Alcohol use disorder (AUD) is a highly stigmatized condition, often associated with negative stereotypes such as being morally weak, incompetent, unpredictable, and aggressive. People with AUD are at risk of experiencing self-stigma, a social-cognitive experience in which people think others hold negative stereotypes about them, expect to be treated unfairly, and/or believe that negative stereotypes are personally accurate. Women in the criminal justice system with AUD in particular are at risk of experiencing self-stigma due to intersecting sources of disadvantage. Given that self-stigma can lead to treatment avoidance and dropout, it is important to understand risk factors for self-stigma to inform prevention and intervention efforts in the justice system. Incarcerated women with AUD (=185) completed measures of alcohol self-stigma as well as a variety of theoretically relevant risk factors including sociodemographics, baseline levels of stress and depression, and alcohol-related factors (i.e., length of drinking history, frequency/amount of use, consequences of use, physician advice to stop, belief that legal involvement is related to alcohol use, alcohol-related charges, self-efficacy to quit, readiness for treatment, pressures to enter treatment, factors that influence treatment) and other stigmatized conditions (drug use, exchanging sex, and homelessness). Results showed that experiencing more consequences of alcohol use, pressures to enter treatment, and perceived stress were associated with internalized stigma and anticipated/enacted stigma. This study begins to identify which incarcerated women with AUD are most at risk of experiencing self-stigma that may interfere with alcohol treatment.

With the various studies that point to racial disparities at different levels of the United States' criminal justice system, it is necessary to uncover all places within the system where racial disparities might exist. Understanding that Black inmates are disproportionately represented within the prison system led to the hypothesis that Black inmates receive harsher punishments than White inmates when they violate a rule while in prison. A cross-sectional study, "Survey of Inmates in State and Federal Correctional Facilities, 2004," which was available through ICPSR, was used in order to test the hypothesis. The data were collected from October 2003 through May 2004. For the current study, only inmates who had committed armed robbery, aggravated assault, or murder were in the sample. After the modification of the variables comprised of race, rule violations, and punishment type, the sample size was 652. First, an OLS regression was used in three models, which showed that major rule violations had a significant effect on the type of punishment an inmate received, but race did not. Second, age groups were employed to run an OLS regression within each of the four age groups. This revealed that major rule violations had a significant effect on the type of punishment an inmate received in four of the age groups, but race was not significant in any of the models. Implications and possible explanations regarding these findings are discussed.

This study examined the effectiveness of art therapy in decreasing symptoms of trauma and psychological distress in women who were incarcerated in county jails in the Southeastern United States. In order to protect the integrity of the study, control subjects were in different dormitories from the treatment subjects. While the dormitories were randomly assigned to treatment or control, the subjects were not. The dependent measures were paper and pencil tests, the Outcome Questionnaire (OQ-45.2) and the Trauma Symptom Inventory (TSI) given at pretest and posttest. A demographic questionnaire was completed in the first session to better characterize the participants. In addition, a post study evaluation with open ended questions was completed at the end of the study that allowed participants to share their feelings about the treatment experience. Additional qualitative information was obtained through observation data collected by the investigator who served as the provider of treatment. Art therapy group participants attended six sessions of art therapy over a three week period which was administered using six standard art projects. Like treatment subjects, control participants had access to the treatment available in the jail to all inmates, and were offered art therapy treatment after final data were obtained. Though the statistical data gathered in this study did not provide empirical evidence that the group art therapy treatment was effective in reducing symptomatology, the qualitative responses indicated that the treatment was rated very positively by the participants. No statistically significant changes were found in overall scores, however, some significance was found on some individual treatment scales. Scores measuring psychological distress and trauma symptoms generally decreased over time for all study participants, however, treatment participant scores improved at a greater rate. The study was limited due to small sample size (N=26). Nearly half of the original participants were lost to attrition associated with administrative actions in the county jail system. The measurement instruments used were not specifically adapted to incarcerated individuals and may not have provided adequate measurement for this population. Responses from the participants were overwhelmingly positive. Inmates responses to the post study evaluation indicated that they had enjoyed the experience and would recommend the group to others. More than 75% stated that they felt that the treatment had helped them deal with difficult experiences in their past. The most frequent suggestion for the future was that the groups needed to be continued, and should be longer and more frequent.

