Halfway Home Research Articles

"These Places are easy to get into but Impossible to get out of": Women's Pathways to Psychiatric Institutions and Barriers to Community Reentry in India.

In India, where institutional-based mental health care is common, gender and other intersecting marginalized identities along with absent familial support contribute to women's admission and prolonged confinement to psychiatric institutions. However, an intersectional analysis of factors that prevent women with limited familial support from returning to their communities is lacking. This article is based on narratives of eleven women residing at a halfway home in an urban city in India, awaiting return to their communities. We include descriptions and an intersectional analysis of women's pathways to psychiatric institutions, their experiences receiving institutional-based mental health care, and the challenges they face as they contemplate returning to their communities. This study adds to the minimal research examining women's gendered pathways to psychiatric institutions in India. Women's narratives highlight that gender and illness-related disadvantages coupled with economic adversity that led to the initial admission also serve as deterrents to reentering the community.

Halfway Home? Residential Housing and Reincarceration

Every year, hundreds of thousands of people are released from prison. For many, the transition back to society includes a mandatory stay in residential housing. I estimate the effect of residential housing on reincarceration using administrative data from Iowa. I address selection into residential housing by instrumenting for residential housing assignment with the recommendation rate of randomly assigned case managers. I find no evidence that Iowa’s costly investment in residential housing results in reduced reincarceration relative to parole. Instead, residential housing increases reincarceration due to violent crimes and technical violations, while decreasing drug and public order crimes. (JEL K42, R23, R31, R38)

Writing from the flesh: A response to my interlocutors

Writing from the flesh: A response to my interlocutors

Reuben Jonathan Miller, Halfway Home: Race, Punishment, and the Afterlife of Mass Incarceration

Reuben Jonathan Miller, <i>Halfway Home: Race, Punishment, and the Afterlife of Mass Incarceration</i>

Reuben Jonathan Miller, Halfway Home: Race, Punishment, and the Afterlife of Mass Incarceration

Reuben Jonathan Miller, <i>Halfway Home: Race, Punishment, and the Afterlife of Mass Incarceration</i>

Halfway Home: Race, Punishment, and the Afterlife of Mass Incarceration, by Reuben JonathanMiller. Little, Brown and Company, New York, NY. 2021. 341 Pp. $29.00, Hardcover. ISBN: 978‐0‐316‐45151‐2.

Halfway Home: Race, Punishment, and the Afterlife of Mass Incarceration, by Reuben JonathanMiller. Little, Brown and Company, New York, NY. 2021. 341 Pp. $29.00, Hardcover. ISBN: 978‐0‐316‐45151‐2.

Prevalence and Predictors of Relapse among Patients with Schizophrenia at Psychiatric Healthcare Institutions in North-Western Nigeria

Background: Nigerians with Schizophrenic disorder are experiencing multiple relapses during the course of the illness. Relapse is disabling and distressing, associated with progressive functional deterioration as well as worsening treatment response and clinical prognosis.&#x0D; Aim: Thestudy aims to assess the prevalence and predictors of relapse among patients with Schizophrenia in North-western Nigeria.&#x0D; Methods: A cross-sectional descriptive design was employed to conduct the study in Federal Neuro-Psychiatric Hospital Kaduna, Kano State Psychiatric Hospital Dawanau, and Federal Neuro-Psychiatric Hospital Kware, Sokoto States. The Population of the study constitutes all patients with schizophrenia attending the outpatient units of the Hospitals with a sample size of 464 patients a crossed the facilities. A purposive sampling technique was used in the study to recruit respondents. Self -structure Questionnaire was the instrument for data collection. Data collected were analyzed using SPSS Version 23 and presented using mean, standard deviation, frequency, and percentages. Regression analysis was used at a 0.05 level of significance to determine predictors of relapse..&#x0D; Results: Findings revealed that from the year 2018 to 2020, the prevalence of relapse among patients with schizophrenia is very high in the year 2020 with 71% relapse in Kano state, 40% relapse in Sokoto state, and 14% relapse in Kaduna state. The study shows that co-morbid illness, stressful life events, and inadequate mental health services are predictors of relapse (p&lt;0.05).&#x0D; Conclusion: The study concludes that personal, social, and health facility factors are predictors of relapse among patients with Schizophrenia in North-west Nigeria.&#x0D; Recommendations: Emotional and social support like halfway home, assertive community therapy, self -help groups should be provided to patients with schizophrenia, as these can play a vital role in their response to the ailment thereby reducing relapse and the prevalence of the disease.

