Baltimore Prisoners' Experiences Returning Home

Visher, Christy A.; Kachnowski, Vera; Vigne, Nancy La; Travis, Jeremy

doi:10.1037/e720322011-001

Cited by 114 publications

(112 citation statements)

References 4 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

104

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Third, a considerable number of study participants have experienced difficulty finding stable housing on their release from prison. This particular problem has not only been found here in Baltimore (Visher, Kachnowski, LaVigne, & Travis, 2004) but also in other American cities (Inciardi et al, 1998;Lynch & Sabol, 2001). In confronting this circumstance, we became aware that several facilities providing shelter for homeless individuals did not allow their residents to receive methadone-maintenance treatment.…”

Section: Policy Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 71%

A Study of Methadone Maintenance for Male Prisoners

Kinlock

Gordon

Schwartz

et al. 2007

Criminal Justice and Behavior

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This study examined benefits of methadone maintenance among prerelease prison inmates. Incarcerated males with preincarceration heroin dependence (n = 197) were randomly assigned to (a) group educational counseling (counseling only); (b) counseling, with opportunity to begin methadone maintenance on release (counseling + transfer); or (c) counseling and methadone maintenance in prison, with opportunity to continue methadone maintenance on release (counseling + methadone). At 90-day follow-up, counseling + methadone participants were significantly more likely than counseling-only and counseling + transfer participants to attend drug treatment (p = . 0001) and less likely to be reincarcerated (p = .019). Counseling + methadone and counseling + transfer participants were significantly less likely (all ps < .05) to report heroin use, cocaine use, and criminal involvement than counseling-only participants. Follow-up is needed to determine whether these findings hold over a longer period. Keywords heroin addiction; prisoners; methadone maintenanceOf the more than 2 million adults incarcerated in the United States (Harrison & Beck, 2005), an estimated 12% to 15% have preincarceration histories of heroin addiction (Chaiken, 2000;Karberg & James, 2005). Longitudinal studies have consistently found that rapid relapse to opioid (principally, heroin) addiction following incarceration is a continuing problem. Several reports indicate that readdiction is typically well established within 90 days of release (Office of National Drug Control Policy, 1999;Stewart, 1995;Wexler, Lipton, & Johnson;1988), whereas other reports have found that most incarceration episodes are followed by relapse as early as 1 month after release (Kinlock, Battjes, & Schwartz, 2002; Maddux & Desmond, 1981;Nurco, Hanlon, & Kinlock, 1991).In addition to its high prevalence, readdiction to heroin is accompanied by increased criminal activity (Chaiken & Chaiken, 1990;Kinlock, O'Grady, & Hanlon, 2003;Nurco, 1998), disproportionately high risk of HIV infection (Chitwood, Comerford, & Weatherby, 1998; Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Timothy W. Kinlock Inciardi, McBride, & Surratt, 1998), Hepatitis B and C infections (Edlin, 2002;Fuller, Vlahov, Safeian, Ompad, & Strathdee, 1999;Hagan et al., 2002) (Inciardi et al., 1998;Mark et al., 2001), and impaired parenting (Keller, Catalano, Haggerty, & Fleming, 2002). Thus, the development and implementation of effective drug abuse treatment strategies for incarcerated offenders with heroin-addiction histories is urgently needed, not only for such individuals' rehabilitation but also for their survival and for the safety and welfare of the public (Kinlock et al., 2002;Rich, Boutwell, et al., 2005; SmithRohrberg, Bruce, & Altice, 2004).Furthermore, researchers, practitioners, and policy makers have emphasized that the first 3 months after release to the community is a crucial period for newly released prisoners. If successful reintegration is not achieved during this period, it ...

show abstract

Section: Policy Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 71%

A Study of Methadone Maintenance for Male Prisoners

Kinlock

Gordon

Schwartz

et al. 2007

Criminal Justice and Behavior

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Earlier longitudinal studies of released prisoners suffered from 30% to 60% attrition over a 1-to 2-y follow-up period (7,8). In contrast, the BRS followed Massachusetts state prisoners through the first year of prison release, achieving a response rate of 94%.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Study retention as bias reduction in a hard-to-reach population

Western

Braga

Hureau

et al. 2016

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Collecting data from hard-to-reach populations is a key challenge for research on poverty and other forms of extreme disadvantage. With data from the Boston Reentry Study (BRS), we document the extreme marginality of released prisoners and the related difficulties of study retention and analysis. Analysis of the BRS data yields three findings. First, released prisoners show high levels of "contact insecurity," correlated with social insecurity, in which residential addresses and contact information change frequently. Second, strategies for data collection are available to sustain very high rates of study participation. Third, survey nonresponse in highly marginal populations is strongly nonignorable, closely related to social and economic vulnerability. The BRS response rate of 94% over a 1-y follow-up period allows analysis of hypothetically high nonresponse rates. In this setting, nonresponse attenuates regression estimates in analyses of housing insecurity, drug use, and unemployment. These results suggest that in the analysis of very poor and disadvantaged populations, methods that maximize study participation reduce bias and yield data that can usefully supplement large-scale household or administrative data collections. Under current conditions of historically high imprisonment rates, incarceration has become a regular part of the hardship associated with American poverty (4, 5). Men and women who go to prison present a range of co-occurring disadvantages and vulnerabilities that make them difficult to contact or unwilling to participate in research studies. Involvement in crime and the criminal justice system also makes study subjects elusive for researchers. As a result, follow-up studies of the formerly incarcerated have suffered from high rates of attrition that are likely correlated with outcomes of key interest. The incarcerated population has been called "invisible men" because of their underenumeration in social survey estimates of socioeconomic well-being (6). Because of their deep marginality in social and economic life, invisibility in social science data collection also extends to those who have moved from incarceration to communities.We explore survey nonresponse in a highly disadvantaged population using data from the Boston Reentry Study (BRS), a small longitudinal survey of newly released prisoners. Earlier longitudinal studies of released prisoners suffered from 30% to 60% attrition over a 1-to 2-y follow-up period (7,8). In contrast, the BRS followed Massachusetts state prisoners through the first year of prison release, achieving a response rate of 94%.The unusually high response rate allows us to explore three main challenges to research and data collection in highly disadvantaged populations. First, we document extreme social insecurity in the BRS sample that is closely associated with a high level of contact insecurity-the frequent changing of residential addresses and phone numbers that makes nonresponse more likely. Second, we describe a variety of strategies for data collection tha...

show abstract

“…Most parolees arrange to stay with family or friends as a part of pre-release planning but many arrangements are not permanent (Visher et al, 2004). Others live in transitional facilities such as hotels, halfway houses or homeless shelters Parolees also often face economic challenges.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%