Solitary Confinement: 29 Years in a Box

(CNN) -- Robert King still remembers well the dimensions of his cell: 6 x 9 x 12 feet. There was a steel bed and a sink that doubled as a toilet where he would also wash clothes.

King spent 29 years in solitary confinement in Louisiana. He has been free since 2001, but still has difficulty with geographical orientation.

"I get confused as to where I am, where I should be," he said.

King joined researchers and legal experts at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting in Chicago this month to talk about the mental and physical health consequences of solitary confinement.

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International study finds crime levels cut after offenders meet victims

A new study has found putting offenders face-to-face with their victims can reduce future crime levels.

The research involving the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra has found the frequency of repeat offending is down by as much as 55 per cent after criminals meet victims, compared with using the traditional court system.

The ANU's John Braithwaite helped introduce restorative justice conferences to ACT courts during the 1990s.

The sessions involve victims and their criminals agreeing to meet with family or friends present, along with police or other trained moderators to discuss the impact of the crime.

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Falling prices, rising crime?

Crime rates fell across the United States in the 1990s. But in counties where Wal-Mart built stores, the decline was slower, a new study finds.

"The crime decline was stunted in counties where Wal-Mart expanded in the 1990s," says Scott Wolfe, assistant professor of criminology and criminal justice at the University of South Carolina and lead author of a new study. "If the corporation built a new store, there were 17 additional property crimes and 2 additional violent crimes for every 10,000 persons in a county."

Read more about the study here.

Study Puts Exonerations at Record Level in U.S.

The number of exonerations in the United States of those wrongly convicted of a crime increased to a record 87 during 2013, and of that number, nearly one in five had initially pleaded guilty to charges filed against them, according to a report to be released on Tuesday as part of a project led by two university law schools.

Nearly half of the exonerations — 40 — were based on murder convictions, including that of a man wrongly convicted and subsequently sentenced to death in the fatal stabbing of a fellow inmate in a Missouri prison in 1983, according to the report by the National Registry of Exonerations. The registry is a joint program of the University of Michigan Law School and the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University School of Law.

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