of concern about their general safety and wellness. Across a range of facilities, officers reported that they think they were (or are) at higher risk for injury and other negative outcomes as a result of their jobs. These perceptions could also contribute to consequences such as stress, burnout, and turnover.

Finally, researchers found that various policies and programs have been introduced across prison facilities with the specific purpose of enhancing officer well-being. However, few of these programs have been subjected to rigorous scientific evaluation, thus limiting the understanding of their effectiveness.

According to the authors, in general, the health and safety concerns of correctional officers have been largely neglected by correctional researchers, administrative officials, and prison systems. This is a crucial area of focus given the important role that officers play in maintaining order in correctional facilities.

The authors state that improvement of correctional officer health starts by changing the mindset of administrative officials and other stakeholders in the corrections field. Administrative officials are encouraged to consider policy interventions designed to minimize the injury risk connected to dangers such as contraband, incarcerated persons with mental illness, and gangs.

Policies that could be implemented (if a facility has not already done so) include:

Heightened intake procedures to identify problematic incarcerated persons.
Improved communication channels between correctional line staff so they can discuss potentially threatening persons convicted of a crime and what can be done to handle them.
Separation of gang members to limit their ability to correspond with one another.
Ensuring that officers always have backup support when dealing with troublesome persons who have been convicted of a crime.
Instruction and training for officers on mediation tactics that de-escalate volatile situations.
Provision of additional therapeutic services for persons convicted of a crime who have mental disorders.

The implementation of such policies, targeted at decreasing and addressing dangers in correctional environments, could have the dual benefits of enhancing officer wellness and establishing wider institutional order.

About This Article

This article is based on the paper Correctional Officer Safety and Wellness Literature Synthesis (pdf, 36 pages) by Frank Valentino Ferdik, University of West Florida, and Hayden P. Smith, University of South Carolina.

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Community corrections essay.

Community corrections refers to the supervised handling of juvenile and adult criminal offenders, convicted or facing possible conviction, outside of traditional penal institutions. It includes a wide range of programs intermediate between incarceration and outright release, such as probation, parole, pretrial release, and house arrest. It includes diversion from criminal justice to rehabilitative programs, day reporting, and residential centers. Community corrections measures include restitution, community service, fines, and boot camps. Whereas probation and parole are the predominant forms of community-based corrections, they often are considered separately, having long been parts of mainstream criminal justice practice. The resources available for community corrections and the forms they take vary considerably from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.

Community-based correctional programs stand in contrast to jails or prisons—institutions with large numbers of inmates incarcerated for extended periods in enclosed, formally administered settings, apart from society. The goals of punishment, deterrence, and incapacitation through exclusion and isolation prevail in jails and prisons. Physical abuse and other inhumane conditions, including overcrowding and convict-dominated peer cultures, are undesirable aspects of these “total institutions.” Incarceration also leads to resentment over perceived unfairness and discrimination in the criminal justice process, the loss of hope and positive aspirations, and inmates further committing themselves to criminal lives as they accept their deviant social identities (social labels) and redefine themselves as essentially criminal. Inmates’ isolation from their families and inability to engage in productive work can also foster intergenerational criminogenic patterns. Consequently, the community-based correctional movement sought to alleviate these consequences of traditional correctional practices.

The modern movement toward community-based corrections began in the 1950s and gained impetus in the late 1960s, sparked by a holistic reassessment of the purposes and processes of criminal justice. It was initiated with hopes of achieving restitution, rehabilitation, reintegration, and restorative justice. Low-risk offenders would reap the benefits of remaining in the community. Higher-risk offenders would be subject to more supervision than if simply released into open society. Community-based practices provided levels of punishment intermediary between simple release and confinement, practices allowing for more proportionate responses to both the crimes involved and offenders’ individual circumstances. Offenders would receive means by which to reassess their actions and to positively direct their lives. Community corrections programs would offer structured paths by which offenders could reintegrate into the larger society. The threat of alternative punitive criminal justice regimens would encourage offenders to take advantage of rehabilitative regimens.

Financial considerations also prompted interest in community-based programs. By the 1970s, prison expansion and the economics of housing and supervising inmates put severe strains on state budgets, and community correctional programs are much less costly than those involving total confinement. With their diversity of midrange sanctions, community-based programs offered a relatively low-cost panacea to crime problems.

Community-based correctional programs take numerous formats. Pretrial release prevents unneeded jailing of offenders posing no flight risk (e.g., because they have established roots in the community) or threat to society. Offenders may be released on bail or on their own recognizance prior to trial, often under supervision and with restrictions on travel. Pretrial release without bond (release on recognizance), with a penalty incurred only if a court appearance is missed, benefits those who might be jailed simply because they could not afford to put up bond.

Diversion programs may be offered to offenders both before and following criminal justice processing. Either way, the aim is to provide individualized assistance in resolving the problems that generate unlawful behaviors. Offenders may be directed to conflict resolution programs, including mediation services, which focus on the issues that led to criminal charges. Some locales maintain community courts, in which neighborhood residents partner with criminal justice agencies to offer nonadversarial adjudication of low-level offenses and controversies. Diversionary approaches with predominantly rehabilitative aims combine release with participation in a problem-specific diversion program such as substance abuse treatment, mental health counseling, and job training and assistance. In some jurisdictions, substance abusers are initially referred to drug courts. These specialized courts have been successful particularly in providing supervision and treatment for drug offenders, while freeing up criminal justice resources for more serious crimes. Offenders are monitored and face immediate sanctions for continued drug use. Other offenders may be directed to educational programs, as much of the traditional inmate population is not literate and not apt to have completed high school. Some rehabilitation programs work with all affected family members.

House arrest, another in-community criminal sanction, requires offenders be in their residence during specified times each day. Offenders might be allowed to leave home for work, counseling, education, and other rehabilitation activities. Enforcement of house arrest may be manually through phone calls or electronically through sensors locked to the offenders’ ankles or wrists. The latter tracking devices alert authorities when offenders venture from a prescribed territory. These practices allow offenders to engage in legitimate occupations, raise children, and avoid entanglement with criminogenic influences, as would be the case if they were incarcerated.

Offenders assigned to day reporting programs live at home but report regularly—often daily. This regimen allows for rehabilitative treatment and continued employment while under supervised punitive sanctions. Day reporting programs may be based in standalone centers or in residential correctional facilities, such as halfway houses or work-release facilities.

Offenders in residential centers have limited freedom to positively engage in the larger society. Centers range from small, secure, community-based facilities providing a full range of correctional programs, including drug and alcohol abuse treatment and mental health counseling, to loosely structured programs that simply provide low-custody shelter. Programs dealing with participants having multiple personal and social deficiencies have met limited success. The most successful targets of support programs are offenders who want to redirect their lives but need assistance to do so. Some agencies offer “mutual agreement programs,” contracts stipulating goals offenders are to achieve and the freedoms they will gain for doing so. Recurrent problems of residential centers include rebellion against rules participants regard as petty, offender codes (similar to inmate codes in prisons) that set offenders against staff, and facilities and neighborhoods offering few opportunities for successful personal upgrading. Virtually all community-oriented correctional formats face common problems of underfunding and understaffing. In nearly all forms of community-based corrections, participants face the risk that relatively minor violations of program and release conditions will lead to reincar-ceration. The more closely they are supervised, the more likely minor offenses will be discovered.

