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Meyers TJ, Fahmy C, Wright KA. Coping with incarceration: examining the longitudinal relationship between individual coping styles and mental health outcomes. J Ment Health 2024; 33:14-21. [PMID: 36096672 DOI: 10.1080/09638237.2022.2118693] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/22/2022] [Accepted: 08/25/2022] [Indexed: 10/14/2022]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Experiencing incarceration leads to increased rates of stress that result in a variety of negative physical, mental, and emotional outcomes. However, little research focuses on how individuals vary in their coping responses to stressful life events, like imprisonment. AIMS This study extends prior research by examining whether changes in coping styles throughout the first year of incarceration influence mental health symptomology at 6- and 12-months post placement. METHODS Using longitudinal data collected via semi-structured interviews with incarcerated men, this study measures changes in coping strategies and their effect on psychological well-being using the SCL-90-R. Ordinary least squares regression models were used to regress mental health symptomology on residual change scores of coping strategies. RESULTS Changes in dysfunctional coping during the first 6- and 12-months of placement were associated with increased levels of adverse mental health symptoms. Changes in emotion- and problem-focused coping were not associated with mental health symptomology. CONCLUSIONS This research illustrates the need to continue exploration into individual responses to stressful events, such as initial incarceration, and suggests that prison systems should be designed in ways that decrease the need to adapt in dysfunctional ways, while providing opportunities for incarcerated people to cope in more productive ways.
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Affiliation(s)
- Travis J Meyers
- Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, The University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX, USA
| | - Chantal Fahmy
- Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, The University of Texas at San Antonio, San Antonio, TX, USA
| | - Kevin A Wright
- School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Arizona State University, Phoenix, AZ, USA
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LeMasters K, Ross RK, Edwards JK, Lee H, Robinson WR, Brinkley-Rubinstein L, Delamater P, Pence BW. Mass Probation: Effects of Sentencing Severity on Mental Health for Black and White Individuals. Epidemiology 2024; 35:74-83. [PMID: 38032802 PMCID: PMC10683971 DOI: 10.1097/ede.0000000000001678] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/25/2023] [Accepted: 09/22/2023] [Indexed: 12/02/2023]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Incarceration is associated with negative impacts on mental health. Probation, a form of community supervision, has been lauded as an alternative. However, the effect of probation versus incarceration on mental health is unclear. Our objective was to estimate the impact on mental health of reducing sentencing severity at individuals' first adult criminal-legal encounter. METHODS We used the US National Longitudinal Survey on Youth 1997, a nationally representative dataset of youth followed into their mid-thirties. Restricting to those with an adult encounter (arrest, charge alone or no sentence, probation, incarceration), we used parametric g-computation to estimate the difference in mental health at age 30 (Mental Health Inventory-5) if (1) everyone who received incarceration for their first encounter had received probation and (2) everyone who received probation had received no sentence. RESULTS Among 1835 individuals with adult encounters, 19% were non-Hispanic Black and 65% were non-Hispanic White. Median age at first encounter was 20. Under hypothetical interventions to reduce sentencing, we did not see better mental health overall (Intervention 1, incarceration to probation: RD = -0.01; CI = -0.02, 0.01; Intervention 2, probation to no sentence: RD = 0.00; CI = -0.01, 0.01) or when stratified by race. CONCLUSION Among those with criminal-legal encounters, hypothetical interventions to reduce sentencing, including incremental sentencing reductions, were not associated with improved mental health. Future work should consider the effects of preventing individuals' first criminal-legal encounter.
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Affiliation(s)
- Katherine LeMasters
- From the Department of Epidemiology, Gillings School of Global Public Health
- Center for Health Equity Research, Department of Social Medicine, School of Medicine
- Carolina Population Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC
| | - Rachael K. Ross
- From the Department of Epidemiology, Gillings School of Global Public Health
| | - Jessie K. Edwards
- From the Department of Epidemiology, Gillings School of Global Public Health
| | - Hedwig Lee
- Department of Sociology, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO
- Department of Sociology, Duke University, Durham, NC
| | - Whitney R. Robinson
- Division of Women’s Community and Population Health, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Duke University School of Medicine, Durham, NC
| | | | - Paul Delamater
- Department of Geography, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC
| | - Brian W. Pence
- From the Department of Epidemiology, Gillings School of Global Public Health
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Wright KA, Young JTN, Matekel CG, Infante AA, Gifford FE, Meyers TJ, Morse SJ. Solitary confinement and the well-being of people in prison. Soc Sci Med 2023; 335:116224. [PMID: 37703784 DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2023.116224] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/29/2022] [Revised: 08/18/2023] [Accepted: 09/04/2023] [Indexed: 09/15/2023]
Abstract
BACKGROUND Solitary confinement and mental well-being has been researched extensively, with a significant increase in studies over the last ten years. These recent studies produce mixed evidence for whether placement in solitary confinement is associated with psychological distress. We advance our understanding of these relationships in two critical ways. First, we conduct both between- and within-person analyses within the same data to better understand the relationship of solitary confinement and mental well-being relative to the well-being of people in less restrictive prison settings. Second, we ask the men in our sample questions about their personality style, coping strategies, and interactions with staff, which allows us to explore how individual characteristics and prison experiences matter, alongside isolation, in understanding mental well-being. METHODS We gather data from interviews at three time points with 122 men in solitary confinement and 204 men in other conditions of confinement in Arizona from 2017 to 2019. We merge these interview data with administrative data on study sample and population sample to include critical measures such as mental health score, risk level, and visitation status. Our interviews contain a Global Severity Index (GSI), created from 90 self-reported psychopathological symptoms experienced, that we use to assess well-being. We estimate cross-classified multilevel models to assess between-person differences and within-person change in well-being over time. RESULTS There was a small relationship between solitary confinement and worsening well-bring (longitudinal, within-person) and a small relationship between solitary confinement and worse well-being (cross-sectional, between-person), with this between-person association reduced significantly upon inclusion of additional individual characteristics and prison experiences. CONCLUSIONS Our results suggest that the incarceration experience, including conditions of confinement, is associated with mental well-being in different ways for different people. We believe that collective confinement and well-being could receive the same scholarly attention and public concern as solitary confinement.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kevin A Wright
- Arizona State University, School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Phoenix, AZ, USA.
