Texas Department Of Criminal Research Articles

Hepatocellular Carcinoma Prevalence and Mortality in a Male State Prison Population

The incidence of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in the United States has increased dramatically over the last two decades, largely because of an increase in the number of people with advanced hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. U.S. prisoners are at high risk for HCC, given their elevated rates of HCV infection, comorbid hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection, and alcoholic liver disease. The purpose of our study was to examine the prevalence and mortality of HCC in the nation's largest state prison system. The study population consisted of 325,477 male Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) inmates who were incarcerated between January 1, 2003, and July 31, 2006. Information on medical conditions and demographic characteristics was obtained from an institution-wide medical information system. During the 3.5-year study period, 176 male TDCJ inmates (54 per 100,000) were diagnosed with HCC and 108 (33 per 100,000) died as a result of HCC. Inmates who were Hispanic, older, and infected with HCV, HBV, or human immunodeficiency virus had elevated rates of both HCC prevalence and mortality. After adjusting for all study covariates, HCC prevalence, but not mortality, was modestly elevated among inmates with diabetes. Our study showed that the Texas male prison population had a sevenfold higher prevalence of HCC than the general U.S. male population and a fourfold higher death rate from HCC. These findings likely reflect the high concentration of HCC-related risk factors, particularly HCV, among prisoners.

Criminal Justice Faculty Credentials: A Response to Drs Hemmens and Hunter

This article is a response to the criticisms of Drs. Hemmens and Hunter which appeared in recent issues of the Journal of Criminal Justice Education. Both agree that ACJS accreditation, which requires criminal justice departments who seek master’s program accreditation to have a faculty where 90% hold a PhD in criminal justice, will lead to greater status and strengthen the position of criminal justice programs within higher education. However, the 90% requirement does not necessarily improve the overall quality of the faculty in criminal justice programs and therefore should be eliminated. Moreover, the accreditation standards with respect to the faculty credential quotas fails to take into consideration the current faculty make‐up at some of America’s best criminal justice schools and is inferior to the rubric used by most regional accreditation organizations.

Waist Deep in the Big Muddy: The JD/PhD Debate in Criminal Justice Education

There is an ongoing debate in criminal justice departments as to whether a person with a JD degree has the education necessary to be a full‐time faculty member. Recently, several authors have argued that a JD should be sufficient and that a PhD should not be required. In this essay I argue otherwise. JD training is not equivalent to PhD training. PhD training provides a background in social science methods, statistical analysis, and theory that JD training does not. The discipline of criminal justice needs to assert control over its credential standards lest others do it for us.

Capital offenders in Texas prisons: Rates, correlates, and an actuarial analysis of violent misconduct.

This study analyzed the records of 136 recently incarcerated capital murder offenders in the initial phase (M = 2.37 years, range = 6-40 months) of their life sentences in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Prevalence rates of institutional violence were inversely related to severity: potentially violent misconduct (36.8%), assaultive violations (14%), serious assaults (5.1%), and homicides (0%). Consistent with prior studies, factors correlated with assaultive misconduct included age (inversely), prior prison confinement, and concurrent robbery or burglary in the capital offense. A simplified Burgess scale entitled the Risk Assessment Scale for Prison-Capital (RASP-Cap) was moderately successful in identifying varying levels of improbability of committing violence-related misconduct however defined (AUC = .715-.766).

Operationalizing risk: The influence of measurement choice on the prevalence and correlates of prison violence among incarcerated murderers

A retrospective review was performed on the disciplinary records of 1,659 convicted murderers who had been admitted to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice between February 2001 and November 2003. Institutional violence was disaggregated by type of infraction, inmate or staff victim, extent of injury, and weapon usage to determine baseline prevalence and rates. Characteristics of the perpetrators, including younger age, more serious murder conviction, and longer sentence were associated with a higher incidence of prison assaults. Logistic regression analysis of a restricted sample of 1,440 male, non-death row inmates resulted in modestly predictive models for potentially violent acts (AUC = .668), assaults (AUC = .700), and assaults resulting in serious injury (AUC = .750). The findings suggest that the choice of measure used when operationalizating prison violence is crucial in determining baselines, but may have a more limited effect on identifying correlates and predicting outcomes.

The Vanishing JD—How ACJS Certification Ensures Extinction of the Species

Criminal Justice departments across the country are experiening unprecedented growth. This growth has created a demand for qualified tenure‐track faculty. Obviously, it is important to maintain quality standards for the hiring of tenure‐track faculty during periods of growth. In an effort to improve the quality of Criminal Justice education, the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences has adopted standards for certification of baccalaureate and graduate degree programs. One area adressed by the ACJS standards is the area of acceptable faculty credentials for certification. For example, graduate programs that desire the ACJS imprimatur cannot have a faculty with more than 1 in 10 faculty members who hold a Juris Doctor degree. Efforts to eliminate the JD from the CJ faculty ranks are misguided. Instead, CJ departments should focus on the individual candiadate. Graduates from top‐tier institutions with a history of scholarly productivity and who possess ample skills in empirical study should not be excluded from tenure‐track consideration solely because they lack a PhD. The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.—William Shakespeare, Henry VI (Act IV, Scene II)

A study of probation revocations for technical violations in Hays County, Texas, USA

Probation revocations were examined for six months in Hays County, Texas, USA, to determine whether probationers were revoked and sentenced to jail or provided with an alternative sanction. The results indicate that 55 per cent of the revocations result in prison or jail without an intermediate sanction. This outcome is compared to the state-wide revocation percentage and discussed in terms of the goal of Texas Department of Criminal Justice – Community Justice Assistance Division (TDCJ–CJAD) of sanctioning probationers who violate the terms of probation, in lieu of sentencing them to prison. The impact of revocations on criminal justice policy is discussed.

Walking George: The Life of George John Beto and the Rise of the Modern Texas Prison System (review)

Reviewed by: Walking George: The Life of George John Beto and the Rise of the Modern Texas Prison System Mitchel P. Roth Walking George: The Life of George John Beto and the Rise of the Modern Texas Prison System. By David M. Horton and George R. Nielson. (Denton: University of North Texas Press, 2005. Pp. 270. Acknowledgments, illustrations, appendices, notes, selected bibliography, index. ISBN 1574411993. $29.95, cloth.) This is the first book-length biography of former Texas Department of Corrections director George J. Beto. An academician, theologian, and penologist, Beto, known to his charges as "Walking George" for his frequent and unannounced visits to the various prison units, began his career in corrections in 1953, when he was appointed to the Texas Prison Board. Born in Hysham, Montana, he made the transition from Midwesterner to Texan, but not without holding on to his Midwestern "social values" (p. 22). Wearing his trademark Stetson hat and occasionally a pair of cowboy boots, few would have guessed he was not a native Texan. Corrections was not his first choice of vocation. After completing his theological studies at Concordia Seminary he accepted a teaching position at Concordia College in Austin in 1939, beginning a twenty-year affiliation with the school. The first quarter of Walking George is dominated by his career as a church administrator, teacher, and family man. As president of the college he not only expanded the small school [End Page 419] into a junior college, but also racially integrated it and made it co-educational. It is not until chapters three and four that the reader is introduced to the history of the Texas Prison System. Authors David M. Horton and George R. Nielson chronicle the development of one the nation's most storied and reviled prison systems with great aplomb. It is here that the book is at its best, offering insights into conditions that led one authority in 1944 to report that the Texas prison system was "among the worst in the United States, and the shame of the Lone Star State" (p. 51). In 1961, after a stint as director of a seminary in Illinois that began in 1959, Beto was summoned by Texas officials to take over as prison director after the sudden death of director O. B. Ellis. His decision "had been especially agonizing because he had to choose between his two callings" (p. 107). After an initial refusal he accepted when he was assured he could also serve as chief chaplain. The book is best at describing Beto's relationship with inmates, life at the Director's Mansion across the street from the Walls Unit, and Beto's management style. He was probably most proud of hiring the state's first black correctional officers and increasing the educational level of inmates with a number of innovative teaching and rehabilitation programs. Beto's career was not without its missteps. While the authors are clearly pro-Beto, one having been a former student of his, this book is not a hagiography. In the late 1960s, for example, Beto ignored press reports of rising crime rates and "failed to take advantage of the lull in prison population to construct even more facilities with individual cells than he did" (p. 128). More importantly was his continued utilization of the brutal Building Tender (BT) system, in which certain inmates were used to help control the prison, an unfortunate aspect of which was the use of violence by BT's against other inmates. The authors assert here that "it is difficult to reconcile his tolerance of the BT system with other aspects of his prison philosophy" (p. 142). As a result of the continued use of the BT system he became "the most sued man in Texas" (p. 146). During his ten years as prison director, Beto won acclaim for running an efficient prison system, cutting down on escapes, and increasing the productivity of the state's prison farms. Less than two hundred pages long, this book is an important and overdue contribution to the study of corrections and will be of value to any student of Texas and American prison history. It offers short biographies of Texas prison officials...

