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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Effects of diversion on adults with co-occurring mental illness and substance use: outcomes from a national multi-site study.

This quasi-experimental non-equivalent comparison group study examines outcomes for participants in eight programs conducting criminal justice diversion for people with co-occurring serious mental illness and substance use disorders compared with jail detainees eligible for diversion, but who were processed through standard criminal justice methods without diversion. Nearly 2000 participants were interviewed at baseline, and 1500 at 3 month and 1300 at 12 month follow-up to baseline. In these interviews, outcome measures of re-arrest, mental health functioning, substance abuse, quality of life, and service utilization were obtained.