Miller R, Halfway Home: Race, Punishment and the Afterlife of Mass Incarceration

Miller R, <i>Halfway Home: Race, Punishment and the Afterlife of Mass Incarceration</i>

Book review: Halfway Home: Race, Punishment and the Afterlife of Mass Incarceration

Book review: Halfway Home: Race, Punishment and the Afterlife of Mass Incarceration

The Afterlife of Mass Incarceration, or What Does It Mean to Need a “Brute” in the Twenty-First Century?

The Afterlife of Mass Incarceration, or What Does It Mean to Need a “Brute” in the Twenty-First Century?

Addressing the Barrier of Physical Access to Oncology Care in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) Through Establishment of Short-Stay Homes for Cancer Patients: A Case of International Cancer Institute, Child and Family Wellness Center in Eldoret, Kenya

PURPOSE Geographical distance to access services and lack of decentralized diagnostic and treatment facilities have been identified as barriers to positive treatment outcomes among cancer patients in Sub-Saharan Africa who have to undergo financial and logistical challenges. Potential approaches to reducing this barrier include providing transport/travel allowance to patients from far flung regions, decentralizing cancer care services or providing patient housing close to cancer treatment facilities. METHODS The International Cancer Institute Child and Family Wellness Center was established in June 2020 as a half-way home for patients undergoing treatment at the ICI Cancer Care and Research Clinic (ICI_CRC). The center aims to provide safe accommodation for patients having challenges to travel to and from their homes for diagnostic work-up and treatment. RESULTS Between June 2020 and October 2021, a total of 101 admissions were made to the ICI Child and Family Wellness Center, of these 76% were female while 24% were male patients. A majority of the patients were first time admissions while 22% of them were admitted more than once; 69% of them were accompanied by a caregiver. The longest duration of stay was 18 days while the shortest was 1 day depending on the reason for admission; the most common being treatment sessions ending late in the day or treatment sessions taking more than one day. The patients admitted were drawn from 15 different counties in Kenya. CONCLUSION Physical inaccessibility to cancer care services in SSA greatly affects patient compliance with treatment and follow-up. Patients who live far from specialist care hospitals are more likely to have an advanced disease at diagnosis, inappropriate treatment, a worse prognosis and poorer quality of life compared to those living closer to hospitals. In addition to decentralization of cancer care, provision of accommodation for cancer patients close to hospitals can greatly improve compliance to treatment resulting in positive treatment outcomes.

Halfway Home: Race, Punishment, and the Afterlife of Mass Incarceration. By Reuben Jonathan Miller. New York: Little, Brown, 2021. Pp. 352. $29.00 (cloth); $18.99 (paper).

<i>Halfway Home: Race, Punishment, and the Afterlife of Mass Incarceration</i>. By Reuben Jonathan Miller. New York: Little, Brown, 2021. Pp. 352. $29.00 (cloth); $18.99 (paper).

Psychiatric Rehabilitation During COVID-19 Pandemic: Richmond Fellowship Society (I), Bangalore Branch Experience.

Richmond Fellowship Society (India) [RFS(I)] is a "Not for Profit" Non-Governmental Organization working for the psychosocial rehabilitation of persons with chronic mental illness. The RFS(I) Bangalore branch runs a daycare, half-way home, and long-stay facility. This paper describes the RFS(I) Bangalore branch's experience running psychiatric rehabilitation facilities during the first two waves of the COVID-19 pandemic, including managing a COVID-19 outbreak in the residential facilities.

Book review: Reuben Jonathan Miller, Halfway Home: Race, Punishment, and the Afterlife of Mass Incarceration

Book review: Reuben Jonathan Miller, <i>Halfway Home: Race, Punishment, and the Afterlife of Mass Incarceration</i>

Halfway Home – The Rehabilitation of New Zealand Second World War POWs in Britain

While suffering through monotony and deprivations, New Zealand Second World War POWs mentally escaped their confines by imagining their eventual return home. They envisaged returning to a world free from the woes of captivity and war. This paper examines their rehabilitation in Britain. While Britain was not New Zealand, the prisoners expected it to conform to their idealised version of home. However, this paper argues prisoners experienced difficulties during their rehabilitation, and they were destabilised when confronted with the continued presence of the war and captivity.

