No abstract

Individuals involved in the criminal justice system are at substantial risk for HIV infection and have elevated rates of AIDS. Offenders under community supervision, such as probationers, have substantially more opportunities to engage in high-risk behaviors than prisoners. Furthermore, probationers in rural areas are at risk because rural areas may be slower to adopt HIV risk-reduction approaches. Consequently, the primary goal of this study is to describe the HIV risk behaviors and level of HIV knowledge of 800 rural felony probationers. Bivariate results indicate that males have substantially greater criminal histories and engage in more substance use risk behaviors than females. Overall, there was minimal and inconsistent use of condoms, but there were no significant differences by gender. Gender differences prevailed in perceived HIV knowledge, with females reporting high levels of perceived HIV knowledge. Multivariate models did not support the hypothesis that perceived knowledge would be a more robust correlate of scores on the HIV Risk Behavior Knowledge Test for males than females. Results suggest that rural residents are not protected from engaging in HIV risk behaviors and future studies should examine gender discrepancies between perceived and actual HIV knowledge among offenders under community supervision.

The literature indicates that employment may be an important factor for retaining substance misusing clients in treatment. Given the link between employment problems and treatment retention for Drug Court clients, the current project builds upon the existing services provided by Drug Courts in order to develop and implement an innovative model that focuses on obtaining, maintaining, and upgrading employment for Drug Court participants. The purpose of this article is to (1) describe the employment intervention used in Kentucky Drug Courts, which is grounded in established job readiness and life skill training approaches; and (2) profile those participants who were employed full-time prior to Drug Court and those who were not. Findings suggest that those employed full-time were more likely to have higher incomes and more earned income from legitimate job sources, although there were no differences in the types of employment (major jobs included food service and construction). In addition, study findings suggest that full-time employment was not "protective" since there were few differences in drug use and criminal activity by employment status. Employment interventions need to be examined to determine their utility for enhancing employment and keeping drug users in treatment. This article focuses on the initial 400 participants, who began entering the study in March, 2000.

No abstract

Employment has been identified as an important drug abuse treatment outcome, but drug abusers often face a wide variety of barriers to securing stable employment. The employment barriers literature also reports that women and people with mental health problems have difficulty in obtaining employment. The current study examined gender differences in mental health and employment barriers in a sample of drug court participants. Hierarchical regression analyses were conducted to test the hypothesis that differences in employment barriers among drug-abusing males and females are mediated by differences in mental health problems. Women were found to have more mental health problems and employment barriers, and support for the mediation hypothesis was found. Implications for drug treatment providers are discussed.