Background: Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) disproportionately affects certain populations, specifically those passing through correctional facilities. It is estimated that about 1.4% of the approximately two million people residing in correctional facilities are living with HIV. Although the health services offered in correctional facilities are limited, health status may improve substantially for individuals during their placement. Often this progress is lost once a person is released back into the community. Lack of access to care and/or financial assistance inhibits the ability to make health a priority, especially when individuals are faced with the struggle to obtain basic needs such as food, shelter, housing, and employment. This population also bears an unequal burden of non-HIV health conditions. Of those individuals currently incarcerated in the state of Georgia, 1.6% are HIV positive, 26% suffer from chronic illness, 52% have mental health issues, and 25% have reported using drugs or alcohol. In an effort to provide support for this population, Georgia State University partnered with Georgia Department of Corrections Pre-Release Planning Program (PRPP) to establish the Community Connections (CC) Program in 2009. CC program was designed to connect participants with resources that assist with successful reintegration into the community. Exit interviews were conducted with individuals after their participation, and were used to gather information about post-release challenges and outcomes associated with the CC Program. This qualitative study used these interviews to analyze the specific health-related challenges experienced by CC participants. The results from this analysis were used to provide recommendations for further improvements that address the needs of former inmates living with HIV at the policy level. Methods: This study analyzed a set of 16 in-depth, semi-structured interviews with individuals that participated in the post-release CC program during 2010 to 2012. These participants were recruited via convenience sampling, and informed consent was obtained prior to each interview. Interview questions were focused around topics pertaining to housing, employment, risk behaviors, sexual activity, social interactions, HIV care, mental health, substance abuse, and access to medication or treatment. A modified grounded theory approach was used in the analysis. Interviews were openly coded for words and phrases that pertained to health status. The results were used to determine the most pressing health-related challenges associated with this population, and to provide recommendations at the policy level for addressing such issues. Results: Commonly reported co-occurring conditions from this study were as follows: high blood pressure, epilepsy, high cholesterol, anemia, insomnia, arrhythmia, migraines, kidney disease, neuropathy, blood clots, and diabetes. Depression was the most frequently reported mental illness, followed by bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. Over half of participants reported using drugs or alcohol before, during, or following incarceration. Additional barriers to maintaining positive health outcomes included lack of medical insurance or financial assistance, the need for oral health care, and frequent hospitalization. Conclusions: Findings illustrate the need for policy-level changes that specifically address post-release challenges for former inmates, and aim to improve health-related outcomes for this population. Linking this population to services that provide basic needs such as housing and employment would enable them to focus on maintaining their health status. Further, linking this population to insurance or other forms of financial assistance immediately following release is crucial to avoiding gaps in healthcare and treatment relapse. In the state of Georgia, expanding Medicaid to make former inmates eligible would provide a major source of relief for some of these issues. Policy-level changes will not only benefit the individual, but the community as a whole by improving overall health outcomes, reducing the spread of diseases, preventing the occurrence of relapse, and reducing the likelihood of recidivism attributable to illness.

Thesis (M.A. (MW))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2008.

Thesis (M.A. (MW))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2008.

This study used thematic analysis to investigate how youth court professionals, namely Youth Court Judges, Youth Probation Officers, and Youth Police Officers, make decisions to incarcerate young females for administrative offences. Sixteen professionals from Lower Vancouver Island shared their experiences through one-on-one interviews, which were then thematically analysed. This method of analysis shed light on four major themes across the professional groups: i) The Youth Criminal Justice Act (2002); ii) Decision-making; iii) The decline in crime; and iv) Services for adjudicated youth. Findings were discussed in relation to the literature and the resources currently available in the community. / Graduate / 0627 / 0398 / 0452 / tamorim@uvic.ca

Master of Landscape Architecture / Department of Landscape Architecture/Regional and Community Planning / Brent C. Chamberlain / In the United States there are approximately 2.2 million people incarcerated in prisons and jails, making the U.S. incarcerated population the largest in the world (Kaeble and Glaze, 2016; Lindemuth, 2014). With the expansion of the prison population, women now comprise a larger portion than ever before (FBJS, 2010). There are approximately 100,000 women incarcerated in US federal and state prisons (FBJS, 2015). Many facilities do not contain adequate programs to help rehabilitate these women (Young, 2000). Prisons are often termed “correctional facilities”, but struggle to promote positive behavior and well-being (Pacholke, 2014; Haney, 2001; SuedFeld, 1980). When the prison environment is examined, it is often found that prisons are bleak, unwelcoming institutions (Lindemuth, 2014). This prompts the question: How can landscape architects design prison environments that improve psychological health and promote positive behavior? Evidence suggests that exposure to nature improves psychological health and promotes positive behavior (Moore, 1981; Ulrich, 1984, Ulrich, 1991, Hartig, 1991). Many studies report on the effects of therapeutic landscapes in healthcare settings, (e.g. Ulrich, 1999; Cooper Marcus & Barnes, 1995, 1999; Mitrione and Larson, 2007), however, limited literature exists on therapeutic landscapes within the prison context. The focus of this report is to explore how landscapes within women’s prison facilities can be designed to reduce stress and promote positive behavior.

