The association between aging inmate housing management models and non-geriatric health services in state correctional institutions

One of the current debates in the literature on aging inmates asks, what is the most efficient housing/health care model for this "special needs" population? State and federal correctional systems place elderly inmates either in specialized segregated housing units away from the general inmate population, consolidate elderly inmates in housing units within the prison, or provide a combination of both models. In general, proponents of the segregated housing model argue that aging inmates will receive specialized medical services in geriatric units. However, proponents of consolidated housing model argue that aging inmates will have the benefit of both geriatric and non-geriatric health services. This paper examines the association between the type of housing management model for aging inmates and the availability of non-geriatric physical and mental health services. Data for the analysis come from the 2000 Bureau of Justice Statistics Census of State and Federal Adult Correctional Facilities. The results suggest that institutions offering consolidated geriatric care provide more mental health services and that these effects are independent of the characteristics of prison facility.     

THE TIES THAT BIND: Family Surveillance of Canadian Parolees

This article combines the Foucauldian governmentality principles of managing troublesome populations with the actual everyday institutional discourse at parole hearings. The article illuminates how parole board members, inmates, and inmates' family members participate collaboratively in the construction of inmate identities as either parolees who should be released to the community or as prisoners who should remain in prison. The Foucauldian governmentality principles are complemented by a family attachment perspective whereby an offender's stake in conformity is promoted. Board members use a typology of caring and uncaring families to organize the parole hearings. This typology includes caring inmate mothers, caring inmate fathers, caring female partners uncaring inmate fathers, uncaring male partners, and uncaring female partners.     

Role incongruence and gender variation in the provision of prison mental health services

Correctional administrators are equipped with a variety of responses to manage problematic inmate behavior. The forms of these responses range from subtle coercion in the context of everyday prison life to segregative placements that include protective custody, disciplinary confinement, and mental health residential services. Using logistic regression, the present study examines the disproportionate placement of female inmates in mental health facilities. The results suggest that placement differences for male and for female inmates reflect both psychiatric need and differential responses to role-incongruent behavior.     

Friends in locked places: An investigation of prison inmate network structure

The current study investigates informal social structure among prison inmates. Data come from the Prison Inmate Network Study (PINS), a project focused on a unit of a Pennsylvania medium security men’s prison. We focus on 205 inmates and their “get along with” network – an approximation of friendship in other settings. We find a weak subgroup structure dominated by two groups of “old heads” and characterized by moderate (non gang-based) race/ethnic clustering. Structurally, the network resembles adolescents in schools, suggesting that prison inmates are capable of successfully building peer associations. We conclude that under the right conditions self-organizing inmate society can foster social integration reminiscent of other social settings.     

Mental Health Care for American Indians in Prison

Abstract

Based on an earlier finding that as many Native Americans in upstate New York received mental health care in prison as outside of prison during a 10-month period, this study was designed to investigate if prisons had become an alternative treatment option for Native Americans with a mental illness in New York State. The study was not able to answer this question due to the limited number of cases and to outside constraints. However, it is possible from the results to provide a picture of mental health needs and attitudes among Native American inmates which is surprising and instructive for those who provide psychiatric care to American Indians, either within or outside of prison walls. A noteworthy finding was the importance placed by these inmates on the use of culturally appropriate ceremonies to assist in their rehabilitation. Low rates of serious mental illness among the American Indian sample highlight the need for further study in this area.     

FROM THE SANCTUARY TO THE SLAMMER: EXPLORING THE NARRATIVES OF EVANGELICAL PRISON MINISTRY WORKERS

Current survey research reveals that religious conservatives exhibit more punitive attitudes toward criminal offenders than their nonreligious and mainline counterparts. Despite the pervasiveness of conservative Protestant support for the punitive treatment of criminal offenders, evangelical-run prison ministry programs have proliferated in recent decades. This study uses in-depth interviews to examine the motivations of prison ministry workers. The narratives demonstrate that prison ministry workers embrace a distinctive orientation of compassion and, through sustained contact with inmates, they negotiate the tension between conservative religious values and their practical experiences working in prison ministry. From this overarching theme of compassion, three important subthemes emerged: (1) the calling of prison ministry, (2) special connections to the prison context, and (3) a sense of comfort and security with inmates. Overall, we observe how prison ministers negotiate two competing moral logics—judgment and compassion—in light of their religious convictions and experiences with inmate outreach.     

