“Inside Out” by Keri Blakinger is a partnership between NBC News and The Marshall Project, a nonprofit newsroom covering the U.S. criminal justice system. The column draws on Blakinger’s unique perspective as an investigative journalist and formerly incarcerated person.
This course will provide new jail administrators, sheriffs, and prospective jail administrators an overview of the roles and responsibilities of a jail administrator. Course content will be presented at an introductory level and aims to orient the intended audience to the critical functions, roles, and responsibilities the jail has in the local community and in the public safety sphere. Estimated duration: 1 hour. (NIC ID: 21ECJA2900)
Background: Correctional Officers show signs of adverse health early in their careers. We evaluated the impact of a one-year peer health mentoring program for new officers based on
a Total Worker Health® approach; Conclusions: A continuous peer health mentoring program seemed protective to new officers in reducing burnout and also declines in BMI and hypertension. Short-term physical health markers in younger officers may not be an index of psycho-social effects. A participatory design approach is recommended for a long-term health mentoring program to be both effective and sustainable.
The overrepresentation of individuals with mental illness in the criminal/legal system is well documented. While professional associations urge diversion towards treatment, little is known about the practices these institutions use to identify this population. One understudied space in the criminal/legal continuum is jails. This exploratory study compares two types of mental health identification at jail booking to assess jail- and community-based service outcomes by identification type (N = 2956): (a) staff observation and (b) a standardized screening instrument. Individuals identified through staff observation were significantly more likely to receive jail- and community-based services, even though current symptomology and substance misuse were both significantly higher for individuals identified only by the screening instrument. These findings point to the importance of jails in providing stabilizing services during incarceration, but further, show the impact that identification practices have on individuals as they transition to the community. Community context showed varied rates of jail staff observations of mental illness, showing greater risks for individuals in rural communities. Implications include a need for system-level changes by instituting evidence-based identification practices in jails, and improving professional collaboration practices between mental health and criminal/legal practitioners as individuals enter and exit jails.
Carolyn Sufrin MD, PhD, discusses recent research on pregnancy frequencies and outcomes among women in US state and federal prisons. This new data is leading policy changes to address the health and well-being of incarcerated women who are pregnant, and the children born to them.
Women in rural jails are more likely to screen positive for a serious mental illness compared to men in rural jails and all individuals incarcerated in urban jails, according a study published this month in Criminal Justice and Behavior by researchers from Wayne State University.
An estimated 15% of the 1.8 million incarcerated individuals in the US have opioid use disorder (OUD).1,2 These individuals have a substantially higher risk of overdose after leaving correctional facilities.1 Pharmacotherapy for OUD is associated with reductions in postincarceration mortality, yet as of 2018, less than 14% of correctional systems offered buprenorphine or methadone.3 Over the past 5 years, more municipalities and states have enacted policies to provide access to OUD treatment, but the extent to which this implementation has actually increased buprenorphine use remains unclear.
People with mental illness (MI) are overrepresented in prisons, in part, because people with MI stay in prison longer. Correctional officers (COs) use discretion in force, violations, and segregation. Crisis intervention teams (CITs) are being used in corrections to reduce disparities in sanctioning and improve safety. This quasi-experimental, mixed-methods study includes 235 CIT COs who were surveyed before and after training on knowledge of MI, stigmatizing attitudes, and perception of response options. Non-CIT (n = 599) officers completed the same survey. Randomly selected CIT COs completed interviews 6 to 9 months following training (n = 17). CIT COs had significantly lower stigmatizing attitudes, more mental health knowledge, and better perceptions of options following CIT training compared with non-CIT COs. This preliminary
work on CIT use in prison is promising; additional work is needed to determine whether these changes result in behavior change among COs and improvements in outcomes for people with MI.
The provisions within this directive are applicable to all Texas Board of Criminal Justice and
Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) employees with the exception of the disciplinary
process for employees who allegedly commit a PD-22, “General Rules of Conduct and
Disciplinary Action Guidelines for Employees,” rule violation while attending: (a) the PreService Correctional Training Course or Non-Correctional Officer Training Course at the TDCJ
Training and Leader Development Division (TLDD) Pre-Service Training Academy (PSTA); (b)
the TDCJ TLDD Parole Officer Entry Level Training Academy (POTA); or (c) the Office of
Inspector General Training Academy (OIGTA). When this occurs, the disciplinary process will
be in accordance with PD-33, “Trainee Management.”
The safety and well-being of all Native Americans is a top priority for my Administration. My Administration will work hand in hand with Tribal Nations and Tribal partners to build safe and healthy Tribal communities and to support comprehensive law enforcement, prevention, intervention, and support services.