Identifying Criminal Justice Faculty Research Interests Using Voyant and NVivo

Objective-This retrospective cohort study examined the association between co-occurring serious mental illness and substance use disorders and parole revocation among inmates from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, the nation's largest state prison system. Methods-The study population included all 8,149 inmates who were released under parole supervision between September 1, 2006, and November 31, 2006.An electronic database was used to identify inmates whose parole was revoked within 12 months of their release.The independent risk of parole revocation attributable to psychiatric disorders, substance use disorders, and other covariates was assessed with logistic regression analysis.Results-Parolees with a dual diagnosis of a major psychiatric disorder (major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, or other psychotic disorder) and a substance use disorder had a substantially increased risk of having their parole revoked because of either a technical violation (adjusted odds ratio [OR]=1.7,95% confidence interval [CI]=1.4-2.4) or commission of a new criminal offense (OR=2.8,95% CI=1.7-4.5) in the 12 months after their release.However, parolees with a diagnosis of either a major psychiatric disorder alone or a substance use disorder alone demonstrated no such increased risk.Conclusions-These findings highlight the need for future investigations of specific social, behavioral, and other factors that underlie higher rates of parole revocation among individuals with co-occurring serious mental illness and substance use disorders.Over the past four decades the widespread deinstitutionalization of persons with serious mental illness (1-3), the increase in drug-related arrests (4,5), and the reduction of community-based mental health care (1,2) have resulted in a substantial overrepresentation of persons with serious mental illness in the U.S. correctional system (1,2,6).Approximately 10% to 20% of U.S. prison inmates are estimated to have an axis I major mental disorder of thought or mood, such as major depressive disorder, bipolar disorder, or schizophrenia (7-12).Moreover, a majority of inmates with serious mental illness have a comorbid substance use disorder (7,(12)(13)(14)(15).A number of investigations have examined predictors of recidivism among released inmates (16)(17)(18)(19).Although results of these studies-conducted throughout a variety of criminal justice

Prisoners’ Rights, Resistance, and the Law in Postwar Texas Prisons

Although studies reveal substantial mental health treatment needs among youths in the juvenile justice system, far less is known about young offenders transferred to adult criminal court. This statewide study examined the mental health needs of young offenders who committed serious crimes and were transferred to adult court and subsequently incarcerated in a prison for adults. Sixty-four boys aged 16 and 17 years who were incarcerated in the Texas adult correctional system completed the Massachusetts Youth Screening Instrument-Version 2 (MAYSI-2), a mental health screening measure widely used in the juvenile justice system. Scores from the youths in adult prison were compared with those of a matched sample of youths in juvenile correctional facilities, drawn from the MAYSI-2 normative data. Youths in adult prison reported substantial symptoms of mental health problems. Most youths surveyed (51%) scored above the highest clinical cutoff (the "warning" range) on at least one MAYSI-2 subscale. For every clinical subscale except suicide ideation, the majority of youths (54% to 70%, depending on the subscale) scored above the "caution" range. Juveniles in adult prison reported higher rates of symptoms than did those in juvenile correctional facilities (effect sizes ranged from d=.18 to d=.65, depending on the subscale). Although the mental health needs of youths in the juvenile justice system are well documented, this study reveals that mental health treatment needs appear to be even more pronounced in the small subgroup of youths transferred to the adult criminal justice system and incarcerated in adult prison.

Since 2014, a debate has raged over trigger warnings in college courses. Proponents see trigger warnings (oral or written advance notification of course content with the potential to trigger adverse health responses, and therefore, inhibit academic performance) as supportive of students, particularly those who have experienced trauma. Critics see them as harmful to those same students, and as a threat to learning and academic freedom. Using data from a survey of criminal justice and criminology faculty (N = 791), this study found three domains of faculty attitudes, with trigger warnings as a student-centered teaching practice, an academic harm, and compromising content. Female faculty, those who had taught victimology, those in criminal justice departments, and those who identified as more liberal had more positive views of trigger warnings. Only attitudes viewing trigger warnings as a student-centered teaching practice predicted use of trigger warnings. Future research should undertake inter-disciplinary comparisons.

Individuals who are incarcerated represent a vulnerable group due to concerns about their ability to provide voluntary and informed consent, and there are considerable legal protections regarding their participation in medical research. Little is known about the quality of surgical care received by this population. To evaluate perioperative surgical care provided to patients who are incarcerated within the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) and compare their outcomes with that of the general nonincarcerated population. This cohort study analyzed data from patients who were incarcerated within the TDCJ and underwent general or vascular surgery at the University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB) from 2012 to 2021. Case-specific outcomes for a subset of these patients and for patients in the general academic medical center population were obtained from the American College of Surgeons National Quality Improvement Program (ACS-NSQIP) and compared. Additional quality metrics (mortality index, length of stay index, and excess hospital days) from the Vizient Clinical Data Base were analyzed for patients in the incarcerated and nonincarcerated groups who underwent surgery at UTMB in 2020 and 2021 to provide additional recent data. Patient-specific demographics, including age, sex, and comorbidities were not available for analysis within this data set. Perioperative outcomes (30-day morbidity, mortality, and readmission rates) were compared between the incarcerated and nonincarcerated groups using the Fisher exact test. The sample included data from 6675 patients who were incarcerated and underwent general or vascular surgery at UTMB from 2012 to 2021. The ACS-NSQIP included data (2012-2021) for 2304 patients who were incarcerated and 602 patients who were not and showed that outcomes were comparable between the TDCJ population and that of the general population treated at the academic medical center with regard to 30-day readmission (6.60% vs 5.65%) and mortality (0.91% vs 1.16%). However, 30-day morbidity was significantly higher in the TDCJ population (8.25% vs 5.48%, P = .01). The 2020 and 2021 data from the Vizient Clinical Data Base included 629 patients who were incarcerated and 2614 who were not and showed that the incarcerated and nonincarcerated populations did not differ with regard to 30-day readmission (12.52% vs 11.30%) or morbidity (1.91% vs 2.60%). Although the unadjusted mortality rate was significantly lower in the TDCJ population (1.27% vs 2.68%, P = .04), mortality indexes, which account for case mix index, were similar between the 2 populations (1.17 vs 1.12). Findings of this cohort study suggest that patients who are incarcerated have equivalent rates of mortality and readmission compared with a general academic medical center population. Future studies that focus on elucidating the potential factors associated with perioperative morbidity and exploring long-term surgical outcomes in the incarcerated population are warranted.