Examining the Relationship Between Female Inmate Homosexual Behavior and Attitudes Toward Homosexuality and Homosexuals

Most sociologists and penologists tend to shy away from studying inmate attitudes toward homosexuality and homosexuals. Researchers within the corrections field who focus on prison sexuality typically conduct their research on consensual samesex sexual behavior and sexual coercion. The focus of the present study, however, was to ascertain female inmates' attitudes toward homosexuality and homosexuals while exploring the role ofseveral predictor variables on their attitudes. Specifically, the authors examine the relationship between female inmate homosexual behavior and attitudes toward homosexuality and homosexuals. Because of the number of items pertaining to attitudes toward homosexuality and homosexuals, factor analysis was conducted to examine whether the items measured similar constructs. Results ofthe factor analysis revealed two distinct factors/issues:civil/personal rights and personal deviance models. The mostsalient, and only statistically significant, variables in the civil/personal rights model were age, homosexual activity prior to incarceration, and homosexual activity during incarceration. Homosexual behavior during incarceration was the only statistically significant predictor of the personal deviance model.     

Gambling Among Prison Inmates: Patterns and Implications

There is an absence of research on gambling among prison inmates during their incarceration. Little is known about how prisoners organize gambling activities or the potential risks they face from gambling. Similarly, no empirical attention has been given to how correctional institutions respond to inmate gambling. This study employed interviews with 55 male prisoners and self-administered surveys with 159 correctional officers and staff, at two medium security prisons in Ohio. Data were gathered on prevalence and patterns of inmate gambling, perceived hazards of gambling, and perceived institutional responses to prisoner gambling. Findings suggest that inmate gambling is common and constitutes an important feature of the underground economy of prisons, yet little is done to deter or prevent this activity. Suggestions are made for more effective institutional responses.     

The Importation Model Perspective on Inmate Social Roles: an Empirical Test*

Two theoretical models have emerged to account for variations in the response to imprisonment among inmate populations. One, the “deprivation model,” focuses attention on the pressures and deprivations which confront the inmates. The other, the “importation model,” critiques the closed-system orientation of the deprivation model and suggests that the scope of an adequate explanation must give systematic attention to factors beyond the immediate prison situation. This study provides empirical tests of several major propositions implied by the importation model. Based on the analysis of data obtained from 276 adult felons confined in a maximum security institution, the analysis clearly shows that adaptations to imprisonment are in part attributable to such extraprison influences as social class, preprison involvement in criminal behavior, frequency of contacts with individuals in the free society, and the quality of the inmates' perceptions of their postprison life-chances. These findings illustrate the necessity of broadening the scope of explanatory models in this area.     

Authentic/Inauthentic Identities in the Prison Visiting Room

The observations reported here demonstrate ways in which some incarcerated prison convicts use available materials, i.e., people, objects, and the physical setting of the prison visiting room to (a) violate rules, in order to (b) construct a situated identity based on self-autonomy and freedom from constraints. Sometimes the actions of guards and staff are to allow, within the context of the visiting room and within limits, for these situated social identities to be objectified even though these identities may have little currency in other prison contexts, and this situated self contradicts the intention of the prison regimen. The situated self found in the visiting room is considered to have beneficial influences on the inmate and is important for achieving desired, future outcomes related to treatment. When certain limits are breached, there will be attempts to suppress these identities. Several symbolic interactionist concepts, including awareness contexts and authentic/inauthentic identities, are employed to explain the behaviors of inmates, guards, and visitors and to point to treatment programs that would be most effective.     

Teaching pedagogies enhancing social work students’ perceptions and attitudes toward older age in an undergraduate course on working with older people

Approximately threefold increases in older age population groups (+65 years) are projected in the next 15 years. Demographic changes in society will mean greater numbers of older adults in proportion to the younger generation. In the current policy on older age groups, emphasis is placed on healthy aging warranting a multidisciplinary workforce to work with older people. Despite this need and increased demand in the aged care sector, a fewer social work students are willing to undertake aged care placements or to choose it as a career option.

An innovative teaching and learning pedagogy was used in designing the course curriculum titled ‘Social Work with Older People’, including the input of invited specialist guest speakers, an on-campus interactive workshop with older guests, and an assessment designed to evaluate the learning related to the workshop content. The paper reports changes in the attitudes of students studying gerontological social work after the course delivery, evaluated through an online survey with the purpose of improving the learning outcomes in the course and to gauge students’ interest, experiences, attitudes and motivation to work in the aged care sector. The paper contributes to building knowledge in addressing the needs of the changing social demographic.     

Lessons on social and health disparities from older lesbians with alcoholism and the role of interventions to promote culturally competent services

ABSTRACT

Older adults who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender (LGBT) face greater health risks and possibly more costly care because of their reluctance to seek out health and long-term care services because of limited cultural sensitivity of service providers. This is particularly evident in older lesbians who face substantial risk of health problems associated with alcoholism and are less likely to be open with health care providers because of stigma combined with feelings of alienation, stress, and depression. An estimated 4.4 million older adults are predicted to have problems with alcohol by 2020, and the rates of alcohol-related hospitalizations are similar to those for heart attacks, creating exorbitant medical costs. More culturally competent health and long-term care may reduce health care costs by effectively addressing the dynamics of alcoholism, aging, and lesbian culture. Training initiatives such as those developed by the National Resource Center on LGBT Aging have begun to address the need of a more culturally competent aging services network. This article provides exemplars from empirical data on older lesbians with alcoholism to highlight some of the health, economic, and social disparities experienced in the aging LGBT community. Current interventions in the form of cultural competence training for service providers are presented as a potential step toward addressing health disparities among LGBT older adults.     

Sexual coercion reported by women in three midwestern prisons

The study was an anonymous self‐report survey of coercive sexual experiences of women incarcerated in three Midwestern prisons. Inmate populations were 295 (Facility 1), 113 (Facility 2) and 60 (Facility 3). Return rates were over 50%. Some prison staff were also surveyed. The 150 inmates in Facility 1 reported relatively high rates of sexual coercion: 27% had been coerced in the state system and 19% in their present facility. The 80 inmates in Facility 1 and 36 inmates in Facility 3 reported lower rates: 8% to 9% for prisons statewide and 6% to 8% for their present facility. One half of the perpetrators were female inmates. Most incidents involved genital touching. About one fifth of the incidents were classifiable as rape. We concluded that the prison environment potentially fosters female sexual aggression among inmates and sexual exploitation by staff.     

Prevalence of Problem Gambling Among the Prison Population in Hamburg,Germany

Despite the increasing research in gambling, the prevalence of problem gambling in the criminal justice population is rarely investigated, especially in Europe. Given the lack in knowledge the Hamburg study aimed at identifying the prevalence of problem gambling in the whole regional prison population. For this purpose two major approaches were used: a 10 months long-term screening of pre-trial detainees at prison entry through the Lie/Bet Questionnaire, and full-scale survey of inmate personnel records of prisoners being in prison on a defined reporting date. Based on 792 valid screening files 6.6 % of the pre-trial detainees were positive on the Lie/Bet Questionnaire, and these problem gamblers were male only. Among the 1,236 inmate personnel records reviewed in 7.3 % the records indicated problem gambling (90 prisoners). This indication was found in 7.5 % males and 3.6 % females. For almost half of the prisoners with problem gambling their prison sentence was related to their gambling behavior (46.7 %). These results are representative for the regional prison population, and the first of its kind in Europe.     

Sexual coercion reported by women in three midwestern prisons

The study was an anonymous self-report survey of coercive sexual experiences of women incarcerated in three Midwestern prisons. Inmate populations were 295 (Facility 1), 113 (Facility 2) and 60 (Facility 3). Return rates were over 50%. Some prison staff were also surveyed. The 150 inmates in Facility 1 reported relatively high rates of sexual coercion: 27% had been coerced in the state system and 19% in their present facility. The 80 inmates in Facility 1 and 36 inmates in Facility 3 reported lower rates: 8% to 9% for prisons statewide and 6% to 8% for their present facility. One half of the perpetrators were females. Most incidents involved genital touching. About one fifth of the incidents were classifiable as rape. We concluded that the prison environment potentially fosters female sexual aggression among inmates and sexual exploitation by staff.     

Reconfigured Reciprocity: How Aging Taiwanese Immigrants Transform Cultural Logics of Elder Care

Drawing on 55 interviews with older Taiwanese immigrants who relocated to the United States at an earlier life stage, the author argues that changing contextual features involved in the processes of international migration encourage and even demand aging immigrants to reconstruct cultural logics of aging and geriatric care. He develops the concept of reconfigured reciprocity to demonstrate how aging migrant populations transform cultural logics of intergenerational responsibility, obligation, and entitlement to reconcile the tension between ethnic tradition and modernity. First, he reveals how many of the respondents' lack of caregiving for their own parents undermines their sense of entitlement to receive care from younger generations. Furthermore, he highlights how the structural squeeze among work, family, and caregiving with which the younger generation struggles further discourages the respondents from relying on their children. Finally, the author underscores how aging immigrants evoke the concept of Americanization to reconstruct expectations of how they should be taken care of in their twilight years.     

Aging in Place or Relocation: Perceived Awareness of Community-Based Long-Term Care and Services

ABSTRACT

This study used data from the Community Partnership for Older Adults Program Survey (N = 4,611) to examine associations between the perceived awareness of community-based long-term care and supportive services and the anticipation for aging in place and relocation. Respondents varied substantially in their knowledge about services and anticipation for aging in place and relocation. Perceived availability and unavailability of a series of community services was associated with the likelihood of anticipating aging in place and relocation, and awareness of the lack of visiting nurses, personal assistance, or transportation was related to respondents reporting a younger age at which they anticipated needing help to age in place or anticipating a need to relocate. Findings have implications for raising the public awareness of community-based services in addressing the needs of community-dwelling elders for aging in place and relocation.     

Organization and Delivery of Long-Term Care in Singapore

Summary

This paper focuses on the Singaporean model of long-term care for older people. With only about 2% of the older population living in institutions, the mainstay of long-term care is community care. The reader is provided an overview of the Singaporean services, including case management, followed by a discussion of the current issues and future challenges. In keeping with the prospect of a rapidly aging population profile, the Singapore government plays a leading role in framing policy and planning for future needs of this sector of the population.     

Partners and processes in HIV services for inmates and ex-offenders. Facilitating collaboration and service delivery

The elevated rates of HIV/AIDS among inmates are due in part to the high concentration of incarcerated persons with behavioral risk factors for HIV infection. Corrections, public health, and community-based organizations should partner to take full advantage of the opportunity to maximize effectiveness and efficiency in addressing HIV/AIDS in inmate populations. The purpose of this study is to document issues inhibiting collaboration, service delivery, and multisite evaluation as identified by members of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention/Health Resources and Services Administration Corrections Demonstration Project (CDP). Examining the barriers (and identifying ways to resolve them) is important in developing and maintaining successful programs that ultimately benefit HIV-infected inmates and the communities to which they return.     

The relationship between re-incarceration and their own childhood foster care experience of women

Using matched state administrative records of women in the Illinois state prison system, we investigate whether incarcerated women with foster care experience during their early (aged 10 to 14) and late (aged 15 to 18) teens do better or worse in re-incarceration rates compared to female counterparts who went to prison but had no foster care experience. We find that women with the early-teen foster care experience have higher rates of re-incarceration than women without foster care, regardless of whether they were reunited with their parents. The adverse association between the first foster care placement during early-teens and re-incarceration is particularly stronger among former female inmates with low education or history of drug addiction than others. We conclude that incarcerated women with foster care experiences, especially in their early teens, need more attention and extra support from the appropriate institutions upon their release. In addition, it seems that foster care can work as a strong signal of possible re-incarceration among women with low education and history of drug addiction.