Annotated Bibliography: Prisoner Reentry

Annotated Bibliography: Prisoner Reentry

Arditti, J. A., & Parkman, T. (2011), “Young mens reentry after incarceration: A developmental paradox”, Family Relations, 60(2), 205-220. http://search.proquest.com/docview/861737215?accountid=35996

Joyce Arditti is an associate professor of Human Development at Virginia State University has produced a number of article of the issues of divorce, criminal justice and family policies. Her work on child trauma was published in in the Journal of Family Theory & Review. This was widely recived as a significant step in understanding the psychological traumas children face among families. More than 735,000 inmates are released from U.S. prisons annually, many of whom have mental and physical health problems that go largely unaddressed during incarceration and on return to society. That has led some scholars and policy makers to imply this is specific to the United States and to call for reducing the health needs-services gap among inmates and ex- prisoners. The goal of this article is to argue that (a) the magnitude of this gap, while likely large, remains unknown, (b) the United States is far from unique in having a needs-services gap, (c) the decision to provide health care to inmates and ex-prisoners constitutes a moral policy decision with potentially profound public health and cost impacts on offenders, their families, and the communities to which they return, and (d) research on health care needs-services gaps among inmate and reentry populations should become a priority for developing cost-effective, evidence-based responses to address such gaps.

Blitz, C. L., Wolff, N., Ko-Yu, P., & Pogorzelski, W. (2005), “Gender-specific behavioral health and community release patterns among New Jersey prison inmates: Implications for treatment and community reentry”, American Journal of Public Health, 95(10), 1741-6. http://search.proquest.com/docview/215084342?accountid=35996

Moral arguments may exist that argue for reducing, if not eliminating, health needs- services gaps among inmate and ex-prisoner populations. Against this backdrop, the goal of this article is to argue that (a) the magnitude of the health care needs-services gap among U.S. inmates and ex-prisoners, while likely large, remains unknown, (b) the United States is far from unique in having a large needs-services gap, (c) the decision to provide health care to inmate and reentry populations constitutes a moral policy decision that can have profound public health and cost impacts on offenders, their families, and the communities to which they return, and (d) research on health care needs-services gaps among prisoner and reentry populations should become a central priority for developing evidence-based assessments of need and responses to it. Ultimately, for example, the failure to identify accurately the prevalence of health care problems and the shortfall in addressing them risks creating a situation in which society misallocates resources through under- or overtreatment. We begin first with a discussion of incarceration trends and the health problems of inmates and ex-prisoners. We then discuss the conceptual and empirical foundation needed for developing a credible assessment of health care needs-services gaps.

Bushway, S. D. (2006), “The problem of prisoner (re)entry”, Contemporary Sociology, 35(6), 562-565, http://search.proquest.com/docview/233598376?accountid=35996

Large- scale increases in the numbers of inmates released to society ...