The opening statement of the preface to this guide identifies its purpose as one of helping to create “better” and “more effective” jails. Because such terms can mean different things to different people, they should be defined. The findings of the original small jails research indicated that better, more effective jails are fundamentally those that satisfy the basic needs of their occu…
As detailed in Global Prison Trends, despite widely documented challenges in creating fair and effective criminal justice systems, there have been some positive steps taken towards the practical implementation of international human rights standards related to criminal justice, such as the UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (the Nelson Mandela Rules) and the United Nation…