Perceptions of vaccine safety and hesitancy among incarcerated adults and correctional staff in the rural midwest.

Objectives: This project assessed vaccine hesitancy among staff and incarcerated adults in one rural medium-security prison in the Midwestern United States and identified differences in hesitancy across sociodemographic and work-related variables. Methods: 610 prison staff and people incarcerated completed a cross-sectional survey in May 2021. The vaccine hesitancy scale (VHS) identified perceived risk and confidence in vaccination. A single item assessed whether people typically follow public health protocols in the prison. A combination of analyses was utilized, including ANOVA, Chi-Square, and Pearson's correlation. Results: Vaccine hesitancy was moderate to high for both populations. Incarcerated people had more confidence in vaccination than staff; differences did not reach statistical significance. Incarcerated people had statistically significantly higher perceptions of risk compared to staff. Both populations reported doing their best to follow public health protocols. For both populations, vaccine hesitancy varied by education and veteran status. Among staff, hesitancy varied by gender and political beliefs. For people incarcerated, it varied by pre-incarceration income and visit frequency. Conclusions: Results support the need for public health policy and procedural interventions to reduce hesitancy towards vaccination in correctional settings.

Investigating the Effect of Post-Release Housing Mobility on Recidivism: Considering Individuals Convicted of Sexual Offenses.

It is widely understood that stable housing is a key element in the transition from prison to the community. However, many persons under correctional supervision face substantial barriers in securing and maintaining housing, a fact that is heightened among individuals with a sexual offense conviction. Although frequent movement is commonplace among people on parole, it is unclear how housing changes affect recidivism outcomes and whether such mobility uniquely impacts individuals with a sexual offense conviction. In the present study, we use a quasi-experimental propensity score weighting design to compare a sample of individuals paroled from prison in Michigan for sexual and non-sexual crimes (N = 3930) to consider the role of housing mobility on the likelihood of rearrests and technical revocation, with attention to disaggregating sexual crimes against adults and children. Results suggest that increased movement was distinctly associated with a higher hazard of rearrest for individuals with a sexual offense conviction, and a strong predictor of technical return hazard for both individuals with sexual and non-sexual convictions.

What Is Wrong with Monetary Sanctions? Directions for Policy, Practice, and Research.

Monetary sanctions are an integral and increasingly debated feature of the American criminal legal system. Emerging research, including that featured in this volume, offers important insight into the law governing monetary sanctions, how they are levied, and how their imposition affects inequality. Monetary sanctions are assessed for a wide range of contacts with the criminal legal system ranging from felony convictions to alleged traffic violations with important variability in law and practice across states. These differences allow for the identification of features of law, policy, and practice that differentially shape access to justice and equality before the law. Common practices undermine individuals' rights and fuel inequality in the effects of unpaid monetary sanctions. These observations lead us to offer a number of specific recommendations to improve the administration of justice, mitigate some of the most harmful effects of monetary sanctions, and advance future research.

Enforcement trends in the city of St. Louis from 2007 to 2017: Exploring variability in arrests and criminal summonses over time and across communities.

The goal of this study is twofold: (a) to describe trends in enforcement activity in the city of St. Louis from 2007 through 2017 and (b) to document community variation in these trends. Five types of enforcement actions are examined: felony, misdemeanor, municipal, and bench warrant arrests and criminal summonses-in-lieu of arrest. Results indicate that enforcement activity decreased over the study period, particularly for nonfelony arrests among Blacks. City-wide trends obscure some variability in neighborhood enforcement. Neighborhood trends in enforcement varied by type of action, but in all cases, trends were conditioned by racial composition. For example, misdemeanor and bench warrant arrests exhibited steeper declines in neighborhoods with a higher percentage of Black residents, resulting in a narrowing of the race gap. In contrast, differences in criminal summonses across neighborhoods of varying racial compositions increased. The effects persisted net of measures of economic disadvantage, community location, residential mobility, household composition, calls for service, and population size. The findings highlight the importance of disaggregating enforcement trends by race and place and documenting changes in less serious, but more prevalent, types of law enforcement activity.

A New Way of Doing Time on the Outside: Sex Offenders' Pathways In and Out of a Transitional Housing Facility.

Although housing has been highlighted as a key element of successful reentry experiences, little research has considered the perspectives of sex offenders living in transitional housing upon release from prison. This topic is important given the increasing legal restrictions faced by this offender population. The current study utilizes qualitative data to explore the pathways from prison to transitional housing, the experience of residing in these facilities, and how transitional housing is perceived to affect the overall reentry experience. In general, results suggest that sex offenders reside in the facility because of lack of access to a suitable home, and report a need for service provisions. However, most view their experiences in the transitional facility (TF) as contrary to the rehabilitative ideal, and some indicate that this type of programming has collateral consequences for reentry. The proliferation of sex offender restriction laws has only exacerbated the challenges faced by sex offenders living in the TF.