Outcomes of Project Wall Talk: an HIV/AIDS Peer Education Program Implemented within the Texas State Prison System

We report select outcomes from an evaluation of Project Wall Talk, a community-based, peer-led HIV prevention education program implemented in 36 Texas State prison units. Peer educators completed questionnaires prior to receipt of a 40-hour intensive training (N = 590) and at 9-month follow-up (N = 257). Students (N = 2506) completed questionnaires pre- and post-receipt of peer educator-led HIV education sessions. Peer educators and their students showed significant increases in HIV-related knowledge. Peer educators showed significant increases in assessment of their skills as educators. For both peer educators and students, significant differences in HIV-related knowledge were indicated across categories of prior educational level attained and race/ethnicity; no such differences were indicated at follow-up. Compared with baseline, a significantly greater proportion of peer educators reported ever having had an HIV test. After receiving peer-led education, a significantly smaller proportion of students reported they knew their HIV status and more indicated plans to take an HIV test. Additionally, in months 12 and 18 following program implementation, the numbers of HIV tests at the five units that implemented the peer education program were roughly twice that of five, matched comparison units without the peer education program. Based on peer educator reports, we projected that peer educators (N = 257) may have as many as 84,000 or more annual opportunities to share HIV-related knowledge with other prisoners outside the classroom.

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

This essay examines the dubious relationship between the quality of criminal justice education and the kind of treatment faculty members and students receive from their academic administrators. It is based on three premises: criminal justice colleges and departments should be held to higher rational and moral standards not because they are qualitatively different from other liberal arts departments, but because they teach justice; if the virtues of criminal justice are worth teaching, then criminal justice faculty members and students should be treated in a manner consistent with these virtues; and treating criminal justice faculty members and students unfairly, disrespectfully, or irresponsibly makes them unable or disinterested in endorsing the noble nature of criminal justice. This article categorizes academic administrators as either Athenians or Spartans. The former are best suited intellectually and temperamentally to administer because they possess a talent for reasoning and act in good faith. The latter are unsuited because, regardless of how well they mask it, they practice domination, deception, favoritism, and indignity. This essay is a theoretical discourse based on the contiguity of modalities, experiences, and impressions generally shared by criminal justice educators and graduate students. Its logic is Humeian and its method is broadly ethnographic.

Cancer in an incarcerated population

The challenge posed to prison health systems in the U.S. by an immense incarcerated population is significant. However, the patterns of presentation and associated mortality of cancer among the incarcerated population is unknown. An historical cohort of cancers diagnosed among inmates of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice over the course of 20 years who were followed at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, Texas was identified. There were 1807 inmates who were diagnosed with cancer. Two cohorts were chosen for comparison: a random sample of 179,757 patients from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER) registry, and an age-matched, gender-matched, race-matched SEER population comprised of 6124 patients (MSEER). Disease sites and associated mortality of the inmate cancer patients were determined and compared with SEER cohorts. A marked rise in cancer diagnoses among inmates paralleled the rise in the inmate population. The leading cancers were lung carcinoma, non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), and carcinomas of the oral cavity and pharynx. Among women, cervical carcinoma was the most common. Lung carcinoma, NHL, and hepatic carcinoma accounted for more cancer deaths among inmates than in the SEER cohort (P < 0.0001 for all comparisons). Lung carcinoma, hepatic carcinoma, and NHL were significantly more common in the inmate cohort than in the MSEER cohort (P < 0.001 for all comparisons). The median survival was inferior in the inmate cohort (21 mos) compared with the SEER cohort (55 mos) and the MSEER cohort (54 mos) (P < 0.0001 for both comparisons). Cancers with unique epidemiology and high associated mortality have emerged among the incarcerated. This has significant implications for prison health systems.

The Price of a Miracle

V. Jude Forbes is a family nurse practitioner with the University of Texas Medical Branch Correctional Managed Care Division and works at the Skyview, Michael, and Boyd units of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Reflections is coordinated by Veneta Masson, MA, RN:[email protected].

Reform versus Reality in the Progressive Era Texas Prison

The state of Texas' determined effort to keep African-Americans performing plantation labor was at the heart of its prison farm system, from Reconstruction through the 1920s. State and penitentiary officials followed a practice of racialized labor control, demanding that African-American convicts perform plantation gang labor, not only to make the prison system profitable but also keep them involved in extractive agriculture. As the prison population grew, so did the abuse of convicts. The story of Texas’ penitentiary system shows the continuing tie between African-Americans, plantation labor, and racism in Texas, as well as other southern states. The sprawling farm system that developed in Texas made it unique in the South. When Progressive Era reformers confronted abuses in the Texas prison system, they had to contend with an overwhelming profit motive that made reform difficult, and warped reform measures they managed to push through the legislature. Among the initial goals of Texas prison reformers were an end to convict leasing and a ban on the use of the whip as punishment. The agenda of reformers collided with the goals of the Texas prison system, with unexpected results. Looking at reform measures after they passed the legislature illustrates how prison managers tried to circumvent regulations that hindered profitability.