The American dictionary of criminal justice: key terms and major court cases

Scant research is currently available on the characteristics that criminology and criminal justice (CCJ) departments believe are important for academic job applicants. The current study uses a nationally representative sample of faculty members to assess the perceived importance of a wide array of applicants’ attributes, to explore the extent of agreement about valued attributes among current criminal justice and criminology faculty members, and to analyze correlates of these ratings. We find that many characteristics are considered at least moderately important. At the extremes, involvement in research, publishing, and teaching stand out as particularly important, and demographic characteristics are relatively unimportant. We also find considerable consensus among faculty regarding the value of various candidate attributes. We discuss our implications in terms of what they reveal about preparing for the job market and about the discipline of criminal justice more broadly.

Community Treatment More Humane, Reduces Criminal-Justice Costs

Service-learning is an academic tool used to engage students in a hands-on approach to targeting a community need with an emphasis on reflection. While studies utilizing criminal justice students have shown that on-campus students see value in such experience, little is known about those enrolled in online criminal justice courses. The current study compared a final reflection assignment grade for on-campus and online students in a Victim Advocacy and Victimology course (within a criminal justice department) following their service-learning project on creating training on gender-based violence. No differences were found when assessing critical thinking, personal impact, or awareness of the significance of the project for on-campus and online students. The findings suggest criminal justice professors should invest more time in the creation of service-learning opportunities for online students as they can gain the same valuable experiences as their equivalent on-campus students.

Teaching and research are often the most focused upon aspects of working within academia in criminology and criminal justice (Sitren & Applegate, 2012; Jonson & Moon, 2014; Pratt, 2014), but an overlooked and underappreciated part of an undergraduate’s overall higher education success is academic advising (Light, 2001). There has been scant research on advising within criminology and criminal justice, and this paper seeks to fill this gap by detailing reflections on the advising process within a successful and growing criminology and criminal justice program. Strategies for advising overall will be presented as will particular situations and student needs. Lastly, a case study of how advising works for a criminology and criminal justice department from a large, public institution located in the Southeastern United States will be discussed and demonstrate how the strategies, situations, and student needs apply.

Of Athenians and Spartans: Profiles of freedom and enlightenment in the leadership styles of criminal justice academic administrators: An essay

This article assesses the quality of 299 faculty in 20 American doctoral programs in criminology and criminal justice by counting the number of citations of their work in six major American criminology and criminal justice journals published between 1991 and 1995. The University of Maryland, the University of Cincinnati, Rutgers University, and SUNY-Albany were the institutions with most citations. The individual faculty members most often cited were Francis T. Cullen (University of Cincinnati), Raymond Paternoster, Lawrence W. Sherman and Douglas A. Smith (all University of Maryland). The majority of the most-cited scholars in these six journals, however, were not members of criminology or criminal justice departments.

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) has the busiest execution chamber in the USA. Between 1924 and 1964, Texas executed 361 men. Since the end of the national death penalty moratorium in 1982, Texas has executed 528 men and women (Fernandez and Schwartz 2014; Texas Department of Criminal Justice 2015). Texas was also the first state in the USA to execute using lethal injection (Marquart et al. 1994: 137). Given this volume of executions performed in Texas as well as the current controversies over the method of lethal injection, interpreting representations of this practice are critical to understanding the dynamics of capital punishment. Located in Huntsville, the heart of the Texas prison system, the Texas Prison Museum is the only cultural site where the public can gain information about Texas executions and cast their own eyes on the electric chair, "Old Sparky."

In Brown v. Collier , 929 F.3d 218 (5th Cir. 2019), the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit reversed a district court decision that had denied a claim from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) seeking to terminate a 1977 consent decree. The decree had protected Muslim

ABSTRACTMost correctional officers adhere to strong organizational norms that emphasize the importance of following rules. Some, however, break the custodial frame and behave inappropriately with inmates. Guided by Robert K. Merton’s social structure and anomie theory, we examined 501 questionnaires collected from correctional officers within the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. When correctional officers perceive that their coworkers engage in boundary violations with inmates, job satisfaction is significantly lower. Our novel application of Merton’s framework makes a contribution to the correctional job satisfaction literature and has important implications for the contemporary development and significance of social structure and anomie theory.