Day reporting and residential centers may function as halfway houses, intermediary between total incarceration and living at large in the community. Some provide halfway-out measures to increase the mobility of probationers and inmates who are being released early from prison yet still require intensive supervision. Or they can be used as halfway-in programs for offenders found in violation of probation or parole conditions.

Boot camps usually are designed for younger offenders perceived to lack self-restraint and respect for authority, thus requiring external structuring. Camps are typically set in natural settings. Their living conditions, organizational structures, and emphases on discipline and physical fitness are modeled after military training. Advocates of boot camps hope to give participants a sense of accomplishment and to get them off drugs. Critics argue the boot camps are often overly harsh and abusive, leave participants with few additional skills, and bear limited success. Such programs may need to be coupled with extensive postrelease supervision to effectively change offenders’ lifestyles.

Fines, restitution, and community service provide retribution and can act as rehabilitation and deterrent. Restitution may require that offenders make reparations for the losses they have caused their victims, or it may require offenders do community service in amends for harms caused society. Setting appropriate financial penalties can be problematic, both in determining amounts proportionate to the offense and in setting amounts appropriate to the economic status of the offender. Some jurisdictions solve such dilemmas by imposing day fines, proportionate to the amount of the offender’s earnings. Collecting such debts is problematic: Offenders often are in poor financial state to begin with or come to feel their obligations unfair. Financial penalties can be used to underwrite the criminal justice process.

One of the initial impetuses for community-oriented corrections was the notion of restorative justice, the view that criminal proceedings should focus on the predicaments of all parties involved in a criminal incident, should repair the harm done the actual people involved in a criminal incident, and should focus on the future rather than the past. Restorative justice sees crime as an act that violates individual victims, their families, and the community, rather than the state. It places primacy on offender accountability and responsibility and on reparations rather than punitiveness.

Critics contend that restorative justice processes jeopardize such defendant rights as the presumption of innocence and the right to assistance of legal counsel.

Since the 1980s, in response to shifts in popular sentiment, there has been a trend toward using community-based correctional formats for more traditional correctional ends. Programs that initially sought to rehabilitate and reintegrate offenders have become more concerned with community safety. Some even take on a punitive cast. One of the predicaments of community-based corrections is that it has not necessarily led to a reduction in the number of offenders going to jail or prison. Because of their lower cost and ability to handle more people without increasing prison capacity, community treatment efforts are now sometimes used to bring more people within the scope of criminal justice treatment. Pressure “to do something” has led to community-based programs being used to expand sanctioning to less serious offenders.

Bibliography:

Cromwell, Paul F., Leanne Fiftal Alarid, and Rolando V. del Carmen. 2005. Community-Based Corrections. 6th ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning.
Latessa, Edward J. and Harry E. Allen. 2003. Corrections in the Community. 3rd ed. Cincinnati, OH: Anderson/LexusNexus.
McCarthy, Belinda Rodgers, Bernard J. McCarthy Jr., and Matthew Leone. 2001. Community-Based Corrections. 4th ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning.
Petersilia, Joan, ed. 1998. Community Corrections: Probation, Parole, and Intermediate Sanctions. New York: Oxford University Press.

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Discussion Questions

The Corrections takes place during the turn of the millennium, a period that seems quite distant from today. What is familiar to you in its portrait of America and the national mood? What is strange? Do you think that the book anticipates our present moment at all? In what ways?

The novel’s title refers to the corrections of the financial market. What other corrections, or attempted corrections, take place in the novel? To what degree do these corrections work?

Chip, the Lamberts’ middle son, escapes to Lithuania on a whim. He experiences a sense of relief and even happiness in doing so, at least at the beginning. Where do you think that his feeling comes from? What about Lithuania—a corrupt, war-torn country—is attractive to him? In what way is his new job as a confidence man a continuation of his previous career projects?

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When Prison and Mental Illness Amount to a Death Sentence

The downward spiral of one inmate, Markus Johnson, shows the larger failures of the nation’s prisons to care for the mentally ill.

Supported by

By Glenn Thrush

Photographs by Carlos Javier Ortiz

Glenn Thrush spent more than a year reporting this article, interviewing close to 50 people and reviewing court-obtained body-camera footage and more than 1,500 pages of documents.

Published May 5, 2024 Updated May 7, 2024

Markus Johnson slumped naked against the wall of his cell, skin flecked with pepper spray, his face a mask of puzzlement, exhaustion and resignation. Four men in black tactical gear pinned him, his face to the concrete, to cuff his hands behind his back.

He did not resist. He couldn’t. He was so gravely dehydrated he would be dead by their next shift change.

Listen to this article with reporter commentary

“I didn’t do anything,” Mr. Johnson moaned as they pressed a shield between his shoulders.

It was 1:19 p.m. on Sept. 6, 2019, in the Danville Correctional Center, a medium-security prison a few hours south of Chicago. Mr. Johnson, 21 and serving a short sentence for gun possession, was in the throes of a mental collapse that had gone largely untreated, but hardly unwatched.

He had entered in good health, with hopes of using the time to gain work skills. But for the previous three weeks, Mr. Johnson, who suffered from bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, had refused to eat or take his medication. Most dangerous of all, he had stealthily stopped drinking water, hastening the physical collapse that often accompanies full-scale mental crises.

Mr. Johnson’s horrific downward spiral, which has not been previously reported, represents the larger failures of the nation’s prisons to care for the mentally ill. Many seriously ill people receive no treatment . For those who do, the outcome is often determined by the vigilance and commitment of individual supervisors and frontline staff, which vary greatly from system to system, prison to prison, and even shift to shift.

The country’s jails and prisons have become its largest provider of inpatient mental health treatment, with 10 times as many seriously mentally ill people now held behind bars as in hospitals. Estimating the population of incarcerated people with major psychological problems is difficult, but the number is likely 200,000 to 300,000, experts say.

Many of these institutions remain ill-equipped to handle such a task, and the burden often falls on prison staff and health care personnel who struggle with the dual roles of jailer and caregiver in a high-stress, dangerous, often dehumanizing environment.

In 2021, Joshua McLemore , a 29-year-old with schizophrenia held for weeks in an isolation cell in Jackson County, Ind., died of organ failure resulting from a “refusal to eat or drink,” according to an autopsy. In April, New York City agreed to pay $28 million to settle a lawsuit filed by the family of Nicholas Feliciano, a young man with a history of mental illness who suffered severe brain damage after attempting to hang himself on Rikers Island — as correctional officers stood by.

Mr. Johnson’s mother has filed a wrongful-death suit against the state and Wexford Health Sources, a for-profit health care contractor in Illinois prisons. The New York Times reviewed more than 1,500 pages of reports, along with depositions taken from those involved. Together, they reveal a cascade of missteps, missed opportunities, potential breaches of protocol and, at times, lapses in common sense.

A woman wearing a jeans jacket sitting at a table showing photos of a young boy on her cellphone.

Prison officials and Wexford staff took few steps to intervene even after it became clear that Mr. Johnson, who had been hospitalized repeatedly for similar episodes and recovered, had refused to take medication. Most notably, they did not transfer him to a state prison facility that provides more intensive mental health treatment than is available at regular prisons, records show.

The quality of medical care was also questionable, said Mr. Johnson’s lawyers, Sarah Grady and Howard Kaplan, a married legal team in Chicago. Mr. Johnson lost 50 to 60 pounds during three weeks in solitary confinement, but officials did not initiate interventions like intravenous feedings or transfer him to a non-prison hospital.

And they did not take the most basic step — dialing 911 — until it was too late.

There have been many attempts to improve the quality of mental health treatment in jails and prisons by putting care on par with punishment — including a major effort in Chicago . But improvements have proved difficult to enact and harder to sustain, hampered by funding and staffing shortages.

Lawyers representing the state corrections department, Wexford and staff members who worked at Danville declined to comment on Mr. Johnson’s death, citing the unresolved litigation. In their interviews with state police investigators, and in depositions, employees defended their professionalism and adherence to procedure, while citing problems with high staff turnover, difficult work conditions, limited resources and shortcomings of co-workers.

But some expressed a sense of resignation about the fate of Mr. Johnson and others like him.

Prisoners have “much better chances in a hospital, but that’s not their situation,” said a senior member of Wexford’s health care team in a deposition.

“I didn’t put them in prison,” he added. “They are in there for a reason.”

Markus Mison Johnson was born on March 1, 1998, to a mother who believed she was not capable of caring for him.

Days after his birth, he was taken in by Lisa Barker Johnson, a foster mother in her 30s who lived in Zion, Ill., a working-class city halfway between Chicago and Milwaukee. Markus eventually became one of four children she adopted from different families.

The Johnson house is a lively split level, with nieces, nephews, grandchildren and neighbors’ children, family keepsakes, video screens and juice boxes. Ms. Johnson sits at its center on a kitchen chair, chin resting on her hand as children wander over to share their thoughts, or to tug on her T-shirt to ask her to be their bathroom buddy.

From the start, her bond with Markus was particularly powerful, in part because the two looked so much alike, with distinctive dimpled smiles. Many neighbors assumed he was her biological son. The middle name she chose for him was intended to convey that message.

“Mison is short for ‘my son,’” she said standing over his modest footstone grave last summer.

He was happy at home. School was different. His grades were good, but he was intensely shy and was diagnosed with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder in elementary school.

That was around the time the bullying began. His sisters were fierce defenders, but they could only do so much. He did the best he could, developing a quick, taunting tongue.

These experiences filled him with a powerful yearning to fit in.

It was not to be.

When he was around 15, he called 911 in a panic, telling the dispatcher he saw two men standing near the small park next to his house threatening to abduct children playing there. The officers who responded found nothing out of the ordinary, and rang the Johnsons’ doorbell.

He later told his mother he had heard a voice telling him to “protect the kids.”

He was hospitalized for the first time at 16, and given medications that stabilized him for stretches of time. But the crises would strike every six months or so, often triggered by his decision to stop taking his medication.

His family became adept at reading signs he was “getting sick.” He would put on his tan Timberlands and a heavy winter coat, no matter the season, and perch on the edge of his bed as if bracing for battle. Sometimes, he would cook his own food, paranoid that someone might poison him.

He graduated six months early, on the dean’s list, but was rudderless, and hanging out with younger boys, often paying their way.

His mother pointed out the perils of buying friendship.

“I don’t care,” he said. “At least I’ll be popular for a minute.”

Zion’s inviting green grid of Bible-named streets belies the reality that it is a rough, unforgiving place to grow up. Family members say Markus wanted desperately to prove he was tough, and emulated his younger, reckless group of friends.

Like many of them, he obtained a pistol. He used it to hold up a convenience store clerk for $425 in January 2017, according to police records. He cut a plea deal for two years of probation, and never explained to his family what had made him do it.

But he kept getting into violent confrontations. In late July 2018, he was arrested in a neighbor’s garage with a handgun he later admitted was his. He was still on probation for the robbery, and his public defender negotiated a plea deal that would send him to state prison until January 2020.

An inpatient mental health system

Around 40 percent of the about 1.8 million people in local, state and federal jails and prison suffer from at least one mental illness, and many of these people have concurrent issues with substance abuse, according to recent Justice Department estimates.

Psychological problems, often exacerbated by drug use, often lead to significant medical problems resulting from a lack of hygiene or access to good health care.

“When you suffer depression in the outside world, it’s hard to concentrate, you have reduced energy, your sleep is disrupted, you have a very gloomy outlook, so you stop taking care of yourself,” said Robert L. Trestman , a Virginia Tech medical school professor who has worked on state prison mental health reforms.

The paradox is that prison is often the only place where sick people have access to even minimal care.

But the harsh work environment, remote location of many prisons, and low pay have led to severe shortages of corrections staff and the unwillingness of doctors, nurses and counselors to work with the incarcerated mentally ill.

In the early 2000s, prisoners’ rights lawyers filed a class-action lawsuit against Illinois claiming “deliberate indifference” to the plight of about 5,000 mentally ill prisoners locked in segregated units and denied treatment and medication.

In 2014, the parties reached a settlement that included minimum staffing mandates, revamped screening protocols, restrictions on the use of solitary confinement and the allocation of about $100 million to double capacity in the system’s specialized mental health units.

Yet within six months of the deal, Pablo Stewart, an independent monitor chosen to oversee its enforcement, declared the system to be in a state of emergency.

Over the years, some significant improvements have been made. But Dr. Stewart’s final report , drafted in 2022, gave the system failing marks for its medication and staffing policies and reliance on solitary confinement “crisis watch” cells.

Ms. Grady, one of Mr. Johnson’s lawyers, cited an additional problem: a lack of coordination between corrections staff and Wexford’s professionals, beyond dutifully filling out dozens of mandated status reports.

“Markus Johnson was basically documented to death,” she said.

‘I’m just trying to keep my head up’

Mr. Johnson was not exactly looking forward to prison. But he saw it as an opportunity to learn a trade so he could start a family when he got out.

On Dec. 18, 2018, he arrived at a processing center in Joliet, where he sat for an intake interview. He was coherent and cooperative, well-groomed and maintained eye contact. He was taking his medication, not suicidal and had a hearty appetite. He was listed as 5 feet 6 inches tall and 256 pounds.

Mr. Johnson described his mood as “go with the flow.”

