智能体赋能社区矫正

Research into recidivism risk prediction in the criminal justice system has garnered significant attention from HCI, critical algorithm studies, and the emerging field of human-AI decision-making. This study focuses on algorithmic crime mapping, a prevalent yet underexplored form of algorithmic decision support (ADS) in this context. We conducted experiments and follow-up interviews with 60 participants, including community members, technical experts, and law enforcement agents (LEAs), to explore how lived experiences, technical knowledge, and domain expertise shape interactions with the ADS, impacting human-AI decision-making. Surprisingly, we found that domain experts (LEAs) often exhibited anchoring bias, readily accepting and engaging with the first crime map presented to them. Conversely, community members and technical experts were more inclined to engage with the tool, adjust controls, and generate different maps. Our findings highlight that all three stakeholders were able to provide critical feedback regarding AI design and use - community members questioned the core motivation of the tool, technical experts drew attention to the elastic nature of data science practice, and LEAs suggested redesign pathways such that the tool could complement their domain expertise.

Based on a recent ethnographic study of community corrections in two large Chinese cities, this study examines how the rehabilitation work, as the cornerstone of Chinese community corrections, is deployed as a people-processing apparatus that counts offenders’ bodies but almost excludes their agency. In practice, offenders are instrumentalized and disciplined to make up the Chinese community corrections machinery, whose subjectivity is either completely muted or selectively mediated. Given justice actors’ adherence to bureaucratic hierarchy and preoccupation with administrative requirements, offenders are mostly marked as counts and treated more as penal objects utilized to fulfill intricate metrics-related requirements. Justice agents’ formalistic pursuit of, rather than substantive investment in, the well-being of offenders renders their participation in Chinese community corrections symbolic and strenuous. It further breeds offenders’ commitment to self-rehabilitation, a process of relying on self-discipline and personally discovered resources for compliance and reintegration. We contend that the current operation of the Chinese community corrections apparatus, under the rehabilitative guise, exacerbates offenders’ structural disadvantages and reinforces their stigmatized identities. Policy and research implications of this study are discussed.

This study examines the role and importance of agency, defined as the ability to recognize personal issues and motivation to change. More specifically, the study aims to explore whether agency can help overcome criminogenic risk and needs in the context of community re-entry among justice-involved individuals. Based on a sample of 14,000 adult males sentenced to probation or incarceration, a series of survival analyses (e.g., Cox proportional hazards) were used to investigate the association between criminogenic risk and needs and agency-related indicators in relation to recidivism. The findings underscore the importance of criminogenic risks and needs while emphasizing the role of motivation to change as a possible moderator. Addressing criminogenic risk and needs while justice-involved individuals face numerous barriers and challenges make desistance from crime a long and difficult process, especially if interventions do not support agentic decisions and behaviors. Plain language summary Examining whether justice-involved individuals can overcome criminogenic risk and needs through agency and the motivation to change their life course Why was the study done? A significant proportion of justice-involved individuals return in the criminal justice for a new criminal offense. Several approaches have been proposed to break this cycle. Among those, correctional services have relied on the risk-need-responsivity which stresses the importance of targeting criminogenic risk and needs through treatment and intervention. The role and importance of agency—the motivation to change their life course—as a key component of change and desistance from crime, has been neglected. What did the researchers do? The research team examined how important agency is by examining the community reentry of 14,000 justice-involved individuals and criminal recidivism over a maximum of an 8-year period. What did the researchers find? The research shows that, as expected, justice-involved individuals with more criminogenic risk and needs were more likely to recidivate. Individuals with very high risk and needs were 13 times more likely to recidivate than the very low risk and needs group. The findings did show that individuals who recognized their personal issues and were motivated to change were less likely to recidivate, especially among the higher risk and needs group. What do the findings mean? The findings reiterate that while agency is not sufficient for justice-involved individuals to change and desist from crime, it is part of the process. Addressing criminogenic risk and needs, especially for individuals facing challenging life adversities, can make desistance a long and difficult process, especially if interventions do not support agentic decisions and behaviors.

Juveniles who have committed criminal offenses are a subject of close observation for criminologists, human rights activists and society as a whole. One particular aspect is the judicial practice whereby minors can be sentenced to certain types of punishment without isolation from society, such as suspended sentences, fines, community service, and correctional labor. This practice has its pros and cons that need to be considered from a criminological perspective. On the one hand, sentencing minors without isolation from society can have a positive impact on their rehabilitation and reintegration into society. A suspended sentence, for example, can help to change the behavior of a convicted person through conditional liability and support for sending them to rehabilitation programs. Such measures allow the juvenile to remain in his or her environment, where he or she can have support from family and other social agents, which contributes to his or her adaptation and socialization. On the other hand, there are certain risks associated with the use of such alternative types of punishment for juveniles. For example, a suspended sentence may be perceived as not severe enough and as too lenient for a criminal offense, which may not encourage behavioral change. In addition, the lack of isolation from society may pose a risk to public safety, especially if the convicted person continues to engage in antisocial behavior. One of the key aspects of solving this problem is the individualization of punishment, which takes into account the specific circumstances of the case, as well as the needs and capabilities of the juvenile. In particular, it is important to take into account his/her age, the degree of social adaptation, and the availability of support from family and other social structures.

In U.S.-American courts, scores that are determined automatically by artificial intelligence (AI) systems are already being used to assess the recidivism risk of offenders and to support judges in their decisions. In this paper, we explore the question of whether the representation of an AI-generated risk score recommendation influences whether human users critically scrutinize it. We particularly focus on a representation via embodied intelligent virtual agents and the effect of their apparent racialized group membership. A user study with a within-subject design was conducted to vary the agents’ apparent racialized group membership (Middle Eastern vs. White), the offender’s racialized group membership (Turkish vs. German) and the type of prediction error (too high vs. too low recommended risk score). We additionally analyzed whether general trust in AI, previous experience in the judicial context, and motivation to control prejudice were related to AI-error correction. Study results indicate that stereotypical perceptions can influence the evaluation of AI decisions - but in an unexpected direction. Contrary to initial assumptions, participants were more likely to adjust AI scores when interacting with a White agent compared to a Middle Eastern agent. This effect was found to be independent of the race of the offender. The paper discusses these findings in light of potential underlying mechanisms, such as social desirability.

Adopting an offender-centric approach, this paper advances the understanding of the enactment of the rehabilitation ideal inscribed in the newly established Chinese community corrections (CCC). Building on conceptual tools from cultural criminology/sociology, we introduce the concept of “rehabilitation frames” to capture the multifaceted perceptions of and experiences with the CCC’s rehabilitation services. These frames are the interpretive structures and processes through which offenders understand their participation in the CCC, conceive individualized treatment from service professionals, and organize their responses to fulfill compliance requirements. Using ethnographic data, mainly from interviews with participants, gleaned from urban community corrections in China, we identify three main rehabilitation frames: rehabilitation-as-antidote , rehabilitation-as-affirmation , and rehabilitation-as-inception . These frames collectively assemble offenders’ ambivalent experiences into coherent dynamics related to their enrollment in rehabilitation. Our findings underscore the significance of agentic, dynamic, and relational perspectives on the rehabilitation aspiration within the evolving CCC.

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Using a vignette-based experimental design, this study tested whether the racial or ethnic identity of a justice-impacted person influences jury-eligible individuals’ perceptions of post-conviction risk, placement (incarceration vs. community supervision), and need for mandated treatment. Furthermore, we examined whether the inclusion of data from a reoffense risk tool could mitigate racial bias. Participants recruited through Amazon’s MTurk (N = 448) were randomly assigned to conditions varying by race/ethnicity of an examinee (Black, Latino, White) and if/how risk assessment data were included (no risk data, risk data only, and risk data reported by a qualified examiner). There was no statistically significant effect of the examinee’s racial/ethnic identity on ratings of reoffense risk or placement decisions; however, the Black examinee was more likely to be mandated with treatment. Regardless of examinee identity, participants exposed to risk information proffered by an expert more often calibrated their risk decisions to the examinee’s actual risk level.

