Pathways to prison and subsequent effects on misconduct and recidivism: Gendered reality?

This study added to the literature on pathways to prison by examining a sample of federal inmates to assess whether the pathways identified predicted future antisocial behavior, i.e., prison misconduct and post-release criminal activity. Previous research has generally focused on only one point in the criminal justice system, either identifying pathways to prison, analyzing behavior while incarcerated, or focusing on post-release offending. This research examined all of these points. The research presented here identified both unique and overlapping pathways to prison for men and women, as well as similarities and differences in the risk factors that predicted prison misconduct and recidivism for women and men. While the latent class models, which identified the pathways to prison, relied heavily upon indicators highlighted in the gender-responsive literature, the final misconduct and recidivism models included those factors along with traditional, gender-neutral items. The methods in this research moved beyond previous studies that relied primarily on bivariate analyses of female inmates. Four pathways emerged for both men and women each. Three of the pathways overlapped for both groups: drug, street, and the situational offender pathways. Males and females each had one unique pathway which represented opposite ends of the criminal experiences spectrum. A first time offender pathway emerged for women; a more chronic, serious offender pathway emerged for men. When the pathways to prison were the only predictors in the misconduct and recidivism models, the pathways consistently and significantly predicted antisocial behavior. Once the socio-demographic and criminal history factors were added to the models, however, the vast majority of the pathway effects on antisocial behavior were no longer statistically significant. Because the current literature presents mixed results as to whether the same factors predict offending for men and women, this study analyzed gendered aspects of prison misconduct and recidivism. There were more differences than similarities in the factors that significantly impacted these antisocial behaviors

The effect of faith program participation on prison misconduct: The Life Connections Program

Faith-based programming is one of many potential tools for preparing inmates for successful reentry into society. The current study used official records of inmate misconduct and attitudinal survey data to investigate whether participation in a faith-based program reduced the likelihood of prison misconduct. The results indicated that program participation did lower the probability of engaging in serious forms of misconduct. No effect was discovered, though, for less serious forms of misconduct or for both types of misconduct considered simultaneously.

Comparison of two approaches to screen for dysphagia among acute ischemic stroke patients: Nursing admission screening tool versus National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale

This study assessed the positive and negative predictive values and the sensitivity and specificity of a nursing dysphagia screening tool and the National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) for the identification of dysphagia for veterans hospitalized with ischemic stroke. A secondary objective of this study was to evaluate the speech-language pathology consult rate before and after the nursing admission dysphagia screening tool. This retrospective cohort study evaluated veterans admitted to one Department of Veterans Affairs medical center with ischemic stroke during the 6 months both before and after the implementation of a nursing dysphagia screening tool, which was part of the admission nursing template. Stroke severity was measured with the use of the retrospective NIHSS. Dysphagia diagnosis was based on speech-language pathology evaluations. Dysphagia was present in 38 of 101 patients (38%) with ischemic stroke. The nursing dysphagia screening tool had a positive predictive value of 50% and a negative predictive value of 68%, with a sensitivity of 29% and specificity of 84%. The use of the NIHSS to identify dysphagia risk had a positive predictive value of 60% and a negative predictive value of 84%. The NIHSS had better test characteristics in predicting dysphagia than the nursing dysphagia screening tool. Future research should evaluate the use of the NIHSS as a screening tool for dysphagia