| | - Jacob T N Young
- Arizona State University, School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Phoenix, AZ, USA
| | - Caitlin G Matekel
- Arizona State University, School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Phoenix, AZ, USA
| | - Arynn A Infante
- Portland State University, Criminology and Criminal Justice Department, Portland, OR, USA
| | - Faith E Gifford
- Center for Policing Excellence, Oregon Department of Public Safety Standards and Training, Salem, OR, USA
| | - Travis J Meyers
- The University of Texas at San Antonio, Department of Criminology & Criminal Justice, San Antonio, TX, USA
| | - Stephanie J Morse
- St. Anselm College, Criminal Justice Department, Manchester, NH, USA
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Testa A, Jackson DB, Kaufmann C, Spira AP, Thorpe RJ. Mass incarceration and cognitive impairment in older adults: Setting a research agenda. J Am Geriatr Soc 2023; 71:2680-2684. [PMID: 37052187 PMCID: PMC10524200 DOI: 10.1111/jgs.18355] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/15/2022] [Revised: 02/10/2023] [Accepted: 03/07/2023] [Indexed: 04/14/2023]
Affiliation(s)
- Alexander Testa
- Department of Management, Policy and Community Health, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Houston, TX
| | - Dylan B. Jackson
- Department of Population, Family, and Reproductive Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD
| | - Christopher Kaufmann
- Department of Health Outcomes and Biomedical Informatics, University of Florida College of Medicine, Gainesville, FL
| | - Adam P. Spira
- Department of Mental Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD
- Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD
- Johns Hopkins Center on Aging and Health, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD
| | - Roland J. Thorpe
- Hopkins Center for Health Disparities Solutions, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD
- Department of Health, Behavior and Society, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD
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Pamplin JR, Kelsall NC, Keyes KM, Bates LM, Prins SJ. Race, criminalization and urban mental health in the United States. Curr Opin Psychiatry 2023; 36:219-236. [PMID: 36762668 PMCID: PMC10079600 DOI: 10.1097/yco.0000000000000857] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Submit a Manuscript] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 02/11/2023]
Abstract
PURPOSE OF REVIEW As efforts to increase policing and roll back criminal legal system reforms in major U.S. cities rise, the collateral consequences of increased criminalization remain critical to document. Although the criminalization of mental illness has been well studied in the U.S., the mental health effects of criminalization are comparatively under-researched. In addition, despite extreme racial disparities in U.S. policing, there is limited understanding of how criminalization may contribute to racial disparities in mental health. RECENT FINDINGS Literature included in this review covers various types of criminalization, including direct and indirect impacts of incarceration, criminalization of immigration, first-hand and witnessed encounters with police, and the effects of widely publicized police brutality incidents. All forms of criminalization were shown to negatively impact mental health (depression, anxiety and suicidality), with evidence suggestive of disproportionate impact on Black people. SUMMARY There is evidence of significant negative impact of criminalization on mental health; however, more robust research is needed to address the limitations of the current literature. These limitations include few analyses stratified by race, a lack of focus on nonincarceration forms of criminalization, few longitudinal studies limiting causal inference, highly selected samples limiting generalizability and few studies with validated mental health measures.
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Affiliation(s)
- John R. Pamplin
- Department of Epidemiology, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, NY
| | - Nora Clancy Kelsall
- Department of Epidemiology, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, NY
| | - Katherine M. Keyes
- Department of Epidemiology, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, NY
| | - Lisa M. Bates
- Department of Epidemiology, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, NY
| | - Seth J. Prins
- Department of Epidemiology, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, NY
- Department of Sociomedical Sciences, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, NY
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