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This chapter examines the barriers to reentry for justice involved young people in the US and Australia from the perspectives of the 44 Australian and 14 US stakeholders who work with them. The interviews were analyzed using inductive content analysis to identify key internal and external barriers. Results suggest a need for improvement in the areas of collaboration among systems, family engagement, and student self-determination. The discussion focuses on the similarities and differences in the barriers that exist across nations and systems. Implications for future research, practice, and policy are included to improve transition services and supports for juvenile justice involved youth.

Older adults who are or have been incarcerated constitute a growing population in the USA. The complex health needs of this group are often inadequately addressed during incarceration and equally so when transitioning back to the community. The purpose of this paper is to discuss the literature on challenges older adults (age 50 and over) face in maintaining health and accessing social services to support health after an incarceration and to outline recommendations to address the most urgent of these needs.

This study conducted a narrative literature review to identify the complex health conditions and health services needs of incarcerated older adults in the USA and outline three primary barriers they face in accessing health care and social services during reentry.

Challenges to healthy reentry of older adults include continuity of health care; housing availability; and access to health insurance, disability and other support. The authors recommend policy changes to improve uniformity of care, development of support networks and increased funding to ensure that older adults reentering communities have access to resources necessary to safeguard their health and safety.

This review presents a broad perspective of the current literature on barriers to healthy reentry for older adults in the USA and offers valuable system, program and policy recommendations to address those barriers.

The purpose of this paper is to gain understanding about the effectiveness of a forensic peer support program’s impact on reducing criminal recidivism. People with histories of mental illness returning to the community following incarceration face tremendous challenges in jails and prisons and in successful reentry to community. Transitioning from jails and prisons is fraught with additional challenges such as reconnecting or connecting with mental health and substance abuse treatment, finding adequate housing, finding employment, reuniting with family and friends, etc. Unfortunately, recidivism remains high, principally because of these challenges. Many state and local authorities have supported the development of the forensic peer specialist.

Kaplan–Meier survival analyses were conducted to examine time to re-incarceration.

The population served was determined to be a particularly high risk of re-incarceration population, when released from prison. All had a mental illness diagnosis, with 80 percent diagnosed with at least one serious mental illness, and more than 50 percent had three or more anterior incarcerations. Utilizing Kaplan–Meyer survival analysis, the chance of re-incarceration for participants after one year was of 21.7 percent. Surprisingly, in the first year after release from prison, participants did much better than those in the general US prison population when in terms of re-incarceration rates (21.7 percent vs 43.4 percent).

While preliminary findings of this approach, this study reaffirms the idea that forensic peer support programs are beneficial in reducing recidivism rates for people diagnosed with a mental illness coming out of prison, offering individuals supports to maintain their lives in the community.

This article draws from a qualitative case study with four Black reentry women. Exploring their educational narratives through the framework of Black Feminist Thought, this study reveals that the women enacted their college reentry in three compelling ways: (1) reentry as a response to critical moments, (2) reentry as a strategy for coping with challenges, and (3) reentry as a practical step toward getting their daughters in to college. Cursory reviews of Black women in higher education and representations of Black motherhood contexualize the struggles these and other Black women have faced in getting an education, raising their families, and maintaining a positive image in society.

To expand understanding of the motive, knowledge, and skill acquisition of criminal entrepreneurs while incarcerated and on release.

This chapter uses semi-structured interviews incorporating field observations from a convenience sample of ex-offenders in the state of Colorado, in the United States, who have been engaged in destructive entrepreneurship as well as local experts that work with ex-offenders in transition and reentry into society after a period of incarceration.

Many of these offenders’ actions outside of prison are highly entrepreneurial, with the creation of “ventures” that include production, inventory, sales, employees, managers, distribution, security, etc. When incarcerated with fellow “entrepreneurs,” tricks of the trade are exchanged producing even smarter destructive entrepreneurship upon release.

Limitations include a small sample of interviewees, responses are anecdotal, subjective truth, and localized to the state of Colorado in the United States.

The findings inform research on entrepreneurial cognition set in the destructive space, as well as reveal methods and intentions that lead to a better understanding of the “structure of the reward” for such behavior.

An examination of this behavior and underlying motives provides insights as to how society might be better prepared for and redirect destructive entrepreneurial behavior toward more positive outcomes.

The current sparse literature engaging the concept of destructive entrepreneurship generally does so at the country, institution, or corporate level. This chapter focuses on destructive entrepreneurial behavior at the individual (micro venture) level and provides recommendations for policy consideration.

Young children under the age of five are particularly overrepresented in traumatic brain injury (TBI) due to accidents and falls. To remediate the problems, confronting young children with TBI, is critical that they are introduced to opportunities to be placed in general education classrooms at the earliest possible point. The purposes of this chapter are to (1) describe causes, symptoms, and challenges following TBI (e.g., physical, emotional, and cognitive difficulties), (2) distinguish mild TBI (MTBI) from other mild categories of disability, (3) identify classroom interventions and strategies, and (4) identify parenting strategies that may provide essential support for them in adjusting to and managing their young child’s difficulties.

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.