Jennifer Peirce

Postdoctoral Fellow, SSHRC Recipient
CG262
416-946-5318
jennifer.peirce@utoronto.ca

Areas of Interest

  • Criminal Justice System Reform
  • Punishment and Public Policy
  • Prisons and Corrections
  • Prison Governance and Culture
  • Latin America and the Caribbean

Name of Postdoctoral Fellowship

The International Travels of "Humane Prison" Models: An analysis of human rights and risk management in Latin American prison reform

Description

This project explores how prison institutions adapt and implement concepts and practices of human rights and risk management, in different settings in the Americas. Many governments in Latin America, grappling with high levels of crime and violence, are increasingly implementing more rehabilitation-focused approaches for prisons as a response. These include new infrastructure, technology, staff training, disciplinary tactics, treatment programs, and policies to build transparency and accountability. Some are turning to models from the Global North, particularly Canada, which they view as more modern and data-driven, while others are adapting models from other parts of Latin America. Yet there is no consensus about what type of prison best achieves the goals of protecting prisoners’ human rights, maintaining security and transparency, and helping prisoners’ chances of post-release reintegration. Moreover, debates about penal policy have tended to focus on issues specific to the Global North, such as court oversight, racial disparities, solitary confinement, and the welfare state. There is less research about how “progressive” penal policies address extreme overcrowding, prisoner-led governance arrangements, and informal prison economies -- key features of Latin American prisons. As a result, policymakers in the Global South are making choices, as well as facing various funding and political incentives, about improving prisons without relevant guidance about the challenges and potential consequences of bringing a well-intentioned external “best practice” into less-consolidated institutions. Locally-developed practices in Latin American prisons generate positive outcomes for rehabilitation and human rights – some of which may apply to North American prison reform efforts. This project analyzes prison reform initiatives in Canada and in Latin America and the Caribbean that involve international resources and “models” of risk management and human rights protection. It also considers the consequences of these choices, in terms of prisoners’ experiences and rights and for the criminal justice system.

Biography

Jennifer is a researcher focusing on human rights and criminal justice reforms, mainly in Latin America and the Caribbean. Her postdoctoral research, under the supervision of Kelly Hannah-Moffat and Phil Goodman, explores how different models of risk management and rights oversight are being implemented in Latin American prison systems. Jennifer completed her PhD in criminal justice at John Jay College and the CUNY Graduate Center in New York City, for which she held a Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation Doctoral Scholarship and a SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship. Her doctoral research project was a mixed-methods study of incarcerated men’s perceptions and experiences of a human rights-oriented prison reform process in the Dominican Republic. She also works as a researcher and consultant on criminal justice projects in the US and internationally and has worked on justice sector policy in government, multilateral, academic, and nonprofit organizations. Jennifer also holds an MA in International Affairs from Carleton University and a BA in International Development Studies.

Selected Publications

  • Peirce, J. (2022). “It was supposed to be fair here”: Human Rights and Recourse Mechanisms in the Dominican Republic’s Prison Reform Process. Journal of Human Rights (Online first).
  • Bailey, M. & Peirce, J. (2022). Reversing the Rural Jail Boom. University of Idaho Law Review (In Press).
  • Peirce, J. (2021). La « double détention »: conditions et droits des détenus haïtiens dans les prisons dominicaines. [Doubly Detained: Conditions and Rights of Haitians Incarcerated in the Dominican Republic.] Déviance et Société 45(3), 449-479.
  • Peirce, J. (2021). Space, Surveillance, and Sound in Pre- and Post-Reform Prisons in the Dominican Republic. In Herrity, K., Schmidt, B.E. and Warr, J. (Eds.) Sensory Penalities: Exploring the Senses in Spaces of Punishment and Social Control (pp. 125-140). Emerald Publishing Limited.
  • Peirce, J. (2021). Two regimes of confinement in tension: Partial prison reform in the Dominican Republic. In Darke, S., Garces, C., Duno-Gottberg, L. & Antillano, A. (Eds.) Carceral Community: Troubling Prison Worlds in 21st Century Latin America (pp. 107-126). Palgrave Macmillan Press.
  • Rengifo, A., D. Rouzbahani & J. Peirce. (2020). Court interpreters and the political economy of punishment in three first-appearance courts. Law & Policy 42(3), 236-260.
  • Peirce, J. (2020). Overuse of Pretrial Detention in tension with Judicial and Prison Reforms in the Dominican Republic. Latin American Law Review 5(20), 45-69.
  • Peirce, J. & G. Fondevila. (2020). Concentrated Violence: The influence of criminal activity & governance on prison violence in Latin America. International Criminal Justice Review 30(1), 99-130.
  • Peirce, J. (2018). Making the Mandela Rules: Evidence, Expertise, and Politics in the Development of Soft Law International Prison Standards. Queen’s Law Journal 43(2), 263-296.