A few days later, after arriving in Danville, he offered a less settled assessment during a telehealth visit with a Wexford psychiatrist, Dr. Nitin Thapar. Mr. Johnson admitted to being plagued by feelings of worthlessness, hopelessness and “constant uncontrollable worrying” that affected his sleep.

He told Dr. Thapar he had heard voices in the past — but not now — telling him he was a failure, and warning that people were out to get him.

At the time he was incarcerated, the basic options for mentally ill people in Illinois prisons included placement in the general population or transfer to a special residential treatment program at the Dixon Correctional Center, west of Chicago. Mr. Johnson seemed out of immediate danger, so he was assigned to a standard two-man cell in the prison’s general population, with regular mental health counseling and medication.

Things started off well enough. “I’m just trying to keep my head up,” he wrote to his mother. “Every day I learn to be stronger & stronger.”

But his daily phone calls back home hinted at friction with other inmates. And there was not much for him to do after being turned down for a janitorial training program.

Then, in the spring of 2019, his grandmother died, sending him into a deep hole.

Dr. Thapar prescribed a new drug used to treat major depressive disorders. Its most common side effect is weight gain. Mr. Johnson stopped taking it.

On July 4, he told Dr. Thapar matter-of-factly during a telehealth check-in that he was no longer taking any of his medications. “I’ve been feeling normal, I guess,” he said. “I feel like I don’t need the medication anymore.”

Dr. Thapar said he thought that was a mistake, but accepted the decision and removed Mr. Johnson from his regular mental health caseload — instructing him to “reach out” if he needed help, records show.

The pace of calls back home slackened. Mr. Johnson spent more time in bed, and became more surly. At a group-therapy session, he sat stone silent, after showing up late.

By early August, he was telling guards he had stopped eating.

At some point, no one knows when, he had intermittently stopped drinking fluids.

‘I’m having a breakdown’

Then came the crash.

On Aug. 12, Mr. Johnson got into a fight with his older cellmate.

He was taken to a one-man disciplinary cell. A few hours later, Wexford’s on-site mental health counselor, Melanie Easton, was shocked by his disoriented condition. Mr. Johnson stared blankly, then burst into tears when asked if he had “suffered a loss in the previous six months.”

He was so unresponsive to her questions she could not finish the evaluation.

Ms. Easton ordered that he be moved to a 9-foot by 8-foot crisis cell — solitary confinement with enhanced monitoring. At this moment, a supervisor could have ticked the box for “residential treatment” on a form to transfer him to Dixon. That did not happen, according to records and depositions.

Around this time, he asked to be placed back on his medication but nothing seems to have come of it, records show.

By mid-August, he said he was visualizing “people that were not there,” according to case notes. At first, he was acting more aggressively, once flicking water at a guard through a hole in his cell door. But his energy ebbed, and he gradually migrated downward — from standing to bunk to floor.

“I’m having a breakdown,” he confided to a Wexford employee.

At the time, inmates in Illinois were required to declare an official hunger strike before prison officials would initiate protocols, including blood testing or forced feedings. But when a guard asked Mr. Johnson why he would not eat, he said he was “fasting,” as opposed to starving himself, and no action seems to have been taken.

‘Tell me this is OK!’

Lt. Matthew Morrison, one of the few people at Danville to take a personal interest in Mr. Johnson, reported seeing a white rind around his mouth in early September. He told other staff members the cell gave off “a death smell,” according to a deposition.

On Sept. 5, they moved Mr. Johnson to one of six cells adjacent to the prison’s small, bare-bones infirmary. Prison officials finally placed him on the official hunger strike protocol without his consent.

Mr. Morrison, in his deposition, said he was troubled by the inaction of the Wexford staff, and the lack of urgency exhibited by the medical director, Dr. Justin Young.

On Sept. 5, Mr. Morrison approached Dr. Young to express his concerns, and the doctor agreed to order blood and urine tests. But Dr. Young lived in Chicago, and was on site at the prison about four times a week, according to Mr. Kaplan. Friday, Sept. 6, 2019, was not one of those days.

Mr. Morrison arrived at work that morning, expecting to find Mr. Johnson’s testing underway. A Wexford nurse told him Dr. Young believed the tests could wait.

Mr. Morrison, stunned, asked her to call Dr. Young.

“He’s good till Monday,” Dr. Young responded, according to Mr. Morrison.

“Come on, come on, look at this guy! You tell me this is OK!” the officer responded.

Eventually, Justin Duprey, a licensed nurse practitioner and the most senior Wexford employee on duty that day, authorized the test himself.

Mr. Morrison, thinking he had averted a disaster, entered the cell and implored Mr. Johnson into taking the tests. He refused.

So prison officials obtained approval to remove him forcibly from his cell.

‘Oh, my God’

What happened next is documented in video taken from cameras held by officers on the extraction team and obtained by The Times through a court order.

Mr. Johnson is scarcely recognizable as the neatly groomed 21-year-old captured in a cellphone picture a few months earlier. His skin is ashen, eyes fixed on the middle distance. He might be 40. Or 60.

At first, he places his hands forward through the hole in his cell door to be cuffed. This is against procedure, the officers shout. His hands must be in back.

He will not, or cannot, comply. He wanders to the rear of his cell and falls hard. Two blasts of pepper spray barely elicit a reaction. The leader of the tactical team later said he found it unusual and unnerving.

The next video is in the medical unit. A shield is pressed to his chest. He is in agony, begging for them to stop, as two nurses attempt to insert a catheter.

Then they move him, half-conscious and limp, onto a wheelchair for the blood draw.

For the next 20 minutes, the Wexford nurse performing the procedure, Angelica Wachtor, jabs hands and arms to find a vessel that will hold shape. She winces with each puncture, tries to comfort him, and grows increasingly rattled.

“Oh, my God,” she mutters, and asks why help is not on the way.

She did not request assistance or discuss calling 911, records indicate.

“Can you please stop — it’s burning real bad,” Mr. Johnson said.

Soon after, a member of the tactical team reminds Ms. Wachtor to take Mr. Johnson’s vitals before taking him back to his cell. She would later tell Dr. Young she had been unable to able to obtain his blood pressure.

“You good?” one of the team members asks as they are preparing to leave.

“Yeah, I’ll have to be,” she replies in the recording.

Officers lifted him back onto his bunk, leaving him unconscious and naked except for a covering draped over his groin. His expressionless face is visible through the window on the cell door as it closes.

‘Cardiac arrest.’

Mr. Duprey, the nurse practitioner, had been sitting inside his office after corrections staff ordered him to shelter for his own protection, he said. When he emerged, he found Ms. Wachtor sobbing, and after a delay, he was let into the cell. Finding no pulse, Mr. Duprey asked a prison employee to call 911 so Mr. Johnson could be taken to a local emergency room.

The Wexford staff initiated CPR. It did not work.

At 3:38 p.m., the paramedics declared Markus Mison Johnson dead.

Afterward, a senior official at Danville called the Johnson family to say he had died of “cardiac arrest.”

Lisa Johnson pressed for more information, but none was initially forthcoming. She would soon receive a box hastily crammed with his possessions: uneaten snacks, notebooks, an inspirational memoir by a man who had served 20 years at Leavenworth.

Later, Shiping Bao, the coroner who examined his body, determined Mr. Johnson had died of severe dehydration. He told the state police it “was one of the driest bodies he had ever seen.”

For a long time, Ms. Johnson blamed herself. She says that her biggest mistake was assuming that the state, with all its resources, would provide a level of care comparable to what she had been able to provide her son.

She had stopped accepting foster care children while she was raising Markus and his siblings. But as the months dragged on, she decided her once-boisterous house had become oppressively still, and let local agencies know she was available again.

“It is good to have children around,” she said. “It was too quiet around here.”

Read by Glenn Thrush

Audio produced by Jack D’Isidoro .

Glenn Thrush covers the Department of Justice. He joined The Times in 2017 after working for Politico, Newsday, Bloomberg News, The New York Daily News, The Birmingham Post-Herald and City Limits. More about Glenn Thrush

Jails, Prisons and the US Correctional System Essay

Introduction, the disturbing fact in the united states is that today, the american, works cited.

A correctional system is meant to be a holding place for antisocial elements so that law and order is maintained in a society. The term ‘jail’ and ‘prison’ are interchangeably used however; there are significant differences in its usage and operative principles. This essay outlines the main differences between jails and prisons and the connected related components of the correctional system in the United States.

Hall states that a “Jail is a place for the confinement of persons in lawful detention; Prison is a place where persons convicted are confined” (2009). In the United States, Jails are short term holding facilities where first time offenders and those committing minor offenses are held. They are also used as temporary facilities for transferring those convicted of more serious offences on their way to the prison. Jails are facilities created and used by cities or counties while prisons are facilities created and used by state or federal authorities. There is a time restriction on jail time which extends from a few hours to a maximum of about one and a half years. Prison time however can extend up to life imprisonment and even the death row. Consequently, Jail inmates have a higher turnover while those in prisons are usually long term offenders. The environment inside a jail and a prison are markedly different. Since jails have small time offenders and the ‘rookies’ they are less organized and less violent than prisons. Prisons usually hold the ‘hard core’ or the serious crime offenders, are prone to violence and have organized prison gangs operating from within the walls of the prison. Because of the nature of the crimes, Jails have large transient populations while prisons have a smaller clientele.

‘Correctional’ system has the largest population of prisoners in the world. According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice statistics, “2,299,116 prisoners were held in federal or state prisons or in local jails” (2008, para 1) as on 30 June 2007. Such a large population has led to overcrowding of jails and prisons with its deleterious effects on the society as a whole. According to (Cilluffo ), the U.S. prison ”facilities (are) hugely overcrowded – operating at 200% capacity”(2006, 4) leading to tremendous administrative and logistical problems for the prison officials. Since jail populations are larger than prison populations, “most prisoners consider city and county jails to be worse than prison, especially facilities in the Deep South” (May, Ruddell, & Wood, 2008, p. 10).

For incarceration of juveniles, separate juvenile detention centers are set up. These juvenile detention centers are run much like a jail or a prison with strict rules, routine and punishment codes. The system however has not delivered any lessening of crime rates as Worall observes that, “The verdict for juvenile crime control, as opposed to prevention, is not a favorable one (2006, p. 325)”. In case of juvenile detention centers, the marked differences that characterize the adult holding facilities such as jails and prisons are blurred. There also exist privately funded prisons which hold prisoners on behalf of the states. “The first private prison opened 1984, and today, there are an estimated 165,000 secure beds in the U.S. being managed by the eight largest private corrections providers” (Seiter, 2008, p. 3).

In conclusion it can be reiterated that jails and prisons have many differences chiefly in the type of offenders they hold and the institutions that support them. Connected to the jails and prisons are also private prisons and juvenile detention centers which together make up the American Correctional System.

Bureau of Justice. ( 2008). Prison Statistics . Web.

Cilluffo, Frank J. (2006). Prison Radicalization: Are Terrorist Cells Forming in U.S. Cell Blocks? . Web.

Hall, D. (2009). Jails vs Prisons. Web.

May, D. C., Ruddell, R., & Wood, P. B. (2008). How Do Inmates Perceive Jail Conditions? A View From Jail Administrators. Web.

Seiter, R. P. (2008). Private Corrections: A Review of the Issues. Web.

Worall, J. (2006). Crime Control in America, An Assessment of the Evidence. Boston: Pearsons Education.

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Providing Justice for Victims, Offenders and Community
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Organized Crime in the United States

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NEWS FEATURE
01 May 2024
Correction 07 May 2024

Why is exercise good for you? Scientists are finding answers in our cells

Gemma Conroy

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Researchers are looking into the molecular basis of how exercise benefits health, to help treat diseases. Credit: Ozan Guzelce/dia images via Getty

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When Bente Klarlund Pedersen wakes up in the morning, the first thing she does is pull on her trainers and go for a 5-kilometre run — and it’s not just about staying fit. “It’s when I think and solve problems without knowing it,” says Klarlund Pedersen, who specializes in internal medicine and infectious diseases at the University of Copenhagen. “It’s very important for my well-being.”

Whether it’s running or lifting weights, it’s no secret that exercise is good for your health. Research has found that briskly walking for 450 minutes each week is associated with living around 4.5 years longer than doing no leisure-time exercise 1 , and that engaging in regular physical activity can fortify the immune system and stave off chronic diseases, such as cancer, cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes. But, says Dafna Bar-Sagi, a cell biologist at New York University, the burning question is how does exercise deliver its health-boosting effects?

“We know that it is good, but there is still a huge gap in understanding what it is doing to cells,” says Bar-Sagi, who walks on a treadmill for 30 minutes, five days a week.

In the past decade, researchers have started to build a picture of the vast maze of cellular and molecular processes that are triggered throughout the body during — and even after — a workout. Some of these processes dial down inflammation, whereas others ramp up cellular repair and maintenance. Exercise also prompts cells to release signalling molecules that carry a frenzy of messages between organs and tissues: from muscle cells to the immune and cardiovascular systems, or from the liver to the brain.

But researchers are just beginning to work out the meaning of this cacophony of crosstalk, says Atul Shahaji Deshmukh, a molecular biologist at the University of Copenhagen. “Any single molecule doesn’t work alone in the system,” says Deshmukh, who enjoys mountain biking during the summer. “It’s an entire network that functions together.”

Endurance exercise causes a multi-organ full-body molecular reaction

Exercise is also attracting attention from funders. The US National Institutes of Health (NIH), for instance, has invested US$170 million into a six-year study of people and rats that aims to create a comprehensive map of the molecules behind the effects of exercise, and how they change during and after a workout. The consortium behind the study has already published its first tranche of data from studies in rats, which explores how exercise induces changes across organs, tissues and gene expression, and how those changes differ between sexes 2 – 4 .

