How prisoners and their partners experience the maintenance of their relationship during a prison sentence

Research shows that intimate relationships, and their maintenance via prison visits, have a positive impact on factors associated with prisoner well‐being and reduced likelihood of recidivism. It is therefore in the interest of corrections, government, and wider society to enable prisoners to maintain healthy relationships with their family and intimate partners throughout their prison sentence. Despite this evidence, little is known about how prisoners experience the maintenance of a significant intimate relationship in prison. This study aims to explore heterosexual couples' experiences in maintaining their well‐established intimate relationships, while the male partner is incarcerated. Four main themes were identified: how they experienced “having a special connection” that they were motivated to maintain; “coping with challenges and threats” to that connection; “developing reciprocal behaviours” to meet those challenges; and “maintaining a belief in the future.” Implications for how the relational context of rehabilitation can best be supported is considered

Healthier prisons: The role of a prison visitors' centre

Since the inception of the prison as a ‘setting’ for health promotion, there has been a focus on how the health of those men and women who spend ‘time inside’ can at least be maintained and if possible, enhanced, during their prison sentence. This paper presents findings from a mainly qualitative evaluation of a prison visitors' centre in the UK. It reports experiences of prisoners' families, prisoners, prison staff, the local community and the ways in which the visitors' centre has contributed positively to their health and well-being. In addition, key stakeholders were interviewed to ascertain the role this visitors' centre has in policy frameworks related to re-offending. The findings from this evaluation underscore how the visitors' centre improved the quality of visits, and contributed towards the maintenance of family ties through the help and support it provides for families and prisoners. The paper concludes by suggesting that visitors' centres are an essential part of a modern prison service helping to address the government's health inequalities agenda

Response of reverse convection to fast IMF transitions

The nature of the transition that high‐latitude reverse convection makes in response to fast interplanetary magnetic field (IMF) changes is investigated using observations from multiple spacecraft and a ground magnetometer array. We focused on two fast IMF‐transition events on 22 April 2006. Immediately after the first event, three ST5 spacecraft identified a clear change in the distribution of the polar cap field‐aligned current. Coordinate observations with the Greenland magnetometer chain showed that the near‐noon Hall current distribution, which is closely related to the polar cap field‐aligned current or reverse convection, was in a transition state for about 10 min. For the second event, the Greenland magnetic perturbations also showed that a transition state occurred in the near‐noon sector for 10–15 min. Three DMSP spacecraft that traversed the polar cap provided evidence showing that variations of the ground magnetic perturbations were produced by the transition from clockwise plasma circulation to the anticlockwise circulation over the polar cap. A simple calculation based on the Biot‐Savart law shows that the near‐noon transition state is consistent with the approach of a new convection region to the near‐noon sector at the speed of 0.5–1 km s–1, which is coupled with the moving away of the old convection region at a similar speed. For the higher‐latitude sunward flow region, it is found that the convection takes a transition state almost simultaneously (within 1 min) with that in the near‐noon sector, i.e., quasi‐instantaneous response.Key PointsTransition state with a timescale of ~10 min in the near‐noon polar cap for BZ > 0The state is consistent with the passage of old and new convection regionsAlmost simultaneous initial response in the upstream polar cap and the near noonPeer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/111947/1/jgra51794.pd

Factors associated with the utilization of community dental services among newly incarcerated adults

Background: Given the high rates of risky behaviors and health conditions among incarcerated individuals and the relationship between oral and general health, receipt of quality dental care is essential to the overall health and well-being of this population. However, few recent studies have focused on access to care and the state of oral health among incarcerated populations in the U.S. For the current study, a secondary data analysis was conducted to: 1) assess factors associated with the use of dental services among a newly incarcerated prison population in Georgia and 2) consider barriers related to utilization of dental services pre- to post-release. Methods: Descriptive statistics were calculated, and bivariate and logistic regression analyses were conducted utilizing SAS 9.2 software. Results: Thirty-one percent (n=250) of survey respondents reported having a dental visit within the past year. Survey respondents who had a regular dentist (OR: 1.9; 95% CI: 1.325, 2.697), private dental insurance (OR: 1.5; 95% CI: 1.022, 2.245), or who reported pain as the reason for their last dental visit (OR: 2.2; 95% CI: 1.556, 3.130) were more likely to have utilized dental services within the past year. Conclusions: The findings highlight the role of social and economic resources and oral health needs on utilization of dental services. Additional practice and policy efforts are needed to address gaps in the dental care continuum that affect currently and formerly incarcerated adults in Georgia

The significance of 'the visit' in an English category-B prison: Views from prisoners, prisoners' families and prison staff

A number of claims have been made regarding the importance of prisoners staying in touch with their family through prison visits, firstly from a humanitarian perspective of enabling family members to see each other, but also regarding the impact of maintaining family ties for successful rehabilitation, reintegration into society and reduced re-offending. This growing evidence base has resulted in increased support by the Prison Service for encouraging the family unit to remain intact during a prisoner’s incarceration. Despite its importance however, there has been a distinct lack of research examining the dynamics of families visiting relatives in prison. This paper explores perceptions of the same event – the visit – from the families’, prisoners’ and prison staffs' viewpoints in a category-B local prison in England. Qualitative data was collected with 30 prisoners’ families, 16 prisoners and 14 prison staff, as part of a broader evaluation of the visitors’ centre. The findings suggest that the three parties frame their perspective of visiting very differently. Prisoners’ families often see visits as an emotional minefield fraught with practical difficulties. Prisoners can view the visit as the highlight of their time in prison and often have many complaints about how visits are handled. Finally, prison staff see visits as potential security breaches and a major organisational operation. The paper addresses the current gap in our understanding of the prison visit and has implications for the Prