Reflections on Criminal Justice Reform: Challenges and Opportunities.

Considerable efforts and resources have been expended to enact reforms to the criminal justice system over the last five decades. Concerns about dramatic increases in violent crime beginning in the late Sixties and accelerating into the 1980s led to the "War on Drugs" and the "War on Crime" that included implementation of more punitive policies and dramatic increases in incarceration and community supervision. More recent reform efforts have focused on strategies to reduce the negative impacts of policing, the disparate impacts of pretrial practices, and better strategies for reducing criminal behavior.

Pilot study of an online-delivered mindfulness meditation in Ehlers-Danlos syndrome (hEDS): effect on quality-of-life and participant lived experience.

Purpose: Ehlers-Danlos syndromes (EDS) are connective tissue disorders with multi-systemic symptoms. Management of chronic pain and other symptoms of EDS is a challenge for patients and clinicians. Mindfulness-based approaches for chronic pain produce improvement in pain symptoms.

The Association of Traumatic Brain Injury, post-traumatic stress disorder, and criminal recidivism.

Background: The purpose of the study was to assess the prevalence of traumatic brain injury (TBI) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and to determine whether TBI or PTSD is associated with an increase in general or violent criminal recidivism among a representative sample of released prisoners. In-person interviews were conducted with a stratified random sample of individuals incarcerated with the South Carolina Department of Corrections approximately 90 days prior to the prisoners' releases. In addition to a variety of items and scales, respondents were screened for TBI and were asked whether they had received a current diagnosis of PTSD.

Exploring preferences for variable delays over fixed delays to high-value food rewards as a model of food-seeking behaviours in humans.

Foraging and operant models suggest that animals will tolerate uncertainty or risk to obtain food quickly. In modern food environments, sustained access to quick energy-dense foods can promote weight gain. Here, we used a discrete-choice procedure to examine peoples' decisions about when next to eat high-value, palatable food rewards, probabilistically delivered immediately or following longer delays.

Mindfulness-based emotional eating awareness training: taking the emotional out of eating.

Purpose: Emotional eating is important to study and address because it predicts poor outcome in weight loss interventions. Interventions have only touched the surface in terms of addressing emotional eating. Mindfulness approaches can address emotional eating by modification of emotion regulation and appetitive traits.

The role of mindfulness in physical activity: a systematic review.

Despite continued public health campaigns to promote physical activity, a majority of the population is inactive. In recent years, mindfulness-based approaches have been used in health and lifestyle interventions for physical activity promotion. We conducted a systematic literature review using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines to investigate the evidence for the potential of mindfulness-based approaches for physical activity.

Predictors of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, Anxiety Disorders, Depressive Disorders, and Any Mental Health Condition Among U.S. Soldiers and Marines, 2001-2011.

Understanding mental health disorder diagnosis and treatment seeking among active-duty military personnel is a topic with both clinical and policy implications. It has been well documented in military populations that individual-level military experience, including deployment history and combat exposure, influences mental health outcomes, but the impact of unit-level factors is less well understood. In the current study, we used administrative longitudinal data to examine a comprehensive set of unit- and individual-level predictors of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), non-PTSD anxiety disorders, depressive disorders, and overall mental health diagnoses among Army and Marines Corps personnel.

Trends in mental health outcomes and combat exposure among US marines returning from Iraq, Afghanistan or other deployments, 2004-13.

Background: As of 2015, more than 2.7 million US military Veterans have served in support of the Global War on Terror. The negative sequelae associated with deployment stressors and related traumas are well-documented.

Dispositional mindfulness and reward motivated eating: The role of emotion regulation and mental habit.

Evidence regarding the effectiveness of mindfulness based interventions (MBIs) for eating disorders, weight management and food craving is emerging and further studies are required to understand the underlying mechanisms of MBIs in these domains. The current study was designed to establish the role of specific mechanisms underlying the putative relationship between mindfulness and reward motivated eating. We predicted that mindfulness would be negatively related to features of reward motivated eating and that this association would be mediated by emotion regulation and habitual negative self-thinking.

'I can't accept that feeling': Relationships between interoceptive awareness, mindfulness and eating disorder symptoms in females with, and at-risk of an eating disorder.

Mindfulness based therapies (MBTs) for eating disorders show potential benefit for outcomes yet evidence is scarce regarding the mechanisms by which they influence remission from symptoms. One way that mindfulness approaches create positive outcomes is through enhancement of emotion regulation skills. Maladaptive emotion regulation is a key psychological feature of all eating disorders.

Attention with a mindful attitude attenuates subjective appetitive reactions and food intake following food-cue exposure.

Background: Excessive energy intake that contributes to overweight and obesity is arguably driven by pleasure associated with the rewarding properties of energy-dense palatable foods. It is important to address influences of external food cues in food-abundant societies where people make over 200 food related decisions each day. This study experimentally examines protective effects of a mindful attention induction on appetitive measures, state craving and food intake following exposure to energy-dense foods.

See it, grab it, or STOP! Relationships between trait impulsivity, attentional bias for pictorial food cues and associated response inhibition following in-vivo food cue exposure.