Building a sharper view of the molecular world of exercise could reveal therapeutic targets for drugs that mimic its effects — potentially offering the benefits of exercise in a pill. However, whether such drugs can simulate all the advantages of the real thing is controversial.

The work could also offer clues about which types of physical activity can benefit people with chronic illnesses, says Klarlund Pedersen. “We think you can prescribe exercise as you can prescribe a medicine,” she says.

Hard-wired for exercise

Exercise is a fundamental thread in the human evolutionary story. Although other primates evolved as fairly sedentary species, humans switched to a hunter-gatherer lifestyle that demanded walking long distances, carrying heavy loads of food and occasionally running from threats.

Those with better athletic prowess were better equipped to live longer lives, which made exercise a core part of human physiology, says Daniel Lieberman, a palaeoanthropologist at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The switch to a more active lifestyle led to changes in the human body: exercise burns up energy that would otherwise be stored as fat, which, in excess amounts, increases the risk of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and some cancers. The stress induced by running or pumping iron has the potential to damage cells, but it also kick-starts a cascade of cellular processes that work to reverse those effects. This can leave the body in better shape than it would be without exercise, says Lieberman.

Researchers have been exploring some of the biological changes that occur during exercise for more than a century. In 1910, pharmacologist Fred Ransom at the University of Cambridge, UK, discovered that skeletal muscle cells secrete lactic acid, which is created when the body breaks down glucose and turns it into fuel 5 . And in 1961, researchers speculated that skeletal muscle releases a substance that helps to regulate glucose during exercise 6 .

More clues were in store. In 1999, Klarlund Pedersen and her colleagues collected blood samples from runners before and after they took part in a marathon and found that several cytokines — a type of immune molecule — spiked immediately after exercise and that many remained elevated for up to 4 hours afterwards 7 . Among these cytokines were interleukin-6 (IL-6), a multifaceted protein that is a key player in the body’s defence response. The following year, Klarlund Pedersen and her colleagues discovered 8 that IL-6 is secreted by contracting muscles during exercise, making it an ‘exerkine’ — the umbrella term for compounds produced in response to exercise.

A group of people doing tai chi outdoors with the Shanghai city skyline in the background.

Exercising regularly can strengthen the immune system and stave off disease. Credit: Mike Kemp/Getty

High levels of IL-6 can be beneficial or harmful, depending on how it is provoked. At rest, too much IL-6 has an inflammatory effect and is linked to obesity and insulin resistance, a hallmark of type 2 diabetes, says Klarlund Pedersen. But when exercising, the molecule activates its more calming family members, such as IL-10 and IL-1ra, which tone down inflammation and its harmful effects. “With each bout of exercise, you provoke an anti-inflammatory response,” says Klarlund Pedersen. Although some physical activity is better than none, high-intensity, long-duration exercise that engages large muscles — such as running or cycling — will crank up IL-6 production, adds Klarlund Pedersen.

Exercise is a balancing act in other ways, too. Physical activity produces cellular stress, and certain molecules counterbalance this damaging effect. When mitochondria — the powerhouses that supply energy in cells — ramp up production during exercise, they also produce more by-products called reactive oxygen species (ROS), which, in excessive amounts, can damage proteins, lipids and DNA. But these ROS also kick-start a horde of protective processes during exercise, offsetting their more toxic effects and fortifying cellular defences.

Among the molecular stars in this maintenance and repair arsenal are the proteins PGC-1α, which regulates important skeletal muscle genes, and NRF2, which activates genes that encode protective antioxidant enzymes. During exercise, the body has learnt to benefit from a fundamentally stressful process. “If stress doesn’t kill you it makes you stronger,” says Ye Tian, a geneticist at the Institute of Genetics and Developmental Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing.

Exerkines everywhere

Since IL-6 ushered in the exerkine era, the explosion of multiomics — an approach that combines various biological data sets, such as the proteome and metabolome — has allowed researchers to go beyond chasing single molecules. They can now begin untangling the convoluted molecular web that lies behind exercise, and how it interacts with different systems across the body, says Michael Snyder, a geneticist at Stanford University in California, who recently switched from running to weightlifting. “We need to understand how these all work together, because [humans] are a homeostatic machine that needs to be properly tuned,” he says.

In 2020, Snyder and his colleagues took blood samples from 36 people aged between 40 and 75 years old before, during and at various time intervals after the volunteers ran on a treadmill. The team used multiomic profiling to measure more than 17,000 molecules, more than half of which showed significant changes after exercise 9 . They also found that exercise triggered an elaborate ‘choreography’ of biological processes such as energy metabolism, oxidative stress and inflammation. Creating a catalogue of exercise molecules is an important first step in understanding their effects on the body, says Snyder.

How an exercise habit paves the way for injured muscles to heal

Other studies have probed how exercise affects cell types. A 2022 study in mice led by Jonathan Long, a pathologist at Stanford University, identified more than 200 types of protein that were expressed differently by 21 cell types in response to exercise 10 . The researchers were expecting to find that cells in the liver, muscle and bone would be most sensitive to exercise, but to their surprise, they found that a much more widespread type of cell, one that appears in many tissues and organs, showed the biggest changes in the proteins that it cranked out or turned down. The findings suggest that more cell types shift gears during a workout than was previously thought, although what these changes mean for the body is still an open question, says Long.

The findings also showed that after exercise, the mice’s liver cells squeezed out several types of carboxylesterase enzyme, which are known to ramp up metabolism. When Long and his colleagues genetically tweaked mice so that their livers expressed elevated levels of these metabolism-enhancing enzymes, and then fed them a diet of fatty foods, the mice didn’t gain weight. They also had increased endurance when they ran on a treadmill. “The improvement in exercise performance by these secreted carboxylesterases was not known before,” says Long, whose weekly exercise regime involves swimming and lifting weights. He adds that if the enzymes could be produced in the right quantities and purity, they could possibly be used as exercise-mimicking compounds.

During a workout, distant organs and tissues communicate with each other through molecular signals. Along with exerkines, extracellular vesicles (EVs) — nanosized, bubble-shaped structures that carry biological material — could be one of the mechanisms behind organ and tissue crosstalk, says Mark Febbraio, a former triathlete who is now an exercise physiologist at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. In 2018, Febbraio and his team inserted tubes into the femoral arteries of 11 healthy men and drew blood before and after they rode an exercise bike at an increasing pace for an hour. During and after exercise, but not at rest, they found a spike in the levels of more than 300 types of protein that compose or are carried by EVs 11 .

When the team then collected EVs from mice that had run on a treadmill and injected them into another group of healthy mice, most of the EVs ended up in liver cells. In a separate mouse study that is yet to be published, Febbraio and his colleagues found hints that the contents of these liver-bound EVs can arrest a type of liver disease. A big question is whether EVs also deposit genetic material into different cells, and if so, what that means for the body. “We still don’t know a great deal,” he says.

