Healthcare expenditures for people with substance use disorders in drug courts compared to their peers in traditional courts.

Individuals within the criminal justice system are at greater risk of substance use-related morbidity and mortality and have substantial healthcare needs. In this quasi-experimental study, we assessed utilization patterns of Massachusetts Medicaid Program (MassHealth) services and associated expenditures among drug court probationers compared to a propensity score-matched sample of traditional court probationers. Risk of reoffending, employment status, age, and living arrangement data were used to calculate propensity scores and match probationers between the two court types, producing a final sample of 271 in each court (N=542).

DNA Quantity and Quality Comparisons between Cryopreserved and FFPE Tumors from Matched Pan-Cancer Samples.

Personalized cancer care requires molecular characterization of neoplasms. While the research community accepts frozen tissues as the gold standard analyte for molecular assays, the source of tissue for testing in clinical cancer care comes almost universally from formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded tissue (FFPE). As newer technologies emerge for DNA characterization that requires higher molecular weight DNA, it was necessary to compare the quality of DNA in terms of DNA length between FFPE and cryopreserved samples.

Evaluations of competence to stand trial are evolving amid a national "competency crisis".

Across the United States, court orders for competence to stand trial (CST) evaluations and competence restoration services have been increasing much more rapidly than states can provide these services, prompting what has been called a national "competency crisis." The challenge in providing timely competence restoration services has, in several jurisdictions, prompted a change in competence evaluations. Evaluators are more often required to address broader clinical issues-such as recommending placement or addressing the urgency of hospitalization-rather than addressing only CST.

Estimating the Size of the Los Angeles County Jail Mental Health Population Appropriate for Release into Community Services.

In 2015, the Office of Diversion and Reentry Division (ODR), an internal department of the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services, was created to redirect individuals with serious mental illness from the criminal justice system. Part of ODR's mission is to identify individuals currently incarcerated in a Los Angeles County jail who are experiencing a serious mental health disorder and, to the extent practical, provide them with appropriate community-based care with the goals of reducing recidivism and improving health outcomes. Such redirection from the traditional criminal justice process is often characterized as diversion.