The incarceration of mentally ill youth is a serious problem not receiving the same attention as in adults. In this study, we examine the level of prior service utilization in incarcerated youth versus youth receiving community mental health services. We randomly recruited youth from middle South Carolina served by a local community mental health center (CMHC; n = 60), hospitalized in the state adolescent inpatient program (n = 50), and incarcerated in the S.C. Dept. of Juvenile Justice facilities (n = 75). We used a Services History to evaluate episodes of prior utilization of mental health, social service, educational, residential, and volunteer services, as well as the DISC-PC 2.3 to evaluate DSM-III-R diagnoses and symptoms and the CBCL and YSR to evaluate behavioral symptomatology. Incarcerated, hospitalized, and CMHC youth utilized similar levels of educational services and social services. Incarcerated youth had a significantly lower lifetime utilization of outpatient and acute mental health services and significantly higher utilization of out-of-home residential services than the other groups. These services utilization variables, along with gender and age, significantly distinguish incarcerated youth from the clinical groups, with clinical variables not serving to significantly distinguish them. Our results indicate the need to develop programs to prevent the entry of mentally ill/emotionally disturbed youth into the juvenile justice system. Youth who are at risk for incarceration may benefit from intensive mental health services to prevent out-of-home placement and later incarceration.

This study calls into question the use of the total incarceration response variable incorporated into sentencing studies over the past 30 years. Specifically, using data from the Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing (PCS), it argues - and reveals - that prison and jail represent two distinct institutions, and that the judge's decision on disposition should take that factor into account. It recommends that researchers should therefore reconsider use of the total incarceration variable, which combines prison and jail into a single response category.

When mainstream institutions fail to provide adequate avenues for black Americans to develop humanizing understandings of their identities and exclude them from full citizenship, how do black Americans develop identity, belonging, and community within structures of oppression? Through ethnography and archival research this study documents how the aesthetic realm historically and contemporarily serves as a site of articulation where rural black Americans recast notions of black subjectivity and local belonging. To understand the process of rural black Americans using the aesthetic realm to reposition the importance of mainstream institutions, this research uses a 'socio-diasporic' framework to view the ways those socially positioned as black come to understand that positioning via the way institutions structure their day-to-day reality; and how through the forging of diasporic connections black people have been able to construct knowledge within, alongside, and independently of those institutions. Specifically, this ethnography situates the criminal justice system as a primary institutional apparatus in defining the societal significance of blackness in northeast North Carolina. Hip-hop has served as a performative avenue to engage negotiations of identity, and through this search for identity black centered epistemological and ontological understandings of black subjectivity have been created. To appreciate black Americans' unique understandings of the world that I argue they construct, I advance the notion of "vibe" as a methodological tool to conceptualize the way specific aesthetic and cultural sensibilities are used to construct understandings of blackness, gendered identity, and local belonging. / Doctor of Philosophy / When America fails to provide black Americans spaces to develop dignity and excludes them from full citizenship, how do black Americans develop identity, belonging, and community living in an oppressive society? Through living with rural black Americans and exploring how they understand their lived experience this study documents how the aesthetic realm historically and contemporarily serves as a space where rural black Americans reshape notions of black identity and local belonging. To understand the process of rural black Americans using the aesthetic realm to challenge the taken-for-granted structure of American society, this research views the ways those socially positioned as black forge community with each other and develop new ways of understanding their selves and society in ways that don’t squarely align with mainstream assumptions. Specifically, this ethnography situates the criminal justice system as a primary structure in America that shapes the significance of blackness in northeast North Carolina, linking what it means to be black to criminal. Hip-hop has served as a performative avenue to engage negotiations of identity, and through this search for identity black centered ways of understanding the world has been created that challenge American assumptions about humanity.

Increasing rates of maternal incarceration are potentially linked to development of delinquency in the children of these mothers. Current literature points to the intergenerational transmission of criminality that may result in future low socioeconomic status and unemployment for children of incarcerated mothers, yet little of this literature addresses the link between maternal incarceration and juvenile delinquency. Using attachment theory as the foundation, the purpose of this quantitative correlational study was to assess correlation between maternal incarceration and juvenile delinquency, as well as investigate the mediating role of child gender, race, current relationship with the primary caregiver, and disciplinary environment. The sample was obtained from the Fragile Families and Child Well-Being Study (FFWCS) conducted by faculty at Princeton and Columbia Universities. The pre-existing dataset includes data on 5,000 children born in the United States between 1998 and 2000 and their mothers. Mothers were interviewed and the sample size for this study was 5,000 adults. The quantitative analysis revealed no significant relationship between maternal incarceration and their children’s delinquency. No mediating effects were found for child gender, race, current relationship with the primary caregiver, or disciplinary environment. In all, the study’s findings complicate understandings of childhood delinquency, offering impetus for further studies, both to replicate these findings and to establish other causal factors. The identification of such factors may guide policy makers to look at existing policies to determine their need and effectiveness. Officials for corrections, welfare services, and family-support agencies may need to develop policies to allow incarcerated mothers and their children to maintain regular contact.

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