Justice & Corrections
Justice and corrections covers the estate through which law is administered and enforced through the courts, including supreme and constitutional courts, court complexes, prosecution services, prisons and detention facilities, and forensic science laboratories.
- Indicators
- 3
- Leaders
- 10placeholder ratings
- Like it
- 6capabilities
- Developments
- 5
What Justice & Corrections is, and how it is measured
Justice and corrections covers the estate through which law is administered and enforced through the courts, including supreme and constitutional courts, court complexes, prosecution services, prisons and detention facilities, and forensic science laboratories.
Indicators
- Court and custodial facility capacity
- Custodial occupancy rate
- Case clearance rate
The nations that lead in Justice & Corrections
These ratings stand in until the capability is rated.
The capabilities most like Justice & Corrections
Likeness, from 0 to 1, as the Atlas measures it.
How Justice & Corrections came to be
- Governance
- Society
Historical Developments
Oldest firstDecember 1917
Soviet Russia introduced the concept of corrective labour as a penal sanction
The idea of 'corrective labor' (ispravitelnye raboty) in Soviet Russia dates to December 1917. It established labour as an explicit instrument of correction within the penal system, a model that shaped subsequent Soviet corrections institutions.
1929
The USSR adopted the terminology of corrective-labour camps
From 1929 the Soviet Union formally used the term 'corrective-labor camps' (ITL) for its detention estate. The label codified a system in which imprisonment and compulsory labour were institutionally fused.
1950s–1960s
US academia shifted terminology from penology to corrections
During the 1950s and 1960s American scholarship replaced the older term penology, the study of punishment for crime, with 'corrections'. The change was driven by a new philosophy emphasising rehabilitation rather than punishment, reframing how correctional institutions and programmes were conceived.
Recent Developments
Most recent first1980s
US academics labelled the 'get tough' turn The New Penology
Although corrections terminology persisted in American practice, the philosophical approach to offender treatment reversed in the 1980s towards punitive 'get tough' policies. Academics named this shift 'The New Penology', marking a decisive change in the purpose of the correctional estate.
1972
Canada ended judicial whipping under the Criminal Code
Until 1972 the Canadian Criminal Code allowed courts to impose whipping on male offenders, on up to three occasions, with no statutory limit on the number of strokes. Its removal marked the end of judicially ordered corporal punishment in Canadian sentencing.