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Research on paternal incarceration has paid less attention to young fathers incarcerated in jail settings where most residents are either pretrial detained or serving out short sentences. This stud...

Increasing the effectiveness of programs designed to treat individuals who have sexually offended is a critical step in reducing the rates of sexual violence in our communities. Yet, the research o...

Over the past decade and a half, substantial resources were poured into the development of prisoner reentry programs. However, the excitement that surrounded the initial roll out of reentry program...

The current study uses the dose–response model to examine the relationships between childhood victimization events and subsequent depression, symptoms of psychosis, and substance misuse in a sample of 230 randomly selected incarcerated women in the United States. Results on the frequency of victimization were mixed. In this sample, both frequency of physical abuse and frequency of sexual abuse significantly predicted current symptoms of psychosis, but only frequency of physical abuse significantly predicted substance misuse. Incarcerated women who experienced multivictimization were 5.7 times as likely to report depression, 4.2 times as likely to report current symptoms of psychosis, and 3.8 times as likely to meet criteria for a substance use disorder. Results indicate that adjusting prison-based interventions to address multivictimization may improve outcomes and reduce recidivism among this population.

Social workers are needed but infrequently involved with criminal justice systems. One way to increase the number of social workers in the criminal justice system is by exposing students to work in these settings. This study examined the number, types, and utilization of criminal justice field placements in MSW programs by surveying field education directors. On average, 7.73% of field placements were in criminal justice settings. When asked about barriers to criminal justice placements, the most frequently identified challenge was a lack of MSW supervisors. Implications for future research and education are discussed.

Individuals with severe mental illnesses (SMI) are a vulnerable population, struggling to cope with fragmented and often unwelcoming community service systems. Research has examined Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) as an intervention for SMI individuals, but little research has explored ACT's potential as a community system change intervention. Using focus groups with ACT teams, we explored changes in community service systems as a result of ACT teams' presence. Changes identified included increased understanding of SMI; increased access to services; and increased collaboration across service systems. Processes by which these changes occurred included knowledge communication, negotiation, renaming by association, and ongoing relationships.

In 2005, there were 20,888 prisoners in the U.S. prisons known to be HIV-positive, many substance-involved. The high reincarceration rate of substance-involved prisoners, coupled with the fact that substance-involved prisoners are more prone to HIV-risk behaviors in the community, necessitates attention to preventing substance use and HIV transmission risk behaviors of prisoners upon reentry to communities. We use a social support framework to explore the role of social support in HIV+ prisoners' expectations of release and postrelease plans. Interview data from 23 participants were collected from August 2005 to January 2006. Participants reported concerns about their ability to access needed formal and informal prosocial support upon release. Implications of these findings for release planning are discussed.