Brenda Vose, J. Mitchell Miller and Stephanie Koskinen
This study aims to advance the existing analytic model to include staff allocation information at the district level. Maintaining adequate size of staff is essential to law…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to advance the existing analytic model to include staff allocation information at the district level. Maintaining adequate size of staff is essential to law enforcement agencies' ability to ensure social order, fight crime and, increasingly, deliver a widening range of social services. Review of the scientific literature on police size of force and staffing calculation models indicates that this line of inquiry (i.e. manpower analysis) is attentive to population size and workload demands but generally inattentive to how service demands are affected by community-level variables. Current staffing calculation models specify number of staff needed for a jurisdiction but do not inform the allocation of personnel across districts within the jurisdiction.
Design/methodology/approach
To address this problem, the current study illustrates an enhanced analytic model to provide law enforcement staffing recommendations for a southern coastal county. An integrated per capita-workload manpower analysis model first factors the minimum number of law enforcement deputies needed per population size served and recent history workload demands and then executes the six-step workload model process. This study enhances staffing analysis by adding an additional seventh arithmetical step indicating the staffing needs by districts across a jurisdiction.
Findings
The results from the integrated per capita-workload analysis indicate the need to hire additional deputies to meet current and future demands.
Originality/value
Discussion centers on the need to include drivers of police services identified but not measured in this study's application of the hybrid manpower analysis model and its replication potential.
Details
Keywords
Tina Maschi, Deborah Viola, Mary T. Harrison, William Harrison, Lindsay Koskinen and Stephanie Bellusa
Older adults in prison present a significant health and human rights challenge for the criminal justice system. To date, there is no known study that provides a comprehensive…
Abstract
Purpose
Older adults in prison present a significant health and human rights challenge for the criminal justice system. To date, there is no known study that provides a comprehensive examination or portrait of older persons in prison. The purpose of this paper is to understand individual, family, system, and community vulnerabilities that can complicate successful community reintegration for these individuals.
Design/methodology/approach
This study provides a cross-sectional, descriptive analysis of biopsychosocial, spiritual, and prison use characteristics associated with a sample of 677 older prisoners, aged 50+, in a state-wide prison system.
Findings
Results indicate the extent of diversity within this population based on demographic, clinical, social, legal profiles, prison service use patterns, and professional and personal contacts.
Research limitations/implications
Due to the diversity within this population, an interdisciplinary approach is needed to address the complex social and health care needs of an aging prison population and to plan for their reentry.
Practical implications
These findings suggest the need for holistic prevention, assessment, and interventions to interrupt the social-structural disparities that foster and support pathways to incarceration and recidivism.
Originality/value
The human rights implications for the current treatment of older adults in prison include providing in-prison treatment that promotes safety, well-being, reconciliation, and seamless bridges between prison and community for older adults and their families. The True Grit Program is presented as an example of a humanistic and holistic approach of such an approach.
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Keywords
Stephanie Grace Prost, Cynthia Golembeski, Vyjeyanthi S. Periyakoil, Jalayne Arias, Andrea K. Knittel, Jessica Ballin, Heather D. Oliver and Nguyen-Toan Tran
The targeted use of standardized outcome measures (SOMs) of mental health in research with older adults who are incarcerated promotes a common language that enables…
Abstract
Purpose
The targeted use of standardized outcome measures (SOMs) of mental health in research with older adults who are incarcerated promotes a common language that enables interdisciplinary dialogue, contributes to the identification of disparities and supports data harmonization and subsequent synthesis. This paper aims to provide researchers with rationale for using “gold-standard” measures used in research with community-dwelling older adults, reporting associated study sample psychometric indexes, and detailing alterations in the approach or measure.
Design/methodology/approach
The authors highlight the mental health of older adults who are incarcerated. They also discuss the benefits of SOMs in practice and research and then identify gold-standard measures of mental health used in research with community-dwelling older adults and measures used in research with older adults who are incarcerated. Finally, the authors provide several recommendations related to the use of SOMs of mental health in research with this population.
Findings
Depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder are common among older adults who are incarcerated. Researchers have used a variety of measures to capture these mental health problems, some parallel to those used with community-dwelling samples. However, a more targeted use of SOMs of mental health in research with this population will contribute to important strides in this burgeoning field.
Originality/value
This review offers several practical recommendations related to SOMs of mental health in research with older adults who are incarcerated to contribute to a rigorous evidence base and thus inform practice and potentially improve the health and well-being of this population.