Exercise as medicine

Larger efforts are under way to build a detailed molecular snapshot of how exercise exerts its health-boosting effects across tissues and organs. In 2016, the NIH established the Molecular Transducers of Physical Activity Consortium (MoTrPAC) , a six-year study on around 2,600 people and more than 800 rats that aims to generate a molecular map of exercise. The effort — one of the largest studies on physical activity — is teasing apart the effects of aerobic and endurance exercise on multiple tissue types across different ages and fitness levels.

The first data set is from rats that completed one to eight weeks of treadmill training, and had blood and tissue samples collected at the end. The researchers pinpointed thousands of molecular changes throughout the rats’ bodies, many of which could have a protective effect on health, such as dialling down inflammatory bowel disease and tissue injury 2 . A separate study 3 found that the effects of endurance training differed across sexes: markers associated with the breakdown of fat increased in male fat tissue, driving fat loss, whereas female fat tissue showed an increase in markers related to fat-cell maintenance and insulin signalling, which might protect against cardiometabolic diseases. A third study 4 found that exercise alters the expression of genes linked to diseases such as asthma, and could help to trigger similar adaptive responses.

Focus on exercise metabolism and health

A big goal is to uncover why exercise has such varied effects on people of different sexes, ages and ethnic backgrounds, says Snyder, who is a member of the MoTrPAC team. “It’s very obvious that some people benefit better than others,” he says.

Researchers hope that the reams of molecular data will eventually help clinicians to develop tailored exercise prescriptions for people with chronic diseases, says MoTrPAC team member Bret Goodpaster, an exercise physiologist at AdventHealth Research Institute in Orlando, Florida. Further down the track, such insights could be used to develop therapeutics that mimic some of the beneficial effects of exercise in people who are too ill to work out, he says. “That’s not to say that we will have exercise in a pill, but there are certain aspects of exercise that could be druggable,” says Goodpaster, who has taken part in triathlons, marathons and cycling races.

Several teams are already in the early stages of developing exercise-mimicking therapeutics. In March 2023, a team led by Thomas Burris, a pharmacologist at the University of Florida in Gainesville, identified a compound that targets proteins called oestrogen-related receptors, which are known to trigger key metabolic pathways in energy-intensive tissues, such as heart and skeletal muscle, particularly during exercise 12 . When the researchers administered the compound — called SLU-PP-332 — to mice, they found that the treated rodents were able to run 70% longer and 45% farther than untreated mice. Six months later, a separate study, also led by Burris, found that obese mice treated with the drug lost weight and gained less fat than those that didn’t receive the treatment — even though their diet was the same and they didn’t exercise any more than usual 13 .

There is already evidence that exercise itself acts like medicine. In 2022, Bar-Sagi and her colleagues found that mice with pancreatic cancer had elevated levels of CD8 T cells — which destroy cancerous and virus-infected cells — when they did 30 minutes of aerobic exercise for 5 days a week 14 . These killer cells express a receptor for IL-15, another exerkine released by muscles during exercise. The researchers found that when CD8 T cells bind to IL-15, they unleash a more powerful immune response on tumours in the pancreas. This effect prolonged survival of mice with tumours by around 40%, compared with that of control mice. The findings held up when Bar-Sagi and her team analysed tumour tissue taken from people with pancreatic cancer. Those who did 60 minutes of aerobic and strength training each week had more CD8 T cells, and were twice as likely to survive for up to 5 years, than were people in the control group.

Although exercising more is a no-brainer for improving health, around 25% of adults globally do not meet the World Health Organization’s recommended levels of exercise each week: 150–300 minutes or more of moderate-intensity exercise, such as a brisk walk; or 75–150 minutes of vigorous-intensity exercise, such as running. David James, an exercise physiologist at the University of Sydney in Australia, who rides his bike to work each day, says that understanding the inner workings of exercise could help to develop clearer public-health messages about why physical activity is important and how it can offset the risk of getting chronic diseases. “That’s a powerful message,” says James.

Nature 629 , 26-28 (2024)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-024-01200-7

Updates & Corrections

Correction 07 May 2024 : An earlier version of this News feature gave an old affiliation for Bret Goodpaster. He is now at AdventHealth Research Institute in Orlando, Florida.

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National Nurses Week 2024: RN reflects on the state of the profession, calls for change

Monday, May 6 kicks off National Nurses Week , and it gives folks an opportunity to show their love and appreciation for the people who take care of the sick, injured and dying.

From neonatal nurses who help welcome newborns into the world to hospice nurses that provide peace and comfort to their dying patients, nurses play a crucial role in the medical industry.

According to the American Association of Colleges of Nurses, nurses make up the largest part of the healthcare workforce, are the primary health providers for patients in hospitals and give the most long-term care in the nation.

Restaurants and chains, like Chipotle and Dunkin' , are offering discounts and coupons to the medical professionals to show their appreciation for what they do. But experts are saying that it isn't enough and what nurses need right now goes beyond discounts.

New nursing home staffing regulations Nursing homes must meet minimum federal staffing levels under Biden rule

Catherine Kennedy, a registered nurse and the Vice President of National Nurses United , told USA TODAY that there needs to be systemic change on the federal level to give nurses the best chance to care for their patients.

A study published by the National Library of Medicine states that in 2021, nurses would work an average of "8.2 hours of paid overtime and 5.8 hours of unpaid overtime per week that year — making up the equivalent of more than 9000 full-time jobs."

According to a different study that analyzed a poll sent in from 29,472 registered nurses and 24,061 licensed practical nurses or licensed vocational nurses across 45 different states found that that 62% of nurses said they saw an increase in their work load during the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to those polled they felt the following at least “a few times a week” or “every day:”

50.8% felt "emotionally drained"
56.4% felt "used up"
49.7% felt "fatigued"
45.1% felt "burned out "
29.4% felt "at the end of their rope"

Despite being labeled as heroes during COVID-19, Kennedy said nurses were not given the support they needed to do their jobs properly.

"Nurses were in tears because they could not provide the proper care," said Kennedy. "So a lot of nurses left nursing and other states because of that."

Difference between 2020 and now

According to Kennedy, nurses have always struggled to fight for better working conditions. But, when cases of COVID surged and the world shut down in 2020 , "it got worse."

She said nurses had to fight to make sure they had the proper equipment they needed to protect themselves, and adds that that hasn't changed four years later.

Hospitals and medical institutes are using the same techniques they did at the height of the pandemic to cut costs and it comes at the expense of nurses' safety, said Kennedy.

"It is still a constant battle to make sure that nurses are protected [and] have what they need as it relates to proper [personal protective equipment.]"

She adds that it's been an "ongoing battle" just to make sure the working conditions are safe for patients and nurses.

Safe working conditions

Safe working conditions for nurses doesn't just include having enough masks to protect oneself. It means having enough nurses and aides on staff to provide the care patients need without overworking an understaffed team.