OBJECTIVE We aimed to review research on recidivism risk assessment tools with individuals convicted of child sexual exploitation material (CSEM) offenses and make recommendations for use in forensic, correctional, and legal settings. HYPOTHESES Multiple tools would be defensible to use with individuals convicted of CSEM offenses. METHOD We discuss a minimum threshold of predictive accuracy to justify using a risk tool as an improvement on the typical level of accuracy expected from unstructured professional judgment. Beyond this minimum threshold, we offer additional considerations that researchers and practitioners can use in evaluating and selecting risk tools. RESULTS We identified nine risk assessment tools with predictive accuracy research on individuals convicted of CSEM offenses: Child Pornography Offender Risk Tool (CPORT), Risk Matrix 2000/Sex (RM2000/S), OASys Sexual Reoffending Predictor-Indecent Images (OSP/I), Static-99R, STABLE-2007, ACUTE-2007, Post Conviction Risk Assessment (PCRA), Level of Service Inventory-Ontario Revision (LSI-OR), and Offender Group Reconviction Scale 3 (OGRS3). CONCLUSION The CPORT, RM2000/S, STABLE-2007, and ACUTE-2007 (in conjunction with the STABLE-2007) are all defensible tools to use for assessing risk of any sexual recidivism or CSEM recidivism, specifically. The OSP/I consists of a single risk factor and considers risk of CSEM recidivism among all individuals convicted of sexual offenses, not only among individuals convicted of CSEM offenses. There is some support for Static-99R and the OGRS3, but they are not recommended options at this time, for different reasons. The PCRA and LSI-OR general recidivism risk tools have some empirical support in predicting general recidivism among CSEM samples (and sexual recidivism for the PCRA), with limitations noted. The use of multiple tools may have value in assessing risk and structuring management in CSEM cases; however, how they are best combined for these samples is still unclear. We expect research in this area to increase rapidly. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

The AI/HCI and legal communities have developed largely independent conceptualizations of fairness. This conceptual difference hinders the potential incorporation of technical fairness criteria (e.g., procedural, group, and individual fairness) into sustainable policies and designs, particularly for high-stakes applications like recidivism risk assessment. To foster common ground, we conduct legal research to identify if and how technical AI conceptualizations of fairness surface in primary legal sources. We find that while major technical fairness criteria can be linked to constitutional mandates such as ``Due Process'' and ``Equal Protection'' thanks to judicial interpretation, several challenges arise when operationalizing them into concrete statutes/regulations. These policies often adopt procedural and group fairness but ignore the major technical criterion of individual fairness. Regarding procedural fairness, judicial ``scrutiny'' categories are relevant but may not fully capture how courts scrutinize the use of demographic features in potentially discriminatory government tools like RRA. Furthermore, some policies contradict each other on whether to apply procedural fairness to certain demographic features. Thus, we propose a new framework, integrating U.S. demographics-related legal scrutiny concepts and technical fairness criteria, and contextualize it in three other major AI-adopting jurisdictions (EU, China, and India).

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Abstract Issue/Problem Sexual crimes, including child sexual abuse, rape, and child pornography, represent a significant societal problem. Description: The treatment of perpetrators is not always effective, and there is a persistent risk of recidivism. To address this, risk and mental health specialists employ a process known as risk assessment, which evaluates the likelihood of offenders reoffending or causing harm. While widely applied in countries such as the USA, England, and Canada, risk assessment is not currently implemented in Greece. Results Risk assessment involves identifying risk factors—characteristics of offenders or offenses that increase the probability of sexual or general criminal recidivism. These are categorized as static factors, which are stable, and dynamic factors, which can change, such as attitudes or interests. Protective factors, such as self-control and empathy toward victims, are also increasingly considered. Assessments are conducted primarily by psychologists, social workers, and other mental health specialists within judicial and correctional systems. The results inform decisions regarding offender management, including sentencing, prison treatment programs, parole, and post-release supervision, such as registration in sex offender registries. Several evidence-based tools are used internationally to guide evaluations, including SVR-20, STATIC-99, SORAG, RRASOR, VASOR-2, MnSOST-R, SOTIPS, Stable 2007, and Acute-2007. Lessons These tools, combined with expert judgment, allow for the classification of offenders by risk level (low, medium, high), facilitating targeted intervention strategies. Given that risk assessment is largely unknown in Greece, introducing validated tools and training professionals in their use could improve offender management. Key messages • Drawing on international experience while considering the Greek judicial and correctional context, implementing risk assessment could enhance prevention strategies and reduce the recurrence of sexual offenses. Topic sex offenders, risk assessment, recidivism, sexual crimes

The use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in parole risk assessments in Indonesia is beginning to be considered as a policy alternative to address the problem of correctional overcrowding and the limitations of conventional assessment mechanisms. However, to date, there is no specific and comprehensive legal regulation governing the use of AI in the parole decision-making process. This situation creates a normative gap that could potentially raise issues concerning the principles of legal certainty, justice, and the protection of human rights for prisoners. This study employs normative legal research methods with a statutory and comparative legal approach. The analysis is conducted on the positive legal framework in Indonesia and compared with practices and regulations in several other jurisdictions, including the implementation of the COMPAS system in the United States and risk-based regulations in the EU AI Act in the European Union. The results show that the use of AI in parole assessments, if not accompanied by adequate legal regulations, has the potential to cause problems in the form of algorithmic bias, limited transparency due to black box mechanisms and challenges to the principle of accountability in administrative decision-making in the correctional sector. Based on these findings, this study emphasizes the importance of formulating a clear and measurable legal framework to regulate the use of AI as a supporting instrument for parole assessments. Such regulations should clarify the limitations of AI's function as a decision-making tool, along with human oversight mechanisms, principles of transparency, and accountability, so that its implementation remains aligned with the goals of the correctional system and the principles of human rights protection.

ABSTRACT Risk assessment tools aim to predict the likelihood of reoffending, thereby informing decisions on supervision levels, intervention strategies, and resource allocation. However, the effectiveness of these tools depends on their validity, and how accurately they predict recidivism in the specific population they are applied to. This retrospective quantitative study examined recidivism data from Alameda County, California, between July 2014 and March 2016 to measure the predictive capability of the Alameda County Adult Probation Risk Assessment Tool. We measured how well the Alameda County Risk Assessment Tool (ARA) predicts recidivism overall, differences in continuous risk scores and categorical risk levels, and how well it performs by specific subgroups (e.g. race/ethnicity, gender, age, type of offense). While this study focuses on a specific county, the methodology and insights gained can be adapted and applied to other jurisdictions to promote best practices in community corrections and reentry science.

As correctional jurisdictions and risk instrument developers look to optimize scoring for specific population needs, an open question remains - which method is optimal. Popular scoring methods range from manual simple scoring approaches (e.g., Burgess) to more complex machine learning algorithms (e.g., random forests). Prior comparisons between approaches have produced similarly acceptable levels of predictive validity. This study compares scoring methods beyond predictive validity to also assess calibration, item inclusion, and item weighting and discusses drawbacks of each approach. Scoring was developed for an actuarial release decision making risk assessment tool-the Reduction in Capacity Evaluation (ReduCE)-using manual (unweighted, Burgess, Nuffield, Nuffield 2.5, regression) and machine learning (artificial neural network, random forests) scoring methods. The machine learning methods did not outperform the manual methods in predictive validity or calibration and introduced drawbacks on item inclusion and weighting. The optimal approach for ReduCE was the Nuffield 2.5 method.

The present study examined the convergent, structural, and predictive properties of Violence Risk Scale-Sexual Offense version (VRS-SO) scores in a sample of 200 men on community supervision for sexual offenses, attending forensic community outpatient services and followed up an average 8.6 years. The VRS-SO and two additional dynamic sexual recidivism risk measures-STABLE 2007 and Sex Offender Treatment Intervention and Progress Scale (SOTIPS)-were coded archivally from clinic files; Static-99R ratings were extracted. Recidivism data were captured from Royal Canadian Mounted Police records. VRS-SO static, dynamic, and total scores demonstrated expected patterns of convergence with total and subscale scores of the risk measures. Moreover, a confirmatory factor analysis of the VRS-SO dynamic item scores demonstrated acceptable model fit for a correlated three-factor solution consistent with prior confirmatory factor analyses. Discrimination analyses demonstrated that VRS-SO dynamic and total scores and STABLE 2007 scores had large prediction effects for 5-year sexual recidivism (area under the curves [AUCs] = .71-.72) while SOTIPS had a medium effect for this outcome (AUC = .67); the measures yielded medium to large effects for nonsexual recidivism. Cox regression survival analyses demonstrated that VRS-SO dynamic, Sexual Deviance factor, and SOTIPS scores each incrementally predicted sexual recidivism controlling for Static-99R or VRS-SO static factor scores. VRS-SO calibration analyses demonstrated that expected or predicted 5-year sexual recidivism rates showed generally close correspondence to the rates predicted or observed in the present community sample. Results support the psychometric properties of the VRS-SO, a sexual violence risk assessment and treatment planning measure, to a community outpatient sample. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

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Comparing results across risk assessment tools is challenging due to varying methodologies. Implementing the Five-Level system in adult tools shows promise, but it has not been examined with youth assessments. Using a forensic and a community sample of justice-involved youth in Ontario, Canada, we calculated risk metrics–percentiles, risk ratios, and recidivism rates–separately, by gender, for the Youth Level of Service/Case Management Inventory (YLS/CMI). Next, we implemented the Five-Level system and preliminarily examined its construct validity. YLS/CMI score distributions and recidivism rates varied across samples. While rates varied across risk categories, only one risk ratio was significant; Low risk community-probation young men were 68% less likely to reoffend than Moderate risk community-probation young men. There were significant pairwise differences in YLS/CMI scores across all risk levels generated using the Five-Level system, with some differences in psychopathy, aggression, and pride in delinquency scores across levels.

