At the onset of the pandemic, Michele drafted this rapid response paper detailing strategies that sheriffs could implement in order to prevent and respond to the spread of COVID-19 in jails.

In preparation for the conference ―Opening Up a Closed World: What Constitutes Effective Prison Oversight?,‖ held at the University of Texas in 2006, graduate students in my seminar on ―Prisons and Human Rights‖ embarked on a major group effort to compile and review the literature dealing with independent oversight of prisons and to develop an annotated bibliography of this material.

This article is designed to familiarize readers with the concept of prison oversight and to highlight some oversight models that exist both in the United States and abroad. Special reference is made to four groups of prisoners for whom the need for external scrutiny with regard to their treatment is critical: prisoners held in administrative segregation and other forms of isolation, prisoners who are particularly vulnerable to sexual assault, prisoners with mental and physical disabilities, and prisoners with serious medical needs.