 About Us |
|
|
|
|
|
 |
 |
 |
|
Modeling Criminal Justice Involvement among Persons with Severe Mental Illness Using a data set containing adult arrest histories for a cohort of persons with serious mental illness (SMI) who received either inpatient, residential or case management services from the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health during 2000, this study offers a unique opportunity to: (1) examine the patterns of offenses for which persons with SMI are arrested; (2) identify socio-environmental and mental health services correlates of arrest; and (3) assess predictors of change in criminal justice involvement over time at the individual level. These data will provide preliminary evidence to support a more intensive study of arrest among persons with mental illness by providing a new framework that integrates mental health services and criminologic perspectives. For more information regarding this project, please email Dr. William Fisher Understanding Arrest and Its Precursors Previous investigations of criminal justice encounters by persons with mental illness have been useful in understanding the management of offenders with serious mental illness in the earliest stages of criminal justice processing. The next stage in research to support new strategies of intervention requires that the field identify "intercept points" that precede criminal justice involvement for these individuals and where appropriate interventions might prove preventative. The specific aims of this project are to: (1) develop a conceptual model of the criminal justice "encounter" and the events preceding it; (2) create and test an instrument for systematically collecting data on events and life circumstances preceding an arrest; and (3) identify potential mechanisms for altering the course of events at intercept points preceding the encounter. The developmental work here will synthesize existing theories in a manner that can be reflected in a new set of instruments for data collection. For more information regarding this project, please email Dr. William Fisher The Relationship between Juvenile Justice Involvement and Mental Health This project employs the Pittsburgh Youth Study, a longitudinal study of adolescent males, to assess whether various mental health problems including mood, thought, and behavioral disorders increase the risk of subsequent arrest, and to examine the effect of involvement in the justice system in general, and secure confinement in particular, on changes in mental health status. Results will add to the discussion of whether efforts to prevent the involvement of mentally disordered youth in the justice system should focus primarily on reducing problem behaviors such as delinquency and substance use or on improving the justice system's capacity to identify, divert, and/or treat mentally troubled youth. The study will also be able to assess whether mental health services exert a protective influence on juvenile justice involvement or its adverse consequences. For more information regarding this project, please email Dr. Helene White Desistance from Crime and Substance Abuse It is the purpose of this project to combine research from the substance abuse and criminology fields in an attempt to develop an overarching conceptual model of desistance from problematic behavior and then to determine if this model can be applied to medication compliance. In part this will be achieved by reviewing and synthesizing the criminology and substance use literatures on desistance to develop a set of common and unique individual and environmental factors that increase or decrease the chances of desistance. The investigation of desistance processes will be relevant for optimizing therapeutic interventions, particularly if potentially modifiable factors are identified. For more information regarding this project, please email Dr. Helene White The primary goal of this research is to study ways in which courts and the broader legal system might be involved with meeting the therapeutic needs of defendants with mental illness and how various types of court-based “bridge” interventions function relative to the “usual approach” adjudication process in communities without such interventions. This study specifically aims to: (1) create a universal legal-therapeutic bridge ("intercept") program; (2) develop a conceptual model of the program and "outcome" instruments; and (3) implement and evaluate the performance of a universal legal-therapeutic bridge program. Work is being developed on the interactions between the judge and the defendant, with emphasis on how this relationship affects the performance of the court. For more information regarding this project, please email Dr. Nancy Wolff Modeling the Structures and Processes of Reentry Planning of Inmates with Mental Illness This project aims to bring together researchers who have been focused on the back door of jails and prisons in their prior work - the reentry point. The overarching goal is to collaborate on how to advance the work in the area of mentally ill offenders and re-entry into the community. More specifically to, (1) generate a conceptual framework for understanding the successful transition of persons with mental illness away from jails and prisons and towards integration into the community; (2) identify and address measurement issues in the conceptual framework; and (3) apply methodological innovations to assess change and study innovative aftercare planning. Products generated from this study will include two instruments that will have broad application for the design and evaluation of re-entry interventions. Once these instruments are developed and tested, they will be used to evaluate various types of re-entry interventions in terms of their cost effectiveness. For more information regarding this project, please email Dr. Jeffrey Draine Dynamics of the Social Capital of Prisoners Using focus group discussions and semi-structured interviews, this research seeks to identify the profile of people most likely to use family-based assets at the point of reentry and what types of assistance these individuals are likely to accept and under what conditions. Those who are less willing or able to use family-based assets will be profiled in the same way. The approach here is inductive, with the person leaving prison serving as the most informed person about the utility and feasibility of family as an asset in reentry. The research plan proposes to conduct focus groups and individual interviews with people in prisons located in seven states. Based on this process, the team will develop a social capital instrument for reentry planning. This exploratory work will serve as the preliminary study for an application to test the validity, reliability, and predictability of the social capital instrument. For more information regarding this project, please email Dr. Nancy Wolff Effectiveness of Reentry Programs for Offenders with Serious Mental Illness The New Jersey Division of Mental Health Services recently funded three jail-based reentry programs, and entered into a Memorandum of Agreement with the Center to conduct an evaluation of the programs. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the implementation and impact of these reentry programs, all of which are connected to a community mental health provider. By understanding the selection process, exploring the process of “linking”, and identifying barriers and pathways to “linking”, the results from this study will help to identify how characteristics of programs affect outcomes as well as their "reach" into the criminal justice system and the community, and how community factors, including service and housing availability, affect the abilities of linkage programs to perform their intended functions. For more information regarding this project, please email Dr. Nancy Wolff Quality of Life in New Jersey Prisons The Center for Mental Health Services & Criminal Justice Research, in conjunction with the New Jersey Department of Corrections, has collected inmate data in order to investigate rape and physical assault in New Jersey prisons. The specific aims of the study are to: (1) compare the sexual and physical victimization rates and experiences of inmates with and without a mental illness by gender; (2) explore the variables that are associated with victimization and perpetration of sexual and physical assault; and (3) estimate the prevalence and incidence rate, frequency per person, nature, and source of victimization in New Jersey prisons and to compare these rates to the rates of victimization estimated for mental health populations in the community and the general population with similar socioeconomic backgrounds. Results from this study will add significantly to the national discussion about the dangerousness of prisons and to the efforts to prevent physical and sexual dangers inside prisons by understanding the circumstances around these events. For more information regarding this project, please email Dr. Nancy Wolff Each year, an increasing number of adults with serious mental illness are placed on probation. The vast majority of these individuals have co-occurring substance abuse problems, or “dual diagnoses.” Relative to those with substance abuse alone, individuals with dual diagnoses are at double the risk of failure on community supervision. Even “state of the art” treatment programs that improve symptoms do not appear to affect criminal justice outcomes. The most likely reasons are that the programs (a) fail to target risk factors for crime and violence, including negative peer associations, (b) introduce intensive monitoring, leading to increased discovery of negative behavior, and (c) fail to blend social control effectively into the usual therapeutic alliance with clients. This pilot study provides a foundation for future research that will test these competing explanations. Emphasis will be placed on identifying clinician-client relationship factors that, if targeted, could increase treatment engagement and reduce these individuals’ rate of violations and rearrest. For more information regarding this project, please email Dr. Jennifer Skeem Justice System Involved Youth and Meanings Attached to Mental Illness In this pilot study, we will examine the meanings attached to mental illness labels and mental health services by youth involved in the criminal justice system and their parents. Via qualitative interviews with youth and their parents, this pilot project will collect data that will inform a larger study that uses an adapted network episode model to examine how the attitudes and norms of youth in the criminal justice system and the networks they are involved in influence service linkage, participation and outcomes. For more information regarding this project, please email Dr. Amy Watson The objective of this project is to review and synthesize the literatures on organizational culture and climate, and the moral performance of prisons to develop instruments that measure these dimensions of prisons and jails. More specifically, the aims of this project are to review and synthesize the literature on organizational culture and climate, as well as psychological climate and moral performance of prisons; develop a set of domains and themes relevant to correctional environments; and develop a set of instruments that measure the culture and climate of prisons and jails and to pilot test them in prisons located in New Jersey, Virginia, and Massachusetts. These instruments would be used to measure and describe the environments inside correctional settings and to eventually measure their impact on inmate well being and recidivism rates. For more information regarding this project, please email Dr. Nancy Wolff There is ample evidence that American’s prevailing beliefs and judgments about criminal offenders are mixed and deeply ambivalent. This creates the potential for reframing public attitudes in ways that are more compatible with generous programs to promote community reintegration. The purpose of this pilot study is to explore initial strategies for so doing and to develop a methodology for assessing the strength and stability of their effects. The specific aims are to: (1) develop six possible interventions for increasing American’s support for investing in community reintegration programs; (2) refine experimental interventions using a series of focus groups to explore the ways to best present these alternatives; and (3) assess the efficacy of these intervention strategies for increasing American’s support for investing in community reintegration programs. For more information regarding this project, please email Dr. Mark Schlesinger Gaining insight from an initial study, this project will focus on the individual as part of a broader community, and consider individual need and community resources and how this changes or remains static over time and across 'communities'. The goal of this research will be the development of a multilevel intervention to provide behavioral health resources as well as employment related resources to women with mental health problems within prison and in the communities to which they return. More specifically this project will aim to: (1) review and synthesize the literature on specialized programs for female offenders with and without mental health diagnoses, and conduct site visits to programs identified as 'best practices'; (2) further develop a set of domains and themes relevant to the reintegration of women with mental health problems leaving prison by conducting focus groups and key informant interviews; and (3) examine community and network factors in reintegration for women with mental health problems in order to provide a contextualized understanding of this process. For more information regarding this project, please email Dr. Cindy Blitz |
The following are research projects currently underway at the Center:
