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Pages 129-181

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From page 129...
... Com mittee on Evaluating Success Among People Released from Prison Meeting #2: Public Information Gathering Session. Washington, DC: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.
From page 130...
... . Family support in the prisoner reentry process: Expectations and realities.
From page 131...
... Committee on Evaluating Success Among People Released from Prison Meeting #2: Public Information Gathering Session. Washington, DC: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.
From page 132...
... Luna (Ed.) , Reforming Criminal Justice: Punishment, Incarceration, and Release, 4, 295–323.
From page 133...
... . The family's role in the reintegration of formerly incarcerated individuals: The direct effects of emotional support.
From page 134...
... Committee on Evaluating Success Among People Released from Prison, Meeting #2: Public Information Gathering Session. Washington, DC: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.
From page 135...
... . Surveillance and the experience of the COVID-19 pandemic for formerly incarcerated individuals.
From page 136...
... Criminal Justice and Behavior 38, 4, 386–405. Wodahl, E.J., and Freng, A
From page 137...
... . An Examination of Rural Prisoner Reentry Challenges.
From page 139...
... This perspective was one of the most consistent themes of the committee's listening session with those with lived experiences in making a transition from prison to the community. Previous research and practice have not sufficiently recognized the importance of individual differences in understanding pathways to successful reintegration, and there is a dearth of literature reflecting the voices of criminal legal system (CLS)
From page 140...
... . People that have been in prison need to be the ones making decisions for their programming." SOURCE: See Committee on Evaluating Success Among People Released from Prison Meeting #2: Public Information Gathering Session (July 27–28, 2021)
From page 141...
... ? Without understanding how community contextual factors shape an individual's return from prison, policy makers, service providers, and communities miss opportunities to increase the likelihood of success following release from prison.
From page 142...
... And that criminal justice involvement is intricately connected to this. The barriers to success can feel insurmount able to some people and those barriers are real" (Valverde, 2021)
From page 143...
... Domains discussed include physical and mental health status, housing status, employment, educational attainment, civic and community engagement, and social relationships with family, peers, and other social supports. The chapter concludes with a discussion of research needs to improve the measurement of post-release outcomes for criminal legal system-involved individuals, with attention to needs for shared data collection standards and data sharing across policy domains.
From page 144...
... , correctional programming is often narrowly focused. For example, reentry programs commonly focus solely on job training or substance use, or are only situated in the criminal legal system without considering how other social support or "safety net" systems act as important agents of success following prison release (Hawks et al., 2021)
From page 145...
... Yet people's pathway to success following release, even if understood as heterogeneous and evolving over the life course, cannot be accurately measured without accounting for community and structural factors, including racism. (For an example of work accounting for racism and health inequities from a life course perspective, see Gee, Walsemann, and Brondolo, 2012.)
From page 146...
... For example, formerly incarcerated women are more likely than men to have been primary caregivers for their children before incarceration, and they generally place a higher priority on reunification with children following their release (Giordano, Cernkovich, and Rudolph, 2002; Glaze and Maruschak, 2016; Richie, 2001)
From page 147...
... need more intensive counseling, more assistance in finding housing, in finding jobs, in dealing with discrimination." (Strauss, 2021) SOURCE: See Committee on Evaluating Success Among People Released from Prison Meeting #2: Public Information Gathering Session (July 27, 28, 2021)
From page 148...
... . Evaluating how well institutions and organizations act as facilitators of success following release is essential, especially evaluating how the systems that provide health care, food, transportation, education, and employment support the needs of recently released individuals.
From page 149...
... To start, recording the residential address (as is available in administrative data) or zip code of returning individuals within intervention studies and program evaluations will enable a broader understanding of how a person's community and structural factors affect the potentiality of success following release (Chambers et al., 2018; Vilda et al., 2021)
From page 150...
... structural barriers for historically marginalized populations released from corrections requires that researchers recognize how race and ethnicity are being measured and operationalized in studies. In quantitative studies, self-identified race is used as a confounder, implying that a person's race is associated with the probability of success, as opposed to self-identified race being seen as an indirect proxy of embedded inequalities and a root cause for health inequities or inequities in success following release.
From page 151...
... . The need for multidimensional, holistic measures of success following release from prison leads us to a measure of overall well-being as an important indicator of individual success.
From page 152...
... Mental Health Depression, PHQ-9 or PHQ-2; Can be ascertained with International Disorder Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Primary Care Classification of Diseases (ICD-10) codes Post Traumatic Stress Disorder Screen and pharmacy records in electronic health records or administrative claims Substance Addiction Severity Index Can be ascertained with ICD10 codes Avoid using urine drug screen as Use Disorder Subjective self-report item: Compared to and pharmacy records in electronic singular measure of relapse 1 year ago (or other time frame)
From page 153...
... {During the past 12 months, how/How} many times {have you/have they} seen a doctor or other health care professional about {your/ his/her} health at a doctor's office, a clinic or some other place? Do not include times {you were/s/he was} hospitalized overnight, visits to hospital emergency rooms, home visits or telephone calls.
From page 154...
... Proposed items are suggestions Job Retention Item: Is this a job you wish to keep? Seasonality of employment and would need to be validated.
From page 155...
... If not employed, job search activity Educational Item: Do you desire additional education? If no HS diploma, enrollment in GED/ Proposed items are suggestions Attainment Item: Have you asked for assistance in TASC prep course and would need to be validated.
From page 156...
... Degree of connection to others for social support Receiving peer support Involvement in peer support groups Civic Engagement INDIVIDUAL-LEVEL ITEMS INDIVIDUAL-LEVEL ITEMS Proposed items are suggestions Item: Individual-level political efficacy Item: Political participation (turnout) , and would need to be validated.
From page 157...
... rates Neighborhood Item: Do you feel safe in your neighborhood? Residential Zip code Zip code data enables Context Item: Is public transportation available in measurement of neighborhood your neighborhood?
From page 158...
... activity within broad offense categories over a follow-up period Administrative data item: Deceleration in rate of convictions in time interval Administrative data item: De-escalation in the severity level of convictions Administrative data item: Cessation or absence of criminal convictions over a follow-up period SOURCE: Table derived from analysis and discussion of the committee as a whole. See "Notes" column for references to specific existing instruments and direct sources.
From page 159...
... To help conceptualize and visualize the scale, an image of a ladder is used. Current life satisfaction responses of greater than or equal to 7 and future life optimism responses of greater than or equal to 8 are classified as a thriving life evaluation.
From page 160...
... These surveys enable measurement of individual factors that contribute to success following release, including physical and mental health, but also the social environments that directly influence individual well-being. Already underway is a multisite randomized controlled trial of a sixweek mental health intervention, the 5-Key Model for Reentry, where the primary outcome is individual-level psychological well-being.
From page 161...
... . This model serves as an important proof of concept that such interventions, targeting various components of well-being, may have large impacts on recontact with the criminal legal system and that measures of well-being can be effectively used to measure success following prison release, including avoiding return to prison.
From page 162...
... Historically, standard measures of both recidivism and desistance have typically been based on official statistics, which can provide some indication of the occurrence and relative frequency and severity of criminal events but also reflect criminal legal system activity. As described in Chapter 2, such official data are subject to known biases.
From page 163...
... . These outcomes are referred to as intermediate because they indicate positive changes that may reflect progress toward ceasing criminal behavior and eventually lead to the complete abandonment of criminal behavior, although individuals may not have completely ceased offending at the time of measurement (Burrowes et al., 2013)
From page 164...
... , more accurate than self-reported data on specific health conditions. However, recognizing the challenges associated with accessing health records and that people released from prison often have limited health care access, several national health surveys include self-reported measures of specific physical health and mental health conditions that can be used in research, thereby providing a benchmark of study participants' responses with national rates (see Table 4-1)
From page 165...
... Survey questions from the Bureau of Justice Statistics' Survey of Prison Inmates and Survey of Inmates in Local Jails can also be used in this same way. Mental Health and Substance Use Disorder Given the high prevalence of mental health conditions and substance use disorder among criminal legal system-involved individuals, using specific mental health and substance use indicators that are short and widely used in non-incarcerated populations can complement measures of well-being and can be used in evaluating the success of specific interventions.