Activity Based Group Therapy on Interpersonal Relationship Among the Mentally Ill Clients in Selected Halfway Home, Coimbatore

Activity Based Group Therapy on Interpersonal Relationship Among the Mentally Ill Clients in Selected Halfway Home, Coimbatore

ITAL Editorial Board Thoughts. Halfway Home: User Centered Design and Library Websites

Our Library Website has now gone through two major redesigns in the past five or so years. In both cases, a User Centered Design approach was used to plan the site.

The Quest for Measurement

They say that recognizing that we have a problem is half the battle and, if this is true, Anthony Bryk is definitely halfway home. He argues that educational reform efforts over the past two decades have failed to meet expectations for a variety of reasons including: hasty implementations, inadequate attention to how the reforms should be put into practice, failure to supply essential resources, and the emergence of unintended and possibly perverse co...

‘A shelter is not a home’: Voices of homeless women in the City of Tshwane

ABSTRACTIn response to a request from the City of Tshwane that homelessness in the city be explored, a research team was established in 2014. The research was divided into four pillars: conceptual/theoretical perspectives of homelessness; narratives and experiences of homeless and former homeless people, particularly women; documentation of current practices to curb homelessness in the city; and policies that address homelessness in City of Tshwane. This article focuses on the second pillar. Individual interviews and one focus group interview with eight women were conducted. The results revealed four storylines: a shelter was halfway home; shelters had restrictive and protective regulations; reconnection programmes with families were required; and hope – as a matter of survival. Improving people’s economic status (not providing shelters) was the permanent solution to homelessness. Emphasis was on women’s right to equal status in housing issues which are guided by well-founded policies that are women friendly.

Analyse de l’activité d’une équipe mobile psychiatrie-précarité (EMPP) : des urgences médicopsychiatriques dans la rue à la pratique d’hospitalisation à domicile pour des personnes sans domicile

Since their creation in 2005 in France, mobile mental health outreach teams (EMPP) have been working to improve the health of the homeless who, for 30 to 50% of them, present severe mental disorders. Their missions are defined by ministerial circular's specifications. Few studies have been undertaken in France to analyze the practices of these teams' professionals, nor the characteristics of the populations with whom they are involved. The EMPP described in this paper had in 2010 a greater staff than other French EMPPs. It has 15 full-time staff, including four doctors (two psychiatrists, one GP, one house physician), two nurses, two educators, one social worker, three peer-workers, one secretary and two coordinators. The article analyzes the way of support developed within the range of EMPP's missions defined by the ministerial circular. Descriptive statistical analysis was carried out using standardized data from four different sources (round sheet, record of activity, record of hospitalization, housing information, interviews conducted by medical and social professionals with patients). Another source of data consists of records describing the operation of the team (reference framework) and annual activities (annual report). The method of care was developed based on a street working, involving a full medical and its relationship with the hospital and a place to live in a semi-community context. The Mobile Mental Health Outreach team documented 318 rounds in 2010, describing 666 contacts among whom 87.9% were followed regularly thereafter. It focuses to a target population. The team actively followed 198 people including 161 for whom a psychiatric diagnosis was done: 48.5% of the patients followed presented schizophrenic-type disorders, 21.8% bipolar disorders and other mood-linked problems, 13% behavioral disorders and 6.2% substance-use disorders. A percentage of 44.9 presented with a physical disease. Among the 89 hospitalizations, 86.5% were motivated by psychiatric disorders and 43% were forced. In about one third of the cases, hospitalizations were motivated by a double indication -psychiatric and physical- and in 13.5% for only a physical indication. Thirty people of the actively followed people had stayed in a halfway house as an alternative to hospitalization, restoring a continuity of care and allowing to resolve social problems that had until then been hopeless. The strategies developed by this Mobile Health Outreach Team ensure local community medical, psychiatric and social care for "hard to reach" people. The results confirm the interest of the link between the street work, the hospital and the halfway home, both as a living facility and an alternative to hospitalization. They suggest the importance of a critical minimum size for these EMPP that allows them a street work with doctors providing guidance. The presence of a GP is another welcome development because of the severity and the entanglement of somatic and psychiatric problems of these populations.