In his article ‘Selective incapacitation revisited’, Thomas Mathiesen (1998) addresses the dominance of a technical and scientific language associated with the risk prediction culture that originated from a criminological research community where risk is considered as objective and measurable. In this article I discuss how practitioners perceive these aspects of risk prediction. For policymakers, targeting means using thresholds to target groups of offenders, but for frontline officers, it means targeting an individual. The officer must set an individualised assessment against the aggregated assessments from risk predictions. I will analyse how this has manifested in three Norwegian risk assessment projects: the offender assessment system, risk assessment of violent extremism, and early intervention to prevent youth crime. This article contributes to the understanding of how the political aspects of risk impact practitioners, and how the concept of risk as an artifact is understood by practitioners. I will first present the context of selective incapacitation and the history of research in this field. I will then contextualise the different understandings of risk within policy and practice. The main section is an analysis of the three cases. I end by discussing how acknowledgement of the political aspects of risk can promote sensitivity around the use of risk assessment tools.

Prior literature highlights the effectiveness of the Risk-Need-Responsivity (RNR) risk principle when providing community supervision and treatment to general justice-involved individuals and special populations such as individuals convicted of a sexual offense. Individuals deemed high-risk, per risk assessment, should receive the most intensive levels of community supervision and treatment, while individuals classified as low risk should receive the lowest intensity. Research in support for the risk principle finds adherence decreased recidivism rates and increased probation compliance. The current study assesses the effects of adhering (or not) to the risk principle in supervision levels and treatment dosage on the compliance of individuals on probation for a sexual offense (N = 133). Overall, results support risk principle adherence for individuals, with increasing adherence levels associated with significantly more compliance, and non-adherence resulting in adverse outcomes. Implications for policy and practice in the supervision and treatment of individuals with a sexual offense are discussed.

Recidivism prediction is a critical component of modern criminal justice systems, especially in efforts to design more effective rehabilitation and risk assessment strategies. This study applies explainable machine learning (ML) techniques to analyze recidivism risk among formerly incarcerated individuals using a real-world correctional dataset from an Eastern European country. We compare the predictive performance of several models, including logistic regression, random forest, and XGBoost, with a particular focus on model interpretability using SHAP (SHapley Additive exPlanations) values. The results show that ML models significantly outperform traditional statistical approaches in predictive accuracy, with XGBoost achieving the highest performance (AUC = 0.83). Moreover, explainability analysis reveals that factors such as age at release, prior offense type, educational attainment, and employment status are key predictors of reoffending. The study highlights the potential of interpretable ML tools to support data-driven decision-making in corrections and parole systems, ensuring both predictive power and transparency.

Abstract Risk-needs assessments (RNAs) are an evidence-based practice used by practitioners to assign supervision and programming. While foundational to day-to-day practices, these tools are typically applied ‘off-the shelf,’ and are mistakenly assumed to demonstrate equivalent prediction accuracy regardless of location or population. Although researchers and providers are aware these tools experience performance shrinkage, the issue is commonly ignored. In 2016 the Tennessee Department of Correction (TDOC) collaborated with the developers of the Static Risk Offender Needs Guide – Revised (STRONG-R) to create a staged development of a locallydeveloped risk needs assessment. Using propensity score matching, a proxy sample was used to create an initial version of the STRONG-R, representing a TDOC-like sample. This version was deployed in 2017. Following data collection, developers recrafted the tool with local data to make Version 2.0. Findings demonstrate improved performance using this innovative method, effectively eliminating performance shrinkage for the TDOC STRONG-R.

This article explores how criminal risk-need assessment algorithms (e.g., COMPAS) and financial scoring systems (e.g., FICO) create feedback loops that perpetuate systemic biases, disproportionately affecting already financially marginalized groups. It examines the intersection of these tools, particularly how factors like place of residence, financial instability, and access to resources influence both systems. Using a theoretical critique, this study indirectly analyzes (1) criminological theories, (2) algorithmic design principles, and (3) evidentiary standards. The criminological theories considered—including Social Class and Crime, Strain Theory, Subcultural Perspectives, Labeling and Marxist/Conflict Theories, Control Theories, and Differential Association Theory—share a consensus that environmental factors contribute to crime. While this research does not aim to verify their conclusions, it investigates how algorithmic models incorporate personal financial data and place of residence. It also examines the relevance of these to observing non-virtuous behaviors, as supported by the previously mentioned criminological theories, although the findings of these theories may differ regarding the levels of relevance of the environment to criminal occurrences. Additionally, evidentiary standards and numerical reasoning help assess how these inputs shape potentially biased and unfair scores. Findings suggest that low scores in one system exacerbate low scores in the other, creating a cyclical disadvantage. This reinforces economic and social inequities, calling for greater scrutiny, transparency, and fairness in algorithmic design and application. Ignoring these issues risks deepening poverty, restricting credit access, and increasing incarceration rates among financially marginalized communities. By highlighting these feedback loops, this study aims to inform academic research and policy reforms to mitigate algorithmic bias and its far-reaching consequences.

ABSTRACT Therapeutic approaches in community corrections have become common practice toward an evidenced based approach. Core correctional practices have been transformed into manualized training programs to support probation officer use of these evidence based practices. This study sought to determine how probation officer use of a manualized training program, specifically Effective Practices in Community Supervision (EPICS), impacted offender recidivism one-year post probation completion. Findings demonstrate that EPICS is most impactful with high risk offenders while individual EPICS skills such as behavior chains and cost benefit analysis had no impact on recidivism.

ABSTRACT Risk assessment plays an important role in forensic mental health care. The way the conclusions of those risk assessments are communicated varies considerably across instruments. In an effort to make them more comparable, Hanson, R. K., Bourgon, G., McGrath, R., Kroner, D. D., Amora, D. A., Thomas, S. S., & Tavarez, L. P. [2017. A five-level risk and needs system: Maximizing assessment results in corrections through the development of a common language. The Council of State Governments Justice Center. https://csgjusticecenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/A-Five-Level-Risk-and-Needs-System_Report.pdf] developed the Five-Level Risk and Needs System, placing the conclusions of different instruments along five theoretically meaningful levels. The current study explores a Five-Level Risk and Needs system for violent recidivism to which the numerical codings of the HCR-20 Version 2 and its successor, the HCR-20V3 are calibrated, using a combined sample from six previous studies for the HCR-20 Version 2 (n = 411 males with a violent index offence) and a pilot sample for the HCR-20V3 (n = 66 males with a violent index offence). Baselines for the five levels were defined by a combination of theoretical (e.g. expert meetings) and empirical (e.g. literature review) considerations. The calibration of the HCR-20 Version 2 was able to detect four levels, from a combined level I/II to an adjusted level V. The provisional calibration of the HCR-20V3 showed a substantial overlap with the HCR-20 Version 2, with each level boundary having a 2-point difference. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.

As Forensic Psychology continues to expand as an independent field, professionals regularly resort to psychological assessment tools to assess people involved within the justice system. The Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI) is a 344-item, self-report inventory that aims to provide meaningful information for diagnosis and clinical decision-making, specifically relating to psychopathology, personality, and psychosocial environment. Its applicability in forensic settings has been increasingly recognized on account of its benefits in comparison to other self-report inventories (e.g., MMPI-2, MCMI-III), since it includes scales that are relevant to forensic settings (e.g., violence risk levels, psychopathy, substance abuse), and the existence of profile distortion indicators is useful when dealing with highly defensive and/or malingering populations. The goal of this paper is to conduct a thorough review of the PAI's utility in forensic settings, by focusing on the relevant forensic constructs assessed by the PAI (e.g., personality disorders, psychosis, substance abuse, aggression, recidivism risk, and response distortion), as well as its application to offender and inmate populations, intimate partner violence contexts, family law cases, and forensic professionals. Overall, the PAI continues to gather international recognition and its relevance and usefulness in forensic settings is generally accepted and acknowledged.

Against the backdrop of the deepening concept of socialized execution, the connotation and function of the community corrections system urgently need broader expansion and reconstruction. This paper, based on the legislative status and practical dilemmas regarding the applicable objects of community corrections in China, systematically examines the operational mechanisms and institutional logic of the alternative to incarceration model in Western developed countries through a comparative law perspective, offering a critical deconstruction of its conceptual foundations, applicability standards, and practical effectiveness. Building on this analysis, the paper proposes a gradual expansion plan for the scope of applicable objects in Chinas community corrections, clarifying a reconstruction path combining intra-system optimization and gradual reform. This aims to enable the community corrections system to play a greater role in effectively alleviating the burdens of imprisonment and promoting offender reintegration, thereby providing intellectual support for the modern transformation of Chinas criminal execution system.

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The current study aims to assess probation and parole officers' (PPOs) adherence to the Made-in-Ontario Core Correctional Practice (CCP) model of community supervision with justice-impacted people. Case notes from 5 PPOs (for 45 clients) were coded to examine if evidence of CCP strategies used during PPO and client interactions could be reliably detected in PPO case notes. Preliminary findings indicate promising evidence for the detection of CCP strategies within case notes. Inter-rater reliability was also found to be high. Future considerations include expanding the study to a larger sample, refining the coding manual, and examining potential covariates. These insights contribute to understanding the integration and effectiveness of CCP practices into community supervision settings.

This study explores the shift from conventional incarceration systems to Community-Based Correction (CBC) as a more humane and effective approach to offender rehabilitation. Traditional prisons often fail to reintegrate inmates and instead exacerbate issues such as overcrowding, violence, and prisonization. CBC offers an alternative grounded in restorative justice through non-custodial methods such as community service, electronic monitoring, and probation. Using a post-positivist qualitative method, the study analyzes secondary data from legal texts, academic journals, and case studies across several countries. The Netherlands integrates community service as a primary sentence within a flexible legal framework; Canada emphasizes probation and offender accountability through restorative justice; New Zealand applies structured programs like community work and electronic supervision; while Indonesia’s CBC is limited to assimilation and open prisons, with minimal public involvement. The findings highlight CBC's success in reducing recidivism and prison overcrowding

The criminal justice system in Indonesia has long played an important role in shaping societal norms and values, preventing crime, and ensuring public safety, thus fostering a secure and conducive environment. The concept of Community-Based Correction (CBC) has emerged as a progressive alternative that emphasizes a balance between rehabilitation principles and social justice. The purpose of this study is to analyze philosophical aspects, including reintegration and rehabilitation, restorative justice practices, community involvement and support, as well as the challenges and ethical considerations of community-based correction. The method used in this study is a normative juridical approach with philosophical analysis. The research concludes that the philosophy of community-based correction offers a glimmer of hope in the evolving criminal justice landscape. It emphasizes reintegration, rehabilitation, and restorative justice, challenging the punitive model as a comprehensive preventive solution. As society grapples with the complexities of criminal justice, community-based correction presents a promising way forward—an approach aimed not only at rehabilitating offenders but also healing communities and addressing systemic inequalities, ultimately creating a safer and fairer society.

Community supervision is the most frequently used correctional sentence, requiring individuals to adhere to court-ordered conditions. Using a sample of 304 adults under probation supervision, this study investigated the influence of the type and number of special conditions on probation outcomes. Our findings revealed that the type of special conditions significantly predicted probation outcomes. Specifically, individuals ordered to a higher number of treatment conditions were more likely to experience negative outcomes, including technical violations, rearrest, and revocation. Individuals ordered to more control conditions had a higher number of technical violations and were over five times more likely to be revoked. Requiring a higher total number of court-ordered conditions increased the likelihood of technical violations, and greater odds of rearrest and revocation. Findings illustrate the importance of evaluating the imposition of court-ordered conditions, highlighting the potential for the excessive use of conditions to inadvertently undermine the effectiveness of the probation system.

The National Criminal Code brought a paradigm shift in the criminal justice system in Indonesia, especially through two new types of basic punishments, namely supervision sentence and community service sentences. This form of punishment is an effort to reform criminal law that is oriented towards the rehabilitation and social reintegration of criminals, as an alternative to imprisonment which has so far dominated the criminal justice system. In its implementation, the function of community guidance is crucial to ensure the effectiveness of the punishment. The research method used in the discussion and analysis of the problem is normative juridical with a statutory approach and legal concepts. Community guidance plays a role in conducting community research, providing recommendations to prosecutors, and guiding convicts during the supervision or community service sentences period. However, strengthening regulations and institutions for the implementation of this function is still an urgent need because there are no implementing regulations that specifically regulate this matter. Therefore, this study emphasizes the importance of restructuring the role of community guidance in supporting the implementation of supervision and community service sentences so that the goals of correctional and criminal punishment can be achieved optimally.

Community corrections agencies across the United States are adopting racial equity as a priority in their polices, practices, and staff training, though how racial equity can be translated into the routine practices of probation and parole officers has not been widely discussed. This study examines the associations of perceived racial equity priorities on the supervision strategies reported by probation and parole officers in an online survey (N = 1054). Approximately one-third of officers reported that their agencies prioritized racial equity. Racial equity scores were stronger in juvenile agencies and in agencies that prioritized evidence-informed practices. Racial equity was associated with reduced accountability-oriented case management practices. Results of this study suggest that racial equity policies and practices may impact client outcomes through changes in general supervision strategies. More research is needed to identify race-conscious strategies that community corrections officers can employ to meet the needs of people involved in the legal system.

Problems related to children in conflict with the law impact the quality of children as the next generation and national assets. With the high number of children in conflict with the law, proper handling is also needed so that the judicial process for children does not violate the rights inherent in the child, which will negatively impact the child's growth and development process in the future. This study aims to determine how Community-Based Correction is an effort to implement the assimilation rights of child prisoners in Special Child Development Institutions. The research method used in this writing is empirical Juridical research. Legal research on implementing or implementing normative legal provisions in action in every specific legal event that occurs in society. The results of the discussion of this study show that the Special Child Development Institution has a very important role, namely in carrying out guidance for children in conflict with the law. This includes skills training, religious guidance, and intellectual, physical, and spiritual health. One of the guidance programs for prisoners is Community Based Corrections; prisoners are allowed to return to the community and remain under supervision by the Correctional Center. As in the example of external Assimilation, foster children are allowed to participate in skills training and other activities outside the LPKA. So that foster children can mingle with the community and do social work before their detention period ends.

Associations with substance-involved peers, difficulties with daily tasks, and financial struggles are recidivism risks for women under community supervision. Relationship strength between such women and their supervising officers is an emerging area of interest in community corrections, as is exposure to adverse childhood experiences. This research uses longitudinal data on 402 women convicted of substance-related felonies and on probation or parole to examine how their perceptions of relationship strength with supervising officers and exposure to adverse childhood experiences correlate with cohabitation with substance-involved people, experiencing substance-related difficulties with work or school, and financial distress. Better relationships with supervising officers and less exposure to adverse childhood experiences mitigated recidivism risks. Implications for practice are discussed.

The high rate of recidivism in Indonesia is caused by the legal paradigm and politics of society which place imprisonment as a premium remedium. Consequently, various problems arise in prisons, such as prison overcapacity and other problems. The government has made an effort to countermeasures by issuing a new Correctional Law and Criminal Code which carries a new sentencing paradigm through restorative justice; however, the panitentiary has not had a breakthrough that is in line with the new paradigm. Community-based correction which was first recognized in New Zealand is deemed appropriate to be applied in Indonesia with adjustments according to philosophical, sociological, and juridical foundations to fill the void in norms in arranging community-based correction as a form of fostering prisoners in jails. This study is a normative legal research with a literature study. This study uses statute, case, fact, and comparative approaches. Community-based correction implemented in New Zealand bears similarities to the fostering of convicts implemented in Indonesia, such as probation, parole, work release, and residential center or the halfway house program. In the future, the concept of fostering convicts based on the principles of restorative justice will be implemented using the pattern of community-based correction. Community-based correction is conceptualized in two forms, namely as an alternative to conviction and an alternative to imprisonment. As an alternative to conviction, the concept can accommodate the implementation of supervision and social work punishments that are regulated in the new Criminal Code. As an alternative to imprisonment, community-based correction can take the form of optimization of the function of open prisons by providing an opportunity for convicts with a maximum sentence of three years to be placed in open prisons from the start of serving their sentence. Keywords: community-based correction, conviction, imprisonment, restorative justice

This research develops a systematic community empowerment model through examination of associate judges' practices at Phang Nga Juvenile and Family Court in Thailand. The study aims to understand how associate judges facilitate community engagement in juvenile rehabilitation and create a replicable framework for community-based juvenile justice reform. A mixed-methods research design was employed, analyzing data from 33 questionnaire respondents and 13 in-depth interviews with diverse stakeholders. Data collection utilized structured questionnaires with validated instruments, semi-structured interview guides, and systematic document analysis of court records, project reports, and implementation materials. This research identified five core roles of associate judges in community empowerment: community-court liaison, legal education facilitation, network building, rehabilitation supervision, and restorative justice mediation. Statistical analysis revealed a significant positive correlation (r=0.572, p<.05) between community empowerment initiatives and rehabilitation effectiveness. Through systematic analysis of these practices, a four-step community empowerment model emerged: (1) facilitating community participation, (2) disseminating legal knowledge, (3) building collaborative networks, and (4) monitoring and evaluation. The significant positive relationship between community empowerment initiatives and rehabilitation effectiveness validates the model's effectiveness in improving juvenile justice outcomes compared to traditional court-centered interventions.

Abstract Risk assessment tools for recidivism have been validated extensively in youth justice populations. These validation studies typically demonstrate good predictive accuracy, leading many jurisdictions to implement structured approaches across custody and community supervision settings. However, previous research has focused primarily on single supervision contexts, with limited examination of whether predictions maintain their accuracy when applied across different settings. This gap has implications for jurisdictions applying similar risk assessment protocols across different supervision settings. Our study examined whether violent recidivism predictions maintain their accuracy across youth custodial and community supervision contexts. We developed a predictive model using data from custodial youth (n = 790) and evaluated its performance among community-supervised youth (n = 766) in New South Wales, Australia. Two-year violent recidivism was higher in custody (37%) than in community supervision (27%). The model showed good discrimination in both custody (AUC 0.771, 95% CI: 0.735–0.807) and community settings (AUC 0.728, 95% CI: 0.685–0.770). While adjusting the baseline hazard improved absolute risk prediction, optimal performance across the risk spectrum required additional adjustments to the linear predictor. This suggests that the strength and pattern of risk factor relationships may vary across different settings; therefore, statistical adjustments may be necessary when applying predictions across various contexts.

Martinson (1974) argued that Nothing Works in the rehabilitation of justice impacted individuals. In response, Andrews and Kiesling (1980) developed a set of core correctional practices (CCPs) that could be used by probation and parole officers to enhance correctional outcomes for justice impacted individuals. More recently, trauma responsive approaches have emerged as another hypothesized effective strategy for dealing with justice impacted individuals who experience high levels of trauma (Miller & Najavits, 2012). This study investigates the nature and prevalence of probable traumatic experiences among justice impacted individuals on probation with a focus on gender differences (N ≈ 329). The study also investigates if probation and parole officers who were recently trained in a model of community supervision that blends trauma responsiveness with core correctional practices—the Ontario Ministry of the Solicitor General’s Made-in-Ontario Core Correctional Practices (CCP) Model of Community Supervision- are more likely to apply trauma, diversity and inclusivity (TDI) principles in their interactions with clients after the training. The study uses client case notes prepared by probation and parole officers. Results showed that despite women reporting significantly higher probable trauma, trauma-informed approaches were applied similarly across gender groups. In addition, TDI implementation was consistent regardless of trauma status in the context of CCP. This highlights the need for more targeted trauma-informed approaches based on individual needs rather than a generalized application of trauma-informed intervention. The opinions and views expressed in this report reflect those of the author and not the Ontario Ministry of the Solicitor General. Sohaila Abdelhadi contributed intellectually to the research, prepared the poster from their thesis work, and managed its submission. All authors contributed to data collection and coding.

Social work punishment is a form of renewal of basic criminal punishment in Indonesia. Therefore, it is important to regulate the mechanism of social punishment supervision so that the implementation of social work punishment is in accordance with the objectives of punishment in Indonesia, one of which is to create a sense of security in the community. As a form of legal novelty, currently Indonesia does not have legal regulations governing the mechanism of supervision of social work punishment. The policy of social work criminal supervision greatly affects the legal framework in realizing justice. The purpose of this research is to explain the importance of legal reform in the supervision of criminal social work and provide ideas on the ideal model for criminal social work supervision in Indonesia. The method used in this research is normative juridical, by examining the application of rules or norms in positive law with a statutory approach, historical approach, and conceptual approach. The result of this research is that legal reform is needed so that Indonesia has rules governing the implementation of social work punishment in detail so that it can create justice and benefit in society. The ideal model of supervision of social work punishment in ius constituendum criminal law reform, namely by formulating a direct supervision model and using a global positioning system (GPS) by Community Supervisors and coordinating with the Prosecutor and the agency where the convict works.

Background The mortality rate among people under probation supervision in the community is greater than that among incarcerated people and that among the general population. However, there is limited research on the distinct vulnerabilities and risks underlying the causes of death in this population. In this retrospective cohort study, we examined the individual and criminal justice-related factors associated with different causes of death. Factors were assessed in relation to the type of supervision, distinguishing between those under post-custodial release and those serving a community sentence. Results The study utilised the official data held by His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service in England and Wales on the deaths of men and women under probation supervision between 01 April 2019 and 31 March 2021 where the cause of death had been definitively recorded ( n  = 1770). The high risk of deaths primarily caused by external factors (i.e., suspected suicide (10%), homicide (5%), and drug-related death (26%)) in this population was confirmed. A Gaussian Graphical Model (GGM) demonstrated unique relationships with suspected suicide and drug-related deaths for known suicide risk, history of drug use and recent (< 28 days of death) enforcement action due to a breach of probation conditions. Our findings suggest that that familial violence and abuse may be relevant in suicide and drug-related deaths and that minority groups may experience disproportional risk to certain types of death. Conclusions This study identified unique risk indicators and modifiable factors for deaths primarily caused by external factors in this population within the health and justice spheres. It emphasised the importance of addressing health inequalities in this population and improved joint-working across health and justice. This involves ensuring that research, policies, training, and services are responsive to the complex needs of those under probation supervision, including those serving community sentences. Only then can we hope to see lower rates of death within this population.

The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic placed new strains on community corrections including officers’ ability to enforce and respond to client noncompliance. With system-wide closures to courthouses, delays in case processing, and limited incarceration space, supervision officers were faced with new challenges regarding the availability of sanction response options. The goal of the current study was to examine how supervision officers responded to noncompliance when traditional, incarceration-based sanctions were largely unavailable. Drawing on qualitative interviews with American probation/parole officers (PPOs) (n = 42), we identified several themes surrounding changes in officers’ strategies to address and respond to noncompliance. Results from thematic analysis suggest major changes in how PPOs monitored supervision compliance during the pandemic including changes to client supervision requirements, modality of contacts, and use of technology for remote surveillance. Findings also revealed changes in how PPOs applied traditional graduated sanctions during the pandemic. Implications of these findings are discussed.

Punishment of children in conflict with the law requires an approach that is not only repressive but also considers the rights and future of children. A conditional sentence is a form of alternative punishment that can maintain children in a proper social environment without serving a criminal period in a correctional institution. This article examines the urgency of applying conditional punishment in juvenile cases and highlights the strategic role of community research reports in influencing judges' decisions. This research uses a qualitative method with an empirical juridical approach through field observations, literature studies, and interviews. The results show that the quality of recommendations is the primary key to successful conditional sentences in court. Data-based recommendations that address the dimensions of supervision, environmental support, and the effectiveness of non-agency coaching tend to be more accepted by judges. The optimization of conditional punishment requires increasing the capacity of community supervisors, national standardization of reports, and evaluation and feedback mechanisms from law enforcement officials to ensure the quality of recommendations submitted.

The penal system in Indonesia must undergo reforms, considering the complexity of legal violations and the demands for the protection of human rights. The transformation from a prison-based system to a correctional system aims to improve the approach toward prisoners, focusing on rehabilitation and social reintegration. This research employs a descriptive qualitative approach. One of the major issues in the correctional system is overcrowding, which results from repressive penal regulations that do not prioritize the principle of ultimum remedium. To address this, alternative approaches such as Community-Based Corrections (CBC) are being explored. Through this program, prisoners can be rehabilitated outside correctional facilities under community supervision, which reduces pressure on prisons and accelerates the social reintegration process. However, the implementation of CBC faces challenges related to unclear regulations and complex bureaucracy

The reformation of criminal law in Indonesia through Law Number 1 Year 2023 on Criminal Code (KUHP) introduces supervision punishment as one of the main types of punishment. This study aims to analyze the ratio legis and suitability of supervision punishment arrangement with the purpose of punishment, as well as to compare it with the practice in other countries, especially the Netherlands. Using normative legal research method with a comparative approach, this research examines primary legal materials in the form of the new Criminal Code, as well as secondary legal materials from trusted literature and legal journals. The result shows that supervision punishment is an effort to transform the paradigm of punishment from retributive to restorative, corrective, and rehabilitative justice. The regulation of supervision punishment in Article 65-77 of the Criminal Code aims to prevent criminal acts, socialize the perpetrators through coaching, and resolve conflicts by restoring social balance. In addition, comparative analysis shows that the implementation of supervision punishment in the Netherlands, through the Probation Service institution, has succeeded in reducing the occupancy rate of correctional institutions, encouraging social reintegration, and saving operational costs. In conclusion, supervision punishment in Indonesia offers a more humanist alternative to imprisonment, by emphasizing on offender rehabilitation and community protection. This reform reflects the modernization of criminal law that is more responsive to the needs of society, and supports the achievement of just and effective punishment objectives. This research recommends strengthening supporting infrastructure, such as social and psychological services, to optimize the implementation of supervision punishment.

The stochastic nature of next-token generation and resulting response variability in Large Language Models (LLMs) outputs pose challenges in ensuring consistency and accuracy on knowledge assessments. This study introduces a novel multi-agent framework, referred to as a "Council of AIs", to enhance LLM performance through collaborative decision-making. The Council consists of multiple GPT-4 instances that iteratively discuss and reach consensus on answers facilitated by a designated "Facilitator AI." This methodology was applied to 325 United States Medical Licensing Exam (USMLE) questions across all three exam stages: Step 1, focusing on biomedical sciences; Step 2 evaluating clinical knowledge (CK)\; and Step 3, evaluating readiness for independent medical practice. The Council achieved consensus that were correct 97%, 93%, and 94% of the time for Step 1, Step 2 CK, and Step 3, respectively, outperforming single-instance GPT-4 models. In cases where there wasn't an initial unanimous response, the Council deliberations achieved a consensus that was the correct answer 83% of the time, with the Council correcting over half (53%) of the responses that majority vote had gotten incorrect. The odds of a majority voting response changing from incorrect to correct were 5 (95% CI: 1.1, 22.8) times higher than the odds of changing from correct to incorrect after discussion. This study provides the first evidence that the semantic entropy of the response space can consistently be reduced to zero-demonstrated here through Council deliberation, and suggesting the possibility of other mechanisms to achieve the same outcome.. This study revealed that in a Council model, response variability, often considered a limitation, can be transformed into a strength that supports adaptive reasoning and collaborative refinement of answers. These findings suggest new paradigms for AI implementation and reveal the heightened strength that emerges when AIs begin to collaborate as a collective rather than operate alone.

Although risk in the criminal justice field has been subject to intensive international debate, it has not incorporated China and its growing field of community corrections. This article assesses the current initiative of developing actuarial assessment tools in China and contrasts this with its use in the correctional context. There is certainly a rift in the understanding of risk, particularly, between the risk factors in Western risk assessment tools, the political construction of risk, and the local practitioners' embrace of correctional work. However, this article suggests that under the current mode of risk governance in China, actuarial assessment tools promoted in the correctional field simply add another layer of social control. The article highlights the importance of political and social rationalities and environments behind the construction of risk.

High rates of incarceration in the United States are compounded by high rates of recidivism and prison return. One solution is more accurate identification of individual prisoner risks and needs to promote offender rehabilitation and successful community re-entry; this is particularly important for youthful offenders who developmentally are in late adolescence or early adulthood, and who struggle to reengage in education and/or employment after release. Thus, this study examined the feasibility of administration and initial psychometric properties of a risk and needs assessment instrument originally created for a juvenile justice population (the Global Risk Assessment Device or GRAD) with 895 male youthful offenders in one adult correctional system. Initial feasibility of implementation within the correctional system was demonstrated; confirmatory factor analyses support the invariance of the modified GRAD factor structure across age and race. Future studies are needed to examine the predictive validity and the sensitivity of the instrument.

Risk assessment instruments are used to estimate risk of recidivism and aid in decision-making and treatment planning. However, many of these instruments, including the Level of Service/Risk, Need, Responsivity (LS/RNR), are validated on predominantly Western populations, and research has questioned whether the factors included in the LS/RNR adequately capture the experiences and needs of non-Western communities, including Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders. The current study aimed to canvas the opinions of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community justice workers as to the suitability of the LS/RNR for use with this population. A general qualitative methodology was adopted to gain in-depth information through the facilitation of a focus group, and data were analysed thematically. Whilst participants agreed that the LS/RNR risk factors are relevant to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander offenders, they reported that the instrument did not adequately capture relevant culturally specific considerations and made suggestions to improve the LS/RNR.

Individuals in the criminal justice system engage in behaviors that put them at high risk for HIV. This study sought to identify characteristics of individuals who are under community corrections supervision (eg, probation) and at risk for HIV. Approximately 25,000 individuals under community corrections supervision were assessed for HIV risk, and 5059 participants were deemed high-risk or no-risk. Of those, 1519 exhibited high sexual-risk (SR) behaviors, 203 exhibited injection drug risk (IVR), 957 exhibited both types of risk (SIVR), and 2380 exhibited no risk. Sociodemographic characteristics and drug of choice were then examined using univariate and binary logistic regression. Having a history of sexual abuse, not having insurance, and selecting any drug of choice were associated with all forms of HIV risk. However, the effect sizes associated with the various drugs of choice varied significantly by group. Aside from those common risk factors, very different patterns emerged. Female gender was a risk factor for the SR group but was less likely to be associated with IVR. Younger age was associated with SR, whereas older age was associated with IVR. Black race was a risk factor for SR but had a negative association with IVR and SIVR. Living in a shelter, living with relatives/friends, and being unemployed were all risk factors for IVR but were protective factors for SR. Distinct sociodemographic and substance use characteristics were associated with sexual versus injection drug use risk for individuals under community corrections supervision who were at risk for HIV. Information from this study could help identify high-risk individuals and allow tailoring of interventions.

Returning to the community after incarceration is a particularly vulnerable time with significantly increased risk of death in the first 2 weeks. The elevated risk of death persists as long as 2 years, with cardiovascular disease (CVD) among the leading causes. African-Americans, especially African-American men, have higher rates of incarceration and community supervision (e.g., probation and parole) and an earlier onset of hypertension compared to Whites. Few studies have objectively assessed the cardiovascular health profile of criminal justice involved individuals. This study is designed to determine the cardiovascular health profile among men in community corrections and/or transitional housing, identify the prevalence of key CVD risk factors, and assess if risk varies by race/ethnicity. We recruited 100 adult men (mean age = 42.7, SD = 11.35, 60% White, 40% non-Hispanic White) with a history of incarceration in jail or prison of ≥ 6 months during their most recent incarceration and enrolled in a community corrections program. Using the American Heart Association's Life's Simple 7™ (LS-7), measures of each of the LS-7 components (body mass index, blood pressure, lipids, blood glucose, smoking, diet, and physical activity) were obtained, and LS-7 scores were generated for each measure using AHA-defined categories of poor (1 point), intermediate (2 points), and ideal (3 points) and summed to yield a total score ranging from poor for all (7 points) to ideal for all (21 points). Mann-Whitney U tests were performed to assess differences in LS-7 scores (poor, intermediate, ideal) by race/ethnicity. Additionally, an independent samples t test was conducted for race/ethnicity and LS-7 total score. Mann-Whitney U tests for LS-7 categories and race/ethnicity indicated a greater number of non-Whites had poor blood pressure (p < .01) and diet (p < .05) as compared to Whites. The independent samples t test demonstrated significantly lower LS-7 scores for non-Whites compared to Whites. To our knowledge, this is the first study to evaluate cardiovascular health among individuals with a history of incarceration using the LS-7 metric, which included objective measures for four of the seven LS-7 metrics. Non-Whites, which included African-Americans, Hispanics, and American Indians, were more likely than Whites to fall into the poor category for both diet and blood pressure and had significantly lower total LS-7 scores than Whites, indicating they have worse scores across all seven of the LS-7 measures. Similar to what is found among non-incarcerated samples, non-Whites with incarceration histories are at elevated risk for cardiovascular events relative to their White peers.

This viewpoint was developed to revisit the burden and risks associated with postpartum depression (PPD) among incarcerated women based on a thematic review of the literature. Around one third of incarcerated pregnant women have symptoms of moderate to severe depression perinatally. In particular, PPD negatively impacts the well-being of parents and their children. Mitigating the consequences of PPD through screening, promotion of protective factors, and early identification coupled with treatment may have a substantial impact on the overall well-being of the affected children and postpartum individuals. Important risk factors for PPD in correctional populations include previous mental illness diagnosis, a lack of social support, poor pre- and perinatal care, inability to breastfeed, a lack of skin-to-skin contact, and partner violence. We recommend that correctional facilities promote the development of on-site mother-baby units and streamline the visitation process for newborns to visit parents. Improved access to pre- and postnatal care, education, and doula support is highly recommended, as well as consideration of community-based alternatives to incarceration, particularly in correctional settings with underserved mental health care needs. Future studies are needed to estimate the burden of PPD in correctional settings, identify system-related risk factors, and implement evidence-based guidelines for PPD and associated psychosocial sequelae.

In September 2015, the member states of the United Nations endorsed sustainable development goals (SDG) for 2030 that aspire to human rights-centered approaches to ensuring the health and well-being of all people. The SDGs embody both the UN Charter values of rights and justice for all and the responsibility of states to rely on the best scientific evidence as they seek to better humankind. In April 2016, these same states will consider control of illicit drugs, an area of social policy that has been fraught with controversy, seen as inconsistent with human rights norms, and for which scientific evidence and public health approaches have arguably played too limited a role. The previous UN General Assembly Special Session (UNGASS) on drugs in 1998 – convened under the theme “a drug-free world, we can do it!” – endorsed drug control policies based on the goal of prohibiting all use, possession, production, and trafficking of illicit drugs. This goal is enshrined in national law in many countries. In pronouncing drugs a “grave threat to the health and well-being of all mankind,” the 1998 UNGASS echoed the foundational 1961 convention of the international drug control regime, which justified eliminating the “evil” of drugs in the name of “the health and welfare of mankind.” But neither of these international agreements refers to the ways in which pursuing drug prohibition itself might affect public health. The “war on drugs” and “zero-tolerance” policies that grew out of the prohibitionist consensus are now being challenged on multiple fronts, including their health, human rights, and development impact. The Johns Hopkins – The pursuit of drug prohibition has generated a parallel economy run by criminal networks. Both these networks, which resort to violence to protect their markets, and the police and sometimes military or paramilitary forces that pursue them contribute to violence and insecurity in communities affected by drug transit and sales. In Mexico, the dramatic increase in homicides since the government decided to use military forces against drug traffickers in 2006 has been so great that it reduced life expectancy in the country. Injection of drugs with contaminated equipment is a well-known route of HIV exposure and viral hepatitis transmission. People who inject drugs (PWID) are also at high risk of tuberculosis. The continued spread of unsafe injection-linked HIV contrasts the progress that has been seen in reducing sexual and vertical transmission of HIV in the last three decades. The Commission found that that repressive drug policing greatly contributes to the risk of HIV linked to injection. Policing may be a direct barrier to services such as needle and syringe programmes (NSP) and use of non-injected opioids to treat dependence among those who inject opioids, known as opioid substitution therapy (OST). Police seeking to boost arrest totals have been found to target facilities that provide these services to find, harass, and detain large numbers of people who use drugs. Drug paraphernalia laws that prohibit possession of injecting equipment lead PWID to fear carrying syringes and force them to share equipment or dispose of it unsafely. Policing practices undertaken in the name of the public good have demonstrably worsened public health outcomes. Amongst the most significant impacts of pursuit of drug prohibition identified by the Commission with respect to infectious disease is the excessive use of incarceration as a drug-control measure. Many national laws impose lengthy custodial sentences for minor, non-violent drug offenses; people who use drugs (PWUD) are over-represented in prison and pretrial detention. Drug use and drug injection occur in prisons, though their occurrence is often denied by officials. HIV and hepatitis C virus (HCV) transmission occurs among prisoners and detainees, often complicated by co-infection with TB and in many places multidrug-resistant TB, and too few states offer prevention or treatment services in spite of international guidelines that urge comprehensive measures, including provision of injection equipment, for people in state custody. Mathematical modelling undertaken by the Commission illustrates that incarceration and high HCV risk in the post-incarceration period can contribute importantly to national HCV incidence amongst PWID in a range of countries with varying levels of incarceration, different average prison sentences, durations of injection, and OST coverage levels in prison and following release. For example, in Thailand where PWID may spend nearly half their injection careers in prison, an estimated 63% of incident HCV infection could occur in prison. In Scotland, where prison sentences are shorter for PWUD and OST coverage is relatively high in prison, an estimated 54% of incident HCV infection occurs in prison, but as much as 21% may occur in the high-risk post-release period. These results underscore the importance of alternatives to prison for minor drug offences, ensuring access to OST in prison, and a seamless link from prison services to OST in the community. The evidence also clearly demonstrates that drug law enforcement has been applied in a discriminatory way against racial and ethnic minorities in a number of countries. The US is perhaps the best documented but not the only case of racial biases in policing, arrest, and sentencing. In 2014, African American men were more than five times more likely than whites to be incarcerated in their lifetime, though there is no significant difference in rates of drug use among these populations. The impact of this bias on communities of people of color is inter-generational and socially and economically devastating. The Commission also found significant gender biases in current drug policies. Of women in prison and pretrial detention around the world, a higher percentage are detained because of drug infractions than is the case for men. Women involved in drug markets are often on the bottom rungs – as couriers or drivers – and may not have information about major traffickers to trade as leverage with prosecutors. Gender and racial biases have marked overlap, making this an intersectional threat to women of color, their children, families, and communities. In both prison and the community, HIV, HCV and TB programmes for PWUD – including testing, prevention and treatment – are gravely underfunded at the cost of preventable death and disease. In a number of middle-income countries where large numbers of PWUD live, HIV and TB programmes for PWUD that were expanded with support from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, TB and Malaria have lost funding due to changes in the Fund’s eligibility criteria. There is an unfortunate failure to emulate the example of Western European countries that have eliminated unsafe injection-linked HIV as a public health problem by sustainably scaling up prevention and care and enabling minor offenders to avert prison. Political resistance to harm reduction measures dismisses strong evidence of their effectiveness and cost-effectiveness. Mathematical modeling shows that if OST, NSP and antiretroviral therapy for HIV are all available, even if the coverage of each of them is not over 50%, their synergy can lead to effective prevention in a foreseeable future. PWUD are often not seen to be worthy of costly treatments, or they are thought not to be able to adhere to treatment regimens in spite of evidence to the contrary. Lethal drug overdose is an important public health problem, particularly in light of rising consumption of heroin and prescription opioids in some parts of the world. Yet the Commission found that the pursuit of drug prohibition can contribute to overdose risks in numerous ways. It creates unregulated illegal markets in which it is impossible to control adulterants of street drugs that add to overdose risk. Several studies also link aggressive policing to rushed injection and overdose risk. People with a history of drug use, over-represented in prison because of prohibitionist policies, are at extremely high risk of overdose when released from state custody. Lack of ready access to OST also contributes to injection of opioids, and bans on supervised injection sites cut off an intervention that has proven very effective in reducing overdose deaths. Restrictive drug policies also contribute to unnecessary controls on naloxone, a medicine that can reverse overdose very effectively. Though a small percentage of PWUD will ever need treatment for drug dependence, that minority faces enormous barriers to humane and affordable treatment in many countries. There are often no national standards for quality of drug dependence treatment and no regular monitoring of practices. In too many countries, beatings, forced labor, and denial of health care and adequate sanitation are offered in the name of treatment, including in compulsory detention centres that are more like prisons than treatment facilities. Where there are humane treatment options, it is often the case that those most in need of it cannot afford it. In many countries, there is no treatment designed particularly for women, though it is known that women’s motivations for and physiological reactions to drug use differ from those of men. The pursuit of the elimination of drugs has led to aggressive and harmful practices targeting people who grow crops used in the manufacture of drugs, especially coca leaf, opium poppy, and cannabis. Aerial spraying of coca fields in the Andes with the defoliant glyphosate (N-(phosphonomethyl glycine) has been associated with respiratory and dermatological disorders and with miscarriages. Forced displacement of poor rural families who have no secure land tenure exacerbates their poverty and food insecurity and in some cases forces them to move their cultivation to more marginal land. Geographic isolation makes it difficult for state authorities to reach drug crop cultivators in public health and education campaigns and it cuts cultivators off from basic health services. Alternative development programmes meant to offer other livelihood opportunities have poor records and have rarely been conceived, implemented, or evaluated with respect to their impact on people’s health. Research on drugs and drug policy has suffered from the lack of a diversified funding base and assumptions about drug use and drug pathologies on the part of the dominant funder, the US government. At a time when drug policy discussions are opening up around the world, there is an urgent to bring the best of non-ideologically-driven health science, social science and policy analysis to the study of drugs and the potential for policy reform. Concrete experiences from many countries that have modified or rejected prohibitionist approaches in their response to drugs can inform discussions of drug policy reform. A number of countries, such as Portugal and the Czech Republic, decriminalised minor drug offenses years ago, with significant savings of money, less incarceration, significant public health benefits, and no significant increase in drug use. Decriminalisation of minor offenses along with scaling up low-threshold HIV prevention services enabled Portugal to control an explosive unsafe injection-linked HIV epidemic and likely enabled the Czech Republic to prevent one from happening. Where formal decriminalisation may not be an immediate possibility, scaling up health services for PWUD can demonstrate the value to society of responding with support rather than punishment to people who commit minor drug infractions. A pioneering OST program in Tanzania is encouraging communities and officials to consider non-criminal responses to heroin injection. In Switzerland and the city of Vancouver, Canada, dramatic improvements in access to comprehensive harm reduction services, including supervised injection sites and heroin-assisted treatment, transformed the health picture for PWUD. Vancouver’s experience also illustrates the importance of meaningful participation of PWUD in decision-making on policies and programmes affecting their communities. Policies meant to prohibit or greatly suppress drugs present a paradox. They are portrayed and defended vigorously by many policy-makers as necessary to preserve public health and safety, and yet the evidence suggests they have contributed directly and indirectly to lethal violence, communicable disease transmission, discrimination, forced displacement, unnecessary physical pain, and the undermining of people’s right to health. Some would argue that the threat of drugs to society may justify some level of abrogation of human rights for protection of collective security, as is also foreseen by human rights law in case of emergencies. International human rights standards dictate that in such cases, societies still must choose the least harmful way to address the emergency and that emergency measures must be proportionate and designed specifically to meet transparently defined and realistic goals. The pursuit of drug prohibition meets none of these criteria. Standard public health and scientific approaches that should be part of policy-making on drugs have been rejected in the pursuit of prohibition. The idea of reducing the harm of many kinds of human behavior is central to public policy in the areas of traffic safety, tobacco and alcohol regulation, food safety, safety in sports and recreation, and many other areas of human life where the behavior in question is not prohibited. But explicitly seeking to reduce drug-related harms through policy and programmes and to balance prohibition with harm reduction is regularly resisted in drug control. The persistence of unsafe injection-linked HIV and HCV transmission that could be stopped with proven, cost-effective measures remains one of the great failures of the global responses to these diseases. Drug policy that is dismissive of extensive evidence of its own negative impact and of approaches that could improve health outcomes is bad for all concerned. Countries have failed to recognise and correct the health and human rights harms that pursuit of prohibition and drug suppression have caused and in so doing neglect their legal responsibilities. They readily incarcerate people for minor offenses but then neglect their duty to provide health services in custodial settings. They recognize uncontrolled illegal markets as the consequence of their policies, but they do little to protect people from toxic, adulterated drugs that are inevitable in illegal markets or the violence of organized criminals, often made worse by policing. They waste public resources on policies that do not demonstrably impede the functioning of drug markets, and they miss opportunities to invest public resources wisely in proven health services for people often too frightened to seek services. To move toward the balanced policy that UN member states have called for, we offer the following recommendations:

The objective of this study is to identify and facilitate re-entry services for military veterans in the Criminal Justice System through the Incarcerated Veteran Outreach Program. Veterans are explored as a subgroup of the general inmate jail populations in southern Ohio based upon veteran's status, military discharges, service-related injuries, treatment needs, pre-release planning, and re-entry services. Veterans reported having psycho-social problems, diverse levels of criminality, criminogenic needs, and significant episodes of homelessness. A sample of 399 incarcerated veterans in state prison, county jails, and community corrections setting were identified and completed the psycho-social pre-release assessment. Their average age was 44.6; they were more likely to be White males, divorced, most honorably discharged, and were represented in the following eras: 34% Vietnam, 35% post-Vietnam, 26% Persian Gulf War, and 5% Operation Iraqi Freedom/Operation Enduring Freedom. The findings encourage the development of a re-entry outreach model and strategies to prevent episodes of criminal recidivism.

While there are different approaches to dealing with offenders sentenced to community corrections, the three major ones are law enforcement (surveillance), therapeutic (rehabilitation), and crime opportunity prevention. Using the study of U.S. community corrections staff by Miller as a guide, the current study examined the supervision strategy used by Chinese community corrections staff in the Hubei province of China. Chinese community corrections staff were more likely to use the therapeutic and crime opportunity prevention approaches than the law enforcement model. Predictors of each of the three offender supervision approaches differed. The results from Chinese staff were similar in many ways to that found among U.S. staff reported by Miller but differed in some areas.

This study uses the Exploration, Preparation, Implementation, and Sustainment (EPIS) model to retrospectively describe the mail-based overdose education and naloxone distribution (OEND) program developed in collaboration with the Kentucky Department of Corrections (DOC) for use in the HEALing Communities Study in Kentucky (HCS-KY) and details the reach of this innovative delivery model. HCS-KY is a community-engaged cluster-randomized trial assessing the effects of implementing evidence-based practices, including OEND, on overdose death reduction across 16 communities highly impacted by the opioid epidemic in Kentucky. Implementation occurred in all 16 counties. All promotional strategies used in the first 8 counties (Wave 1) were carried over to the second 8 counties (Wave 2), except letters were not sent to community supervision clients in Wave 2 counties. Across both waves, 1759 people accessed the Typeform™ website to receive overdose education, complete a brief demographic survey, and 1696 had naloxone shipped to their homes. Greater reach occurred in Wave 1 and in rural counties. Of the participants, 81.13 % were white, 61.17 % were female, 51.79 % were between the ages of 35-54, 18.82 % had previously experienced an overdose, and 69.07 % had witnessed an overdose. Sites sustained three of the five implementation strategies for publicizing the OEND website at the study's end but not letters and texting. Mail-based OEND programs are an appropriate delivery method for ensuring access to life-saving medication for people on community supervision and may encourage treatment. Strategies to promote the OEND program that were high-effort for agency and study staff, such as letters, or high-cost, such as texting, were not sustainable. Implications for OEND best practices, including innovative technology use within community supervision settings are addressed.

Progress monitoring is integral to evidence-based practice. Correctional settings, especially the supervision of individuals who commit sexual offenses, elicit public concern; negative outcomes can be catastrophic. Using a prospective longitudinal study of 2,939 men with a history of sexual offenses undergoing community supervision, we examined different models of progress monitoring and how they should inform the assessment of risk for sexual recidivism. We found that the most recent assessment scores of the ACUTE-2007 and STABLE-2007 sexual recidivism risk tools provided the best information about reoffending risk compared to using (a) the worst period of adjustments (i.e., highest risk score), (b) the best period of adjustments (i.e., lowest risk score), or (c) a rolling average of scores. We also found that the latest STABLE-2007 scores incrementally predicted sexual recidivism beyond baseline risk as assessed by demographic and criminal history variables (Static-99R). We conclude that the risk for sexual recidivism changes over time and that community corrections is advanced by repeated assessment of dynamic (changeable) risk factors. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).