SAGE Journal Articles

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Journal Article 1: Miller, J. M., Miller, H. V., & Barnes, J. C. (2018, in press). Treating co-occurring disorders in jails: Outcome findings from a second chance offender reentry program. Crime & Delinquency.

Abstract: Widespread implementation of offender reentry programming has increased justice program evaluations but few have featured research designs sufficiently rigorous to optimally inform policy. Program evaluations typically neglect program fidelity concerns to focus on outcome analysis that seldom feature optimal spuriousness reduction. The current study, the second component of a mixed-method design evidencing fidelity, presents the methods and outcome findings for the Delaware County Transition (DCT) Program, an Ohio jail-based crimesolutions.gov endorsed treatment intervention for dually diagnosed offenders. Review of the reentry and dual-diagnosis literature provides a background for description of the DCT program and methods employed to observe programming effects. Findings indicated DCT participation was associated with overall recidivism reductions and time to recidivism and orient discussion around related rehabilitative modalities.

Journal Article 2: Steadman, H. J., Morrissey, J. P., & Parker, T. W. (2016). When political will is not enough. Jails, communities, and persons with mental health disorders. The Prison Journal, 96, 10–26.

Abstract: This article describes a project that generated the recommendations of a panel of experts regarding the jail as a venue for the delivery of behavioral health care services. The project was a component of the MacArthur Foundation’s Safety and Justice Challenge initiative, which seeks to address over-incarceration by changing the way jails are conceptualized and used. The recommendations were grounded largely in the sequential intercept model that rests on two core principles: minimize the inappropriate penetration of persons with mental illness into the criminal justice system and recognize that the community is the unit of analysis to address criminal justice–mental health problems successfully. Other topics presented in the context of the initiative included bringing the community to scale, jail diversion, the limits of jail responsibility, and the Affordable Care Act’s role in providing insurance coverage for detainees.

Journal Article 3: Rajah, V., Kramer, R., & Sung, H. E. (2014). Changing narrative accounts: How young men tell different stories when arrested, enduring jail time and navigating community reentry. Punishment & Society, 16, 285–304.

Abstract: Using fieldwork, interviews, and survey data collected from male adolescent prisoners who completed a cognitive treatment program, this study addresses two questions: how do adolescent prisoners account for past and possible future acts to illegally acquire money? What frames are identifiable across these accounts? We identify three frames in adolescent prisoner narratives: a ‘victim’; ‘rebirth/redemptive’; and ‘critical’ frame. While the first frame is used to rationalize crime, the second promises that, as changed individuals, future crime will be avoided. The third frame questions the moral and structural hierarchies that render certain groups susceptible to being labeled deviant. Drawing on narrative-identity and intersectional theory, we argue that adolescents' narratives of economic prospects change over time as a function of navigating the different strains associated with initial incarceration, enduring jail programming, and reentering communities. We argue that these changing social conditions provide the context for adolescent males to shift their accounts from ‘hegemonic’ to ‘subversive’ narratives. To conclude, we discuss the implications of study findings for research on desistance.