Health Care Delivery in the Texas Prison System

Health Care Delivery in the Texas Prison System

Health Care Delivery in the Texas Prison System

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Health Care Delivery in the Texas Prison System—Reply

Health Care Delivery in the Texas Prison System—Reply

Reviewing criminal justice baccalaureate curricula: The importance of student input

While criminal justice undergraduate enrollments continue to burgeon, rarely do criminal justice departments conduct comprehensive surveys of their majors as part of the baccalaureate curriculum review process. This paper describes one such survey completed by 238 criminal justice majors at Wayne State University in Detroit. Major survey findings are presented along with their implications for student and faculty diversity, curriculum design, teaching and grading methods, student advising, and department administration.

Health care delivery in the Texas prison system: the role of academic medicine.

Faced with explosive growth in its prison population and a legal mandate to improve medical care for incarcerated offenders, the state of Texas implemented a novel correctional managed health care program in 1994. The organizational structure of the program is based on a series of contractual relationships between the state prison system, 2 of the state's academic medical centers, and a separate governing body composed of 9 appointed members, which include 5 physicians. All medical, dental, and psychiatric care for more than 145,000 offenders, incarcerated under the jurisdiction of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, is provided by the University of Texas Medical Branch and Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center. The health delivery system is composed of several levels of care, including primary ambulatory care clinics in each prison unit, 16 infirmaries at strategic locations throughout the state, several regional medical facilities, and a dedicated prison hospital with a full range of services. Specialized treatment programs have been established at various units for patients with chronic conditions, such as hypertension, diabetes mellitus, major psychiatric disorders, hepatitis, and human immunodeficiency virus infection. Significant improvements in health outcomes have occurred since the managed care program was established.

The infectious disease profile of Texas prison inmates

Purpose. Prison inmates present with higher rates of disease morbidity and mortality than the general population. The rates of certain infectious diseases such as hepatitis C, HIV/AIDS, and tuberculosis are reported to be particularly elevated in prison systems. Scarce information, however, exists on the overall infectious disease profile of inmate populations. The present study examined the prevalence of major infectious diseases in one of the nation's largest prison populations. Methods. The study population consisted of 336,668 Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) inmates who were incarcerated for any duration between January 1, 1999 and December 31, 2001. Information on medical conditions, sentencing factors, and sociodemographic factors was obtained from an institution-wide medical information system. Results. Latent tuberculosis infection constituted the most prevalent infectious disease reported among inmates. This was followed in frequency by hepatitis C, HIV/AIDS, and syphilis. Prevalence estimates for most of the infectious diseases under study exhibited substantial differences across gender, age, and ethnicity. Conclusion. The present study shows that the prison population had prevalence rates that were substantially higher for latent TB, HIV/AIDS, and hepatitis C than those reported for the general population and some incarcerated populations. The rate of active TB among TDCJ inmates, however, was comparable to that of the general population and other incarcerated populations.

Exploring the Relationship Between Alcohol Use, Childhood Maltreatment, and Treatment Needs Among Female Prisoners

Objective. This study examined the relationship between child maltreatment and adult alcohol dependency among a sample of newly incarcerated female prisoners. Method. This secondary data analysis utilized information gathered through face-to-face interviews with female inmates at intake (N = 1198) within the Texas prison system from 1998 to 1999. Results. Using DSM-IV criteria we found that, among women who reported drinking at least 10 drinks in the last year, 40% scored as alcohol dependent. Bivariate findings revealed that women who were alcohol dependent were also more likely to have grown up in disorganized family situations, including parental drug and alcohol use-related problems, childhood neglect, and childhood physical and sexual abuse. As adults, these women were far more likely to have utilized mental health services and substance user treatment programs. Supportive of Widom and colleagues (), multivariate analyses revealed that childhood neglect (not physical or sexual abuse) was a significant predictor of alcohol dependency. Finally, among the alcohol dependent group, 62% indicated a willingness to participate in substance user treatment programs. Conclusions. These findings emphasize that childhood neglect is related to long-term negative consequences in the form of alcohol use related problems in adulthood. Our findings strongly point to the need for improved screening, assessment procedures, and programming for women prisoners.