American Journal of Criminal Justice最新文献

The paper draws on data (N = 3,625) collected from a national survey of United States police personnel. The study investigates how perceptions of trauma, organizational, and operational stress (i.e. job demand stress), organizational justice (i.e. a job resource), and reported levels of burnout and psychological distress compare across three groups. The groups included: those who intend to remain in policing (n = 1,607), those considering leaving their police agency to work in another agency (n = 616), and those considering leaving the police profession (n = 1,402). While all the factors studied were found to be important in understanding retention, the groups differed significantly in their reported levels of job demand stress, organizational justice, and psychological health, depending on whether officers intended to stay, leave their agency, or leave the profession entirely. To improve officer retention, strategies that specifically target the reduction and mitigation of organizational and operational job demand stress, increase organizational justice within agencies, and reduce burnout and psychological distress are needed. This research provides important insights for police chiefs who are seeking solutions to the increasing number of officers who leave one agency to join another. The study also addresses a much broader and more pervasive issue, how to stem the tide of officers who are exiting the police profession. Police retention will reach crisis point when there are simply too few officers to staff police agencies.

Rural jails face unique challenges in screening and providing treatment for a steadily increasing percentage of the United States population with mental health and substance use disorders. Since many of these individuals will recycle through the criminal justice system, prompt identification and connection to treatment are paramount in stopping the revolving door of incarceration for drug-driven crime. The current study reports findings from an evaluation of a rural jail-based justice mental health initiative in South Carolina utilizing 4,966 eligible arrests, with 153 of these arrests eventually leading to treatment. Analysis centers on the assessment of pathways and barriers to substance misuse and mental health treatment, with a pointed focus on early disorders screening, enabling speedy referral for recovery services and connection to treatment. In addition to flow diagrams outlining pathways to treatment, binary logistic regression examined participant characteristics disparities observed in screening, referrals, and treatment. Results indicate the most frequent route to treatment is actuarial post-arrest disorders screening, an essential first step toward treatment. Important findings include that only 38.4% of referrals result in treatment participation, having an arrest history meaningfully increased the likelihood of an in-jail screening, and referred justice-involved males were far less likely to enroll in treatment than female arrestees.

An established body of research demonstrates that antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) is associated with violent criminal offending and recidivism. However, questions remain regarding how ASPD is associated with different types of recidivism and the extent to which prison misconduct and visitation condition these relationships. This study evaluates these questions using longitudinal data from a large sample of released violent offenders (N = 45,063). Results from a series of accelerated failure time models reveal that ASPD is associated with faster time to reconviction for a new offense and technical violation. Prison visitation and misconduct condition the effect of ASPD for a technical violation whereby the relationship is strengthened at higher levels of visitation and misconduct. The effect of ASPD for reconviction for a new offense is positively moderated by prison misconduct but not visitation. The implications of the reported results for correctional policy and practice are discussed.

In the aftermath of tragic mass violence events, there has been increasing attention to strategies for improving police responses to mental health crises and the risk of violence. In light of these concerns, this study comprises an evaluation of the Linking Individuals in Need of Care (LINC) Program—a collaborative initiative involving a sheriff’s office and behavioral health network in a large Florida county. Implemented as part of the Bureau of Justice Assistance funded Justice and Mental Health Collaborative Program, the LINC Program aims to identify and support at-risk individuals, with an emphasis on preventing school and community mass violence incidents. This study evaluates the program’s processes in identifying these individuals, examines protocols for intervention, identifies implementation factors, and assesses the program’s impact on reducing the risk of violence. The study also makes recommendations for future study and evidence-based practices in policing and mental health partnerships.

A Justice and Mental Health Collaborative (JMHC) was established in Cook County, Illinois with the primary goal of reducing lengthy jail stays and confinement in state psychiatric institutions for defendants with serious mental health concerns. A diverse group of stakeholders, including public defenders, prosecutors, judges, service providers, and researchers, developed a “Fitness Diversion Program” which began its pilot phase in 2019. This program sought to divert its target population away from cumbersome clinical exams for competency to stand trial. Upon successful completion of diversion programming, misdemeanor charges were dismissed. This manuscript analyzes programmatic development, implementation, and expansion through qualitative thematic analysis of interviews with stakeholders using the Reach, Effectiveness, Adoption, Implementation, and Maintenance (RE-AIM) framework. Qualitative analysis allowed the research team to identify barriers and facilitators to implementation, focusing on themes connected to each RE-AIM domain. This manuscript’s findings demonstrate a case of programmatic drift to accept a larger range of cases, highlighting the importance of programmatic flexibility, attention to sustainability and capacity, and efforts to divert individuals with serious mental illness from continued criminal-legal involvement.

The felony murder rule is a controversial legal doctrine that holds individuals accountable for murder if a death occurs during the commission, attempted commission, or flight from a felony offense, regardless of whether the death was accidental or caused by another person. This study aims to examine the prevalence of felony murder statutes across the United States and systematically assess the variations in specific components of these statutes. Using a statutory content analysis approach, the study seeks to answer key questions, including the classification of felony murder, specification of triggering felony offenses, liability for deaths caused by others, intent requirements, and eligibility for the death penalty. By delving into the complexities and variations of felony murder statutes, this research aims to shed light on the nuanced nature of these laws and their implications for criminal justice in the United States.

Estimation of racial/ethnic disparity in imprisonment rates in the United States is complicated by differences in data collection, definitions, and methods of counting such persons across data sources. This paper describes these sources of differences and their impacts on assessments of imprisonment disparity. Estimates of imprisonment rate disparities derived from state corrections administrative data diverge from those derived from self-report survey data. Changes in how survey data measure race and ethnicity affect inferences about changes in disparity. Administrative data show less Hispanic-White and Black-White disparity than self-report data, and the differences between them are increasing. Measures of disparity based on single-race classifications show larger Black-White disparity than those that are based on multiracial classifications. Various approaches to measuring race and ethnicity can affect conclusions about fairness in imprisonment. Therefore, disparities analysts should consider the multiple data sources and methods available to measure state imprisonment disparities, understand the assumptions behind the measures, and arbitrate the differences and similarities before drawing inferences about the extent of disparity in U.S. penal systems.

In this study, we examine how fiscal distress following the Great Recession may have affected police employment levels over the long-term, and how those effects may vary across sworn and civilian employees. Using data from a variety of sources including multiple waves of the Law Enforcement Management and Administrative Statistics (LEMAS) survey and the UCR Police Employee Data, we construct rates of change in employment levels for sworn and civilian employees. We find that fiscal distress has a robust negative relationship on employment levels for both sworn and civilian employees, with a stronger effect on the civilian employee. We also find that economic vulnerability measures yield a positive relationship to police employment among sworn employees. Our findings suggest that the effects of fiscal distress are absorbed disproportionately toward civilian employees, and that broader economic vulnerability can result in at least short-term increases in sworn employment.