This update discusses the "Reentry National Media Outreach Campaign," a project of the Annie E. Casey Foundation that exists to bring the issues of prisoner reentry to greater public awareness. The U.S. Department of Education has been charged with administering the "Life Skills for State and Local Prisoners Program," a discretionary grant program…

Despite the powerful, pervasive institutional imperatives of the prison to control, discipline and house inmates, teachers seem to care deeply for their students. They also intuitively know that caring is very much a part of a successful teaching practice behind bars. This descriptive study contributes to a framework of teacher caring in prison…

In this update, Linton discusses the role of educational programs within correctional institutions. These programs normally receive varying degrees of support from state to state, but two exceptions are the federally administered Life Skills for State and Local Prisoners Program and the Grants to States for Workplace and Community Transition…

In this column, Linton provides updates on the various programs of the U.S. Department of Education. Among other things, he discusses the matter of restoring federal financial aide eligibility to certain offender populations, currently under study in Congress, and that Congress also is continuing a rare substantive discussion of issues related to…

This paper presents therapeutic art practices carried out with 60 orphan children in the small town of Ugarchin in northern Bulgaria. In 1999, a group of artists and teachers developed a varied program of art activities for these children. These activities included two 1-week visits and the opening of five art workshops--Art History, Ceramics,…

Every day the author enters a world of hierarchy that she cannot fully comprehend--a world in which she is expected to teach, transform, and rehabilitate incarcerated women into "productive" citizens. It is a world where political forces blow powerfully on anyone that challenges the status quo. She works with a population that most…

This paper focuses on whether running away from adolescent residential care facilities is related to having off grounds passes with an adult resource. It was hypothesized that as off grounds passes increased in frequency and duration, runaway behavior would decrease in frequency and duration. Data were collected from two hundred closed client…

The need for specialized treatment programmes to address the specific requirements of different populations has been well recognized. One important area of treatment development has been for offenders who are unsuitable for existing mainstream treatment programmes. This paper describes the process of adapting an existing sexual offender treatment…

The prevalence of psychiatric disorders among incarcerated juveniles in Mississippi was examined. A total of 482 adolescents completed a diagnostic questionnaire and a subset (N = 317) was assessed with face-to-face semistructured interview. Most of the study participants met criteria for one mental disorder, 71?85% depending on assessment method,…

Background: The purpose of this paper is to describe long-term outcomes for patients discharged over a 12-year period from a medium secure service for people with intellectual disabilities (ID). Methods: A cohort study using case-notes analysis and a structured interview of current key informants. Results: Eleven per cent of the sample was…

The Substance Abuse Subtle Screening Inventory-Adolescent (SASSI-A) is used in evaluation and treatment planning for incarcerated juveniles. Validity of the SASSI-A in a juvenile correctional facility was examined using archival data. Findings generally support the validity of SASSI-A substance use scales. However, there is concern regarding the…

Offenders are assumed by many to employ socially desirable responding (SDR) response styles when completing self-report measures. Contrary to expectations, prior research has shown that accounting for SDR in self-report measures of antisocial constructs does not improve the relationship with outcome. Despite this, many self-report measures…

Few studies have examined childhood and adolescent animal cruelty motives. Using a sample of 261 inmates surveyed at both medium and maximum security prisons in a southern state, the present study examined the impact of demographic attributes and situational factors relating specifically to a range of animal cruelty motivations. Almost half of the…

Dr. Miriam Van Waters was the superintendent (warden) of the Massachusetts Reformatory for Women at Framingham for twenty-five years. She has the distinct honor of holding that position the longest. In 1949, she rose to national prominence when the new Massachusetts Commissioner of Corrections, under allegations of lax administrative policies,…

The main purpose of this study was to shed some light on the effect of socialization context (home vs. orphanage) on gender-specific value acquisition. With this aim value preferences and collectivistic attitudes of institution-reared and home-reared teenagers (14-20 yrs.) were compared. Teenagers from ordinary homes were found to score high on…