Understanding the Interplay of Prison Policy and Prisoner Intervention: A Bibliometric Approach 1968-2023

Abstract

This study presents a bibliometric analysis of prison policy research trends in the treatment of inmates from the Scopus database from 1968 to 2023. Background of the Problem: Prison policy will be greatly influenced by the reform of the criminal justice system. What are the trends, current circumstances, current publication citation patterns and the most popular authors and themes in prison policy research. Novelty: To our knowledge, a bibliometric analysis for prison policy terms is not yet available. This paper aims to fill in the gaps by providing a broad overview of the bibliometric analysis of the literature related to this term. Research Methods: A bibliometric approach was used to observe 77 documents from the Scopus database for the period 1968-2023 in prison policy research publications. The keyword "prison policy" is used in article titles in search requests. Metadata is analyzed using software, among which, Publish or perish is used for citation matrix analysis, whereas VOSviewer issoftware that helps researchers visualize bibliometric data by mapping research trends, identifying relationships between publications, and evaluating the impact of research. Research results: research on prison policy grew rapidly from 2000 to 2024. Conclusion: research on policy is widely disseminated through academic journals and books,the University of Stirling dominates with 6 documents, the United States in document distribution dominates with 24 documents, Brown, A. and Hunt, K. the most prolific authors with 6 documents, They have both published 6 documents on prison policy, the dominant research trendrelated to people and prisons, prisons related to health and quality of life, as well as health policies in the context of prisons. Social Sciences dominates with 51.0% of the total documents. This shows that research on prison policy is widely carried out from a social perspective, covering legal, sociological, and criminological aspects. Our findings suggest that studies on Prison policy are mostly conducted in the field of social sciences.