"Every day that we walk through the doors of a hospital, we wanna be able to do the things that we've been trained to do and that's to take care of our patients," said Kennedy.

But, she adds that having to fight to be properly staffed, errors in patients' admission and racial discrimination play a factor in how well nurses can do their job.

Kennedy said that it's important to allow nurses to "do what we do best and that's taking care of patients, and we can't do that if we don't have safe working conditions."

According to National Nurses United , when nurses "are forced" to focus on too many patients, patients are at a higher risk of the following:

Preventable medical errors
Avoidable complications
Pressure sores
Longer hospital stays
Higher numbers of hospital readmissions

Nurses push for change by backing proposed staffing standards act

To avoid complications related to overwork, exhaustion and burnout, the union supports the Nurse Staffing Standards for Hospital Patient Safety and Quality Care Act of 2023, S. 1113 and H.R. 2530.

Although the act was introduced a year ago in March 2023 it is still awaiting approval.

If passed, the act will require hospitals to enforce a nurse-to-patient ratio and limit the number of patients a nurse can be assigned.

Hospitals will also have to post notices of what the nurse-to-patient ratio is in each unit, record ratios in every shift and follow a procedure that determines how the ratio is determined for each unit. It will ban other staff from performing tasks that should be done by a nurse unless they are "specifically authorized within a state's scope of practice rules."

The act also states that a nurse can refuse assignments if "it would violate minimum ratios or if they are not prepared by education or experience to fulfill the assignment without compromising the safety of a patient or jeopardizing their nurse's license."

Kennedy said that a nurse-to-patient ratio will improve work conditions and bring nurses back to their jobs.

California already has a ratio in place and Kennedy said it improves working conditions.

When Kennedy worked as a nurse before the ratio was put in place, she saw anywhere from 12 to 24 patients a day. Now, she only sees five.

According to the union, the ratio law reduced costs for hospitals, improved nurse safety and job satisfaction and reduced the following:

Spending on temporary RNs,
Overtime costs
Staff turnover

"California is not an island," said Kennedy. "And so federally, we need to push the ratio law because the patients are no different in California than they are in Mississippi or Montana."

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Academic essays and term papers on Criminal Justice & Corrections. Over 95,000 term papers to search in over 250 essay topics.
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Hot Topics. Hot Topics came from corrections professionals like you. People who wrote in and had the same questions that had not been answered by the field before. NIC's expert researchers and CPS 's put together the best answers based on evidence-based and data-driven information from the field. There are many questions that have been answered ...
Most searched topics
Our most searched and most popular content covers a wide range of areas, from leadership and performance to offender programming and reentry. We have resources on topics such as PREA, Thinking for a Change, staff wellness, diversity, equity, and inclusion, and learning. We also have information on emerging trends and best practices in ...
Corrections Essay
Corrections Paper. Corrections Paper CJA/484 April 21, 2014 Stephen Rubino Corrections Paper The criminal justice system is responsible for enforcing the laws created at each level of government. A major part of enforcing the laws is detaining the people who break them. The way that an offender is punished for a crime can be different depending ...
Topics in Corrections
What is a Topic page? Topic pages each contain a collection of the best NIC publications, videos, and media as well as news articles and resources from the field on a given corrections subject. They are designed as a starting point to learn about a topic and take an initial dive into the subject matter. After reading and watching the resources ...
Correctional Officers Essays: Examples, Topics, & Outlines
PAGES 7 WORDS 2324. Correctional Officers: As an attorney working in the Office of the Inspector General in the State Bureau of Prisons, I have been asked to evaluate two major issues involving various correctional officers at the state prison and the behavior of the lawyer assigned to represent them. These correctional officers have reported ...
Correctional Officer Safety and Wellness
Correctional officers play a pivotal role within the prison system. Yet, working as a correctional officer brings with it stressful and dangerous conditions that are unique to this line of work. Research has shown that correctional officers experience high stress levels, burnout, and a variety of other mental health-related consequences as a result of their jobs.
Community Corrections and Criminal Justice Essay
The weekly topic has also provided me with invaluable insights into the inner workings of the community corrections centers that help released individuals to find home plans and meaningful employment. Conclusion. The weak topic has been of great benefit to my understanding of the criminal justice system.
Corrections Topic Directory
Corrections Topic Directory Navigate through the topics section on Corrections1, your hub for specialized coverage on key issues and major news in the corrections field. FEATURED TOPICS. First Responder Heart Health. April 05, 2024 02:40 PM. Veterans. April 02, 2024 06:09 PM. Corrections Products.
Community Corrections Essay ⋆ Essays on Controversial Topics ⋆ EssayEmpire
Community Corrections Essay. Community corrections refers to the supervised handling of juvenile and adult criminal offenders, convicted or facing possible conviction, outside of traditional penal institutions. It includes a wide range of programs intermediate between incarceration and outright release, such as probation, parole, pretrial ...
The Corrections Essay Topics
Thanks for exploring this SuperSummary Study Guide of "The Corrections" by Jonathan Franzen. A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
When Prison and Mental Illness Amount to a Death Sentence
Ms. Grady, one of Mr. Johnson's lawyers, cited an additional problem: a lack of coordination between corrections staff and Wexford's professionals, beyond dutifully filling out dozens of ...
American Corrections Essays: Examples, Topics, & Outlines
PAGES 8 WORDS 3268. American Corrections. The statistics about imprisoned Americans in jails of local, state, and federal prisons and juvenile detention centers reveals a growth from 1,319,000 numbers in 2002 to 2,166,260 in 2002. During the year 2003 has seen the fastest rate of growth of imprisonment over the period of recent four years.
Jails, Prisons and the US Correctional System Essay
The disturbing fact in the United States is that today, the American. 'Correctional' system has the largest population of prisoners in the world. According to the U.S. Bureau of Justice statistics, "2,299,116 prisoners were held in federal or state prisons or in local jails" (2008, para 1) as on 30 June 2007. Such a large population has ...
Why is exercise good for you? Scientists are finding answers ...
Correction 07 May 2024: An earlier version of this News feature gave an old affiliation for Bret Goodpaster. He is now at AdventHealth Research Institute in Orlando, Florida. He is now at ...
The Adults Are Still in Charge at the University of Florida
Wonder Land: On April 30, 2024, Columbia's Gaza encampment invaded Hamilton Hall via Instagram. And unless Joe Biden separates himself from the violence-prone left, his candidacy could die this ...
Worried About a Stock-Market Correction? Here's How to Lock in Recent
The past five years have been good to stock-market investors. The S&P 500 index has climbed an annualized 12% during that period, outstripping the 9% annualized gain over the past 40 years. This ...
National Nurses Week: RN weighs in on the state of nursing in 2024
A study published by the National Library of Medicine states that in 2021, nurses would work an average of "8.2 hours of paid overtime and 5.8 hours of unpaid overtime per week that year ...