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Aging and mental illness both represent significant public health challenges for incarcerated people in the USA. The COVID-19 pandemic has further highlighted the vulnerabilities of incarcerated people because of the risks of infectious disease transmission in correctional facilities. Focusing on older adults with mental illness, this paper aims to examine efforts to decarcerate US correctional facilities during the COVID-19 pandemic and whether these approaches may lead to sustainable reforms beyond the pandemic.

A narrative literature review was conducted using numerous online resources, including PubMed, Google Scholar and LexisNexis. Search terms used included “decarceration pandemic,” “COVID-19 decarceration,” “aging mental illness decarceration,” “jails prisons decarceration,” “early release COVID-19” and “correctional decarceration pandemic,” among others. Given the rapidly changing nature of the COVID-19 pandemic, this narrative literature review included content from not only scholarly articles and federal and state government publications but also relevant media articles and policy-related reports. The authors reviewed these sources collaboratively to synthesize a review of existing evidence and opinions on these topics and generate conclusions and policy recommendations moving forward.

To mitigate the risks of COVID-19, policymakers have pursued various decarceration strategies across the USA. Some efforts have focused on reducing inflow into correctional systems, including advising police to reduce numbers of arrests and limiting use of pretrial detention. Other policies have sought to increase outflow from correctional systems, such as facilitating early release of people convicted of nonviolent offenses or those nearing the end of their sentences. Given the well-known risks of COVID-19 among older individuals, age was commonly cited as a reason for diverting or expediting release of people from incarceration. In contrast, despite their vulnerability to complications from COVID-19, people with serious mental illness (SMI), particularly those with acute treatment needs, may have been less likely in some instances to be diverted or released early from incarceration.

Although much has been written about decarceration during the COVID-19 pandemic, little attention has been paid to the relevance of these efforts for older adults with mental illness. This paper synthesizes existing proposals and evidence while drawing attention to the public health implications of aging and SMI in US correctional settings and explores opportunities for decarceration of older adults with SMI beyond the COVID-19 pandemic.

Suicide prevention and intervention in prisons is a challenge. Prisons were not designed to be clinical facilities, yet with the growing numbers of people who face mental health challenges in prisons, staff require knowledge and skills to adequately address mental health crises, especially suicide. This study aims to: describe trends in suicide attempts and completions within one state’s prison system and measure staff knowledge and preparedness to address suicide.

This research uses a nonexperimental research design and two data sources. Administrative data from 2000 to 2017 on serious suicide attempts and completions were analyzed, and all correctional staff employed in the state’s Department of Corrections were surveyed at one point in time. Univariate and bivariate analyses were conducted.

The number of serious suicide attempts trended up but completed suicides decreased. Correctional staff demonstrated high suicide knowledge of risk factors and warning signs of suicide. Staff who viewed a media-based suicide training displayed significantly more knowledge of suicide and perceived greater preparedness compared to staff who did not or did not recall viewing the training.

Corrections staff play a key role in preventing suicides in prison. Innovative intervention is needed to increase suicide awareness, improve communication and enhance prevention skills.

This paper aims to investigate processes of how RFID‐enabled systems affect consumers' trust and acceptance of u‐commerce, emphasizing a feedback loop where consumers' post‐transaction trust affects their initial trust.

A simulation model using system dynamics (SD) is developed to show the importance of trust issues involving RFID technology, decomposing complex processes of trust building in u‐commerce into a set of feedback loops with a causal‐loop diagram.

The results of simulation runs indicate that well‐established policies, especially for current privacy issues, should be in place to increase consumers' acceptance of u‐commerce.

The research provides insights into the development of RFID‐based consumers' trust in u‐commerce, and policies to increase consumers' trust in u‐commerce. The research model was developed and verified using SD.

Develops an original 12‐step management of technology protocol and applies it to 51 applications which range from Du Pont’s failure in Nylon to the Single Online Trade Exchange for Auto Parts procurement by GM, Ford, Daimler‐Chrysler and Renault‐Nissan. Provides many case studies with regards to the adoption of technology and describes seven chief technology officer characteristics. Discusses common errors when companies invest in technology and considers the probabilities of success. Provides 175 questions and answers to reinforce the concepts introduced. States that this substantial journal is aimed primarily at the present and potential chief technology officer to assist their survival and success in national and international markets.

With limited intracultural ethical research in evidence this paper contributes to the theoretical discussion of expatriate ethical acculturation. Of particular interest to this study are the ethical attitudes of subcultural groups, particularly managers, who because of overseas assignment or immigration, are operating outside their usual national location. Research was undertaken to investigate whether ethical divergence or convergence, through acculturation, exists with ex patriate managers, and over what time period. Two locations, Hong Kong and Canada, were chosen for comparative study and the results indicated an interesting dichotomy. Ethical convergence, the adopting of host country ethical values, is evident with Hong Kong Chinese expatriate managers in Canada but did not occur with North American expatriates in Hong Kong. For the expatriate Chinese manager the research findings indicate that Hong Kong Chinese managers now residing in Canada develop a unique set of ethical attitudes that are significantly different from those of local managers in Hong Kong yet also significantly different from the attitudes held by local Canadian managers. A subtle form of ethical convergence is occurring. No significant relationship was found between ethical acculturation and the length of time being an expatriate Hong Kong Chinese manager in Canada except on two issues. For these issues the longer the time spent in Canada the greater the rise in ethical attitudes. A heterogeneous group of expatriate managers in Hong Kong was also evaluated and while predicate similarities existed between expatriates from China and Macau, statistically significant differences in ethical perceptions were found between the general population of expatriate managers (i.e. American, Australasian, British etc.,) and local Hong Kong Chinese managers.

Purpose: This chapter problematizes the philosophical origins of direct funding models in a normative conception of independence that ignores and obscures the fundamentally relational nature of care work.

Approach: The study adopts a reflexive ethnographic methodological approach. In-depth, semistructured interviews were conducted with 19 participants variously involved with direct-funded attendant services (disabled “self-managers,” “attendant” employees, other members of self-managers’ support networks, and program staff). Additional data sources included the author's reflexive journaling and publicly available policy and program materials. The present analysis interrogated the impact of systemic constraints (i.e., limited funding) on the organization and management of attendant services.

Findings: The data illuminate how systemic constraints draw the interests of self-managers and attendants into tension, despite the affective relationality of the work they do together. The findings present four strategies self-managers adopt to maximize support hours, including: splitting shifts, strategic hiring, dynamic resource management, and supplementing remuneration. These findings suggest it is not vulnerability to each other that represents an ongoing concern for self-managers and attendants, so much as exploitation by a system that capitalizes on the oppression of both groups.

Implication/ Value: Disabled people and care workers have been and continue to be constructed as opposing interest groups. However, there is great potential in disabled people and care workers joining a united front to lobby for their common, often interrelated interests. Direct funding models are an important evolution of support services, but where they fail to attend to the relational nature of care work, we must continue to pursue more inclusive solutions.

Purpose – This chapter highlights how counter-radicalization, as a manifestation of diffuse securitizing, impacts the work of Muslim civil society organizations (CSOs) in Canada.

Methodology – The author presents how Muslim communities and their civil society representatives experience and adapt to the pressures from counter-radicalization policies. Data for the analysis are drawn from 16 semi-structured, anonymized interviews with managers and board members of prominent Muslim CSOs that are based in urban centers in Canada with high density of Muslim populations.

Findings – Though counter-radicalization policies are advanced under the rubric of community-orientedness and risk governance, security discourse and practice constructs radicalization as a problem within Muslim communities treating them as suspects who are “potentially radical.” Despite this framing, Muslim CSOs are cooperating with state security agencies in counter-radicalization efforts but are doing so cognizant of the immense power the state exerts over them in such “partnerships.” CSOs are raising questions about the selective nature of security practice which views Muslims as dangerous and violent but fails to fully acknowledge their reality as victims of Islamophobic violence. CSOs are using anti-racism, anti-oppression, and rights-based frames to call out the discriminatory treatment of Muslims under national security.

Originality/Value – The author’s study contributes to a community perspective in counterterrorism and counter-radicalization research that is dominated by analyses from “above.” By sharing the experiences of Canadian Muslim CSOs under counter-radicalization, the author illustrates the practice of “diffuse securitizing” and how it limits the work of civil society in liberal democracies.