From page 166...
... As discussed in Chapter 3, formerly incarcerated individuals experience high rates of housing instability and homelessness. Housing instability makes it difficult for those with incarceration histories to successfully reenter the community and gain stability, establish social networks, and avoid reengagement with the criminal legal system.
From page 167...
... One exception is a multi-site evaluation of housing programs for high-risk individuals, which found that the timing of achieving residential stability in the first weeks and months following release was important in achieving longer-term housing stability and preventing convictions and readmission to prison for new crimes (Lutze, Rosky, and Hamilton, 2014)
From page 168...
... The measurement of employment status among criminal legal system-involved individuals may account for the lack of positive findings about employment and success. Simply measuring employment status as present or absent is often not associated
From page 169...
... . Employment for many criminal legal system-involved individuals is likely to be intermittent, at least initially.
From page 170...
... could be an important marker of success among individuals released from prison. Because people who end up in prison often have low educational attainment, many of them access educational opportunities during their incarceration.
From page 171...
... Runell (2015) conducted in-depth interviews with 34 criminal legal system-involved individuals who enrolled in a state university and found that post-secondary education increased the participants' social and academic networks.
From page 172...
... Social Relationships: Children, Families, Peer Support Strong social relationships are an important component of a successful transition from prison to the community or after other criminal legal system involvement. For example, family support for criminal legal systeminvolved individuals, though it is largely invisible, can be critical to an individual's success.
From page 173...
... . Qualitative studies have made important contributions to our understanding of the role of relationships in criminal behavior and desistance, but more attention is needed to understand the ways in which families and other social relationships and related social capital help individuals succeed, including within the domains of healthcare, education, and employment.
From page 174...
... Importantly, most studies have not examined thoroughly how the specific time course following release affects success, especially whether the first few hours, days, and weeks following release are essential to success and how individuals thrive over the life course. The measurement of success regarding health conditions following release may need to be undertaken in a less regimented way than is typical of other research studies and evaluation efforts (such as with surveys scheduled one month, three months, etc., following release)
From page 175...
... As discussed in Chapter 3, there is strong evidence of racial, ethnic, gender, socioeconomic, and geographic inequities facing criminal legal system-involved individuals which need to be taken into account. For example, an appropriate benchmark for employment of individuals released from prison might be the age-specific labor force participation rate for individuals with a high school degree living in urban areas.
From page 176...
... 5 -- shared examples of situations where individuals they interviewed or observed made decisions that led them to be considered recidivists. The examples, including missing drug tests or appointments with a parole officer or accepting a plea deal that seemed avoidable, reflected these people's complicated relationships with agents of the criminal legal system rather than new criminal activity.
From page 177...
... These analyses illustrate the possibility of cross-sector data linkages to identify how the needs of criminal legal system–involved individuals are or are not being met by other sectors of local government and the social safety net system, recognizing that success after prison release depends on the availability of resources and services from various sectors (Andersen, 2020)
From page 178...
... The ability to measure success following release from prison, and especially the ability to measure the community contexts to which people return, is hindered by data silos and restrictive data-sharing practices across criminal legal institutions. Few police departments routinely share information disaggregated by census tracts or by even smaller areas, like the block or longitude/latitude coordinates of stops and arrests, though many departments use such data in the practice of predictive policing.
From page 179...
... Measuring desistance and reintegration through the narrow lens of recontact with the criminal legal system is likely to undervalue the impacts of reentry programs and miss indicators of incremental progress, including changes in housing stability, job retention, or educational advancement, as indicated by participants in the committee's listening session. Research establishing relationships between non-criminal justice outcomes and reductions in criminal behavior could give policy makers the confidence to focus on those outcomes as a way to influence criminal behavior.
From page 180...
... Looking beyond recidivism as a measure of successful reintegration. The Prison Journal 100, 4, 488–509.
From page 181...
... Committee on Evaluating Success Among People Released from Prison Meeting #2: Public Information Gathering Session. Washington, DC: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.


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