This Qualitative Interpretive Meta Synthesis (QIMS) develops a more complete understanding of the lived experience of serving a Life Without Parole (LWOP) sentence by synthesizing the results of existing qualitative studies focused on this population. The four studies selected for this QIMS contain interviews with 86 male prisoners serving a sentence of LWOP. The current synthesis uses phenomenology and grounded theory as methods to obtain a new understanding from the limited data on this specialized vulnerable population.Findings: The conceptual model emerging from this QIMS indicates that prisoners experience the sentence of LWOP with feelings of deep loss which mimic the grief response of the dying patient as described by Kubler-Ross (1969). Upon the initial shock of sentencing and imprisonment, inmates pass through stages of denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and ultimately, acceptance. In order to cope with the harsh reality of life imprisonment, 'lifers' find ways to exercise personal choice, keep a positive outlook, and forge meaning from their sufferings. Those who are successful in these tasks discover great resilience.Applications: This synthesis suggests that the application of grief and resilience theories may be relevant with prisoners and other similarly marginalized populations coping with extraordinary loss of self. Given the potential of inmates in this study to discover personal resilience and engage in attempts at social reconciliation, policy makers should consider whether a sentence of LWOP shortchanges both inmates and society.

advances a longstanding dialogue on the relationship between academic scholarship and public life. Focusing on contributions from social work, we articulate a framework for conceptualizing public impact scholarship as characterized by intentional efforts to create social change through the translation and dissemination of research to nonacademic audiences. We offer examples of social work scholarship that meet this definition, and we distinguish public impact scholarship from related approaches such as community-engaged scholarship. We also describe the importance of public impact scholarship for social work and explore several tensions associated with this type of scholarship, including time and technical constraints, risks and rewards, measurement challenges, and institutional barriers. This article introduces a special section that further addresses the relationship between public impact scholarship and other forms of engaged scholarship, provides illuminating examples of public impact scholarship by social workers, and suggests roles for social work leaders in supporting and promoting this work.

Recently, government officials, policy makers, and practitioners are taking a closer look at present day sentencing and corrections approaches. State policy decisions have in large part determined how justice is administered, and a variety of contextual factors determine which policies states are likely to adopt. This review synthesizes the empirical literature on determinants of state sentencing and corrections policy innovations and discusses their relative value in predicting state policy adoptions across studies. Results indicate that sentencing and corrections policies are less likely to be predicted by functional explanations such as crime rates than by certain economic, political, and social variables. The most consistently predictive determinants of state policy adoptions are the external influences of other states and the federal government.

This article presents a mixed methods study exploring a legislative trend toward the use of restorative justice practices in correctional settings. Results indicate that the percentage of Black residents in a state, the percentage of female legislators in a state legislature, and a state's incarceration rates are predictive of more supportive restorative justice policy adoptions at the state level, while controlling for other explanations. The study weighs political and economic considerations in the adoption of policies with the potential to reduce overincarceration and suggests that at least some contemporary criminal justice police making is motivated by changing constructions of justice.

Research is limited on mechanisms of action in restorative justice interventions. This multimethods study delineates the change processes underlying a successful in-prison group treatment program by (a) examining shifts in offenders' self-schemas and (b) identifying key program components that influence this movement. Researchers assigned to small groups as "co-facilitators" gathered data using participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and psychological assessments at three time points. Mechanisms of action include group norms and behaviors that contrast with prior experiences and uncover offenders' self-schemas through intrapsychic processes, which prompt them to test and act upon new possible selves through the group process.