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This research offers a critical and comprehensive understanding of the current state of prison programming for federally sentenced women in Canada. Its purpose is to map how women prisoners are assessed and processed in terms of their mental health needs and risks and the correctional programs they are required to participate in as part of their correctional rehabilitation plan. By mobilizing a feminist governmentality theoretical lens, the research examines the gendered, neoliberal, and psy management of women prisoners as it occurs through correctional programming interventions and the discourses that underpin the programs in which the women are required to participate. Methodologically, this research draws on over 11,000 pages of documents from the Correctional Service of Canada, which were obtained through a federal Access to Information and Privacy request, as well as eight in-depth, semi-structured interviews with formerly incarcerated, federally sentenced women. I argue that women's experiences of marginalization and criminalization flow from structural factors that are variously impacted by their intersecting identities and which are subsumed beneath discourses of responsibilization and risk management within the programming documents and largely ignored as a result of the security-focused and risk-centred carceral logics that govern prison life and management. The analysis revealed that programming documents - including facilitator manuals, staff training guides, participant workbooks, policy guidelines, and administrative documents - discursively constitute women as emotionally out of control, motivated primarily by their relationships, and as cognitively flawed. Through discourses of empowerment and care, and by way of self-monitoring strategies and improved self-esteem, women prisoners are tasked with managing their own mental health needs and risks and choosing a path of prescribed rehabilitation. Placing the onus of change squarely on the individual prisoner effectively sets aside the structural factors and contexts that lie at the root of women's criminalization, which women cannot simply "choose" to change. Despite the Correctional Service of Canada's appearance of women-centredness and gender responsivity, women are subject to control, coercion, and intense responsibilization efforts in and through correctional programming initiatives.

Adolescents within the juvenile system suffer from a multitude of physical and mental health issues. Previous studies have linked incarceration to poor health in juveniles, but very few have been able to claim incarceration is the cause for the mental health issues found in incarcerated juveniles. Whether juveniles go into the system with pre-existing mental health disorders or not, still many factors are associated with the development of mental disorders while incarcerated. Based on what the field knows and does not know about the link between juvenile incarceration and mental health, the goal of this study was to determine if incarceration is directly associated with increases in depression and anxiety among incarcerated juveniles. To explore this issue further, I conducted a study that investigates the relationship using data from the Pathways to Desistance Study. The results of the study established a clear causal ordering between mental health and incarceration demonstrating that mental health appears to deteriorate during incarceration and improve after release. This study can aid in the reform of juvenile detention as mental health programs can be developed in order to assist incarcerated adolescents.

This study compared the experiences of adolescent offenders with and without incarcerated parents. A sample of adolescent offenders (n = 26) completed questionnaires assessing past experiences, including trauma and violence, and current behaviors. Over half of the participants reported having a parent who had served time in jail or prison. Adolescent offenders with incarcerated parents were more likely to feel safe at home and school, and more likely to witness their parents in a physical fight than adolescent offenders without incarcerated parents. In contrast, there were no significant differences between adolescent offenders with and without incarcerated parents in self-reported trauma. Post hoc analyses revealed that female adolescent offenders felt less safe, reported more physical punishment, and had more DHS involvement than male adolescent offenders.

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[pt] Nas Américas a política de aprisionamento tem sido crescentemente utilizado como uma forma de lidar com infratores da lei, sendo observado um aumento vertiginosos nas taxas de encarceramento dos países a partir da década de 80. Apesar disso, existe pouca evidencia sobre quanto esse tipo de penalidade afeta os resultados do mercado de trabalho de ex-internos, especialmente no contexto de países subdesenvolvidos. Esse trabalho explora o sorteio dos processos entre juízes das varas criminais, e seus níveis de severidade distintos, como variável instrumental para estimar o efeito do encarceramento nos resultados do mercado de trabalho formal. Foi construída uma base de dados que combinou as sentenças de primeira instancia as varas criminais da cidade de São Paulo, Brasil, com o registro formal de emprego da RAIS. Encontramos que o efeito negativo imediato de uma sentença condenatória ao regime fechado ou semi-aberto diminui ao longo do tempo, desaparecendo depois que o indivíduo foi solto. / [en] In Americas imprisonment policy has increasingly been adopted to deal with law offenders, and a steep increase in countries incarceration rates has been observed since the 1980s. Nevertheless, we still lack evidence on how such penalty affects labour market outcomes of ex-inmates, specially in developing countries. This work exploits the variation in detention tendencies of randomly-assigned judges as an instrumental variable to estimate the impacts of incarceration on formal labour market outcomes.We construct a unique panel dataset merging data from São Paulo city court, containing judicial sentence information with formal employment records. Essentially, we compare individuals who were sentenced to prison with those who were not. We find that the immediate negative impact of sentence to prison on employment tends to fade over time and disappear after release.