Impulsivity is associated with appetitive behaviour such as heightened sensitivity to cues of reward. Impulsivity may thus confer a vulnerability to weight gain by virtue of over-responsiveness to rewarding appetitive cues. This vulnerability should be detectable as heightened cognitive and behavioural responsiveness to food cues, namely, an attentional bias to food-stimuli, subjective wanting, and loss of inhibitory control.

The impact of prison reentry services on short-term outcomes: evidence from a multisite evaluation.

Background: Renewed interest in prisoner rehabilitation to improve postrelease outcomes occurred in the 1990s, as policy makers reacted to burgeoning prison populations with calls to facilitate community reintegration and reduce recidivism. In 2003, the Federal government funded grants to implement locally designed reentry programs. Adult programs in 12 states were studied to determine the effects of the reentry programs on multiple outcomes.

An interactional test of the reformulated helplessness theory of depression in women receiving clinical treatment for eating disorders.

The study tested the Reformulated Helplessness model that individuals who show combined internal locus of control, high stability and high globality attributions for negative life events are prone to depression. Thirty-six women (M=29 years-8 months of age) receiving clinical treatment for eating disorders completed: the Attribution Style Questionnaire, the Beck Depression Inventory, and the Stirling Eating Disorder Scales. An HRA yielded a three-way interaction among the attributional dimensions on depressive symptoms.

The relation between the lack of control attributional style for indulgent food consumption and bulimic symptoms.

Objective: The study examined the potential link between the lack of control attributional style for indulgent food consumption and bulimic symptoms.

Method: One hundred and 77 undergraduates (145 female; mean age=19 years-2 months) were administered the Eating Attributional Style Questionnaire and the Sterling Eating Disorder Scales across a five-month period.

Results: SEM analyses confirmed that: (1) uncontrollability attributions for indulgent food consumption were concurrently associated with bulimic symptoms, and (2) external locus of control and uncontrollability attributions for indulgent food consumption predicted changes in bulimic symptoms.

A cross-sectional investigation of trait disinhibition and its association with mindfulness and impulsivity.

Two online surveys were conducted to assess the relationship between trait disinhibition, impulsivity, mindfulness and adverse psychological symptoms. In study 1 adult females (n=196; mean age=21 yrs) completed the Three-Factor Eating Questionnaire (TEFQ-R21), the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale and a measure of dispositional mindfulness. In study 2 adult females (n=190; mean age=26 yrs) completed the same measures as in study 1 with the addition of the Barratt Impulsivity Scale.

Association of medically attended traumatic brain injury and in-prison behavioral infractions: a statewide longitudinal study.

This study examined the association between medically attended traumatic brain injury (TBI) and in-prison behavioral infractions in a statewide population by comparing rate ratios of infractions in inmates with and without TBI over an 11.5-year period (16,299 males and 1,270 females). The in-prison behavioral infraction rate was significantly increased in males with TBI compared with no TBI for all infractions (RR = 1.

Regular consumption of a cereal breakfast. Effects on mood and body image satisfaction in adult non-obese women.

Breakfast has psychological and nutritional benefits due to physiological mechanisms and expectations about health impact. Beliefs people hold about calories in food can adversely affect mood and body-image satisfaction and such adverse reactions can be predicted by body mass index. The objectives were to test the effect of consuming isocaloric breakfasts, appearing different in calorie content, on appetite, mood and body-image satisfaction, and to assess impact on daily nutrient intake.

Perceived calorie intake and state body-image satisfaction in women attempting weight loss: a preliminary investigation.

State body-image satisfaction levels (BIS) can be predicted by appearance concerns, eating attitudes and body mass index (BMI). Determinants of state BIS and its variability were examined in women attempting weight loss. Little is known about contextual cues that influence state BIS; therefore the effect of eating on BIS was examined.

Food cue exposure and body image satisfaction: the moderating role of BMI and dietary restraint.

Effects of cue exposure to high and low-caloric food on body image satisfaction and the moderating role of body mass index (BMI) and restraint were investigated in 77 lean unrestrained, lean restrained and overweight restrained females. Body (BS) and weight satisfaction (WS) were assessed before and after the cue exposure. Lean restrained participants were significantly less satisfied with their weight after cue exposure to high-caloric foods in comparison to cue exposure to low-caloric foods, whereas no such effect was present in overweight restrained and lean unrestrained participants.

Dietary restraint moderates the effects of food exposure on women's body and weight satisfaction.

The influence of dietary restraint and food exposure on body satisfaction was tested. Body and weight satisfaction were measured before and after exposure to either high- or low-caloric food, without actual eating. Independent of caloric condition, higher dietary restraint was associated with a decrease in body satisfaction after food exposure.

Assessing the long-term impact of drug court participation on recidivism with generalized estimating equations.

Drug courts are one of the most common strategies for dealing with the large proportion of criminal offenders who are drug-involved, yet methodological limitations limit the conclusions that can be drawn from many existing evaluations of their effectiveness. The current study examined the long-term impact of drug court participation compared to regular probation on the recidivism of 475 drug-involved offenders under supervision in Hillsborough County, Florida. Using a combination of self-reported data (collected through in-person interviews at baseline, i.