By Mel Wilson, NASW Senior Policy Consultant Increasingly, U.S. criminal justice systems have become the first responders to individuals living with mental illness and substance use disorders (SUD). More than ever, jails and prisons are expected to provide appropriate services and treatment for the growing populations they serve. For that reason, the Consensus Workgroup on Behavioral Health Issues in the ... Read More »
FROM AN NASW NEW YORK STATE CHAPTER PRESS RELEASE: More than 850 social workers and social work students from across New York State gathered in Albany on March 28 to rally in support of raising the age of criminal responsibility from 16 to 18 years old and to demand that state legislators include this bill in the final budget. Sponsored ... Read More »
On any given day 80,000 to 100,000 inmates in U.S. prisons, jails or juvenile detention facilities are in solitary confinement. The practice can cause long-term damage to the mental health of inmates. This Social Justice Brief from the National Association of Social Workers (NASW), Solitary Confinement: A Clinical Social Work Perspective, offers and overview of this issue. It urges social ... Read More »
The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world. In 2013, there were 2.3 million persons in U.S. prisons and jails. Eventually 95% of these people will be released. As of 2013, there are 850,000 persons on parole after release. Yet these people have great difficulty re-integrating back into society. The data shows that within 3 years of ... Read More »
In recent years, there has been a growing national movement to challenge the practice and premise for using solitary confinement as a method of behavioral control in the nation’s prisons, jails and juvenile facilities.The strong opposition to solitary confinement is primarily based on questions about the belief that use of such practices is a clear human rights violation. Before we ... Read More »
Recidivism and Survival Time: Racial Disparity among Jail Ex-Inmates Hyunzee Jung, MSW, Solveig Spjeldnes, PhD, and Hide Yamatani, PhD A recent study was conducted to compare the recidivism rates between black and white males for jail time. Although prison recidivism has been studied extensively, jail recidivism has rarely been studied. The authors hypothesized that black males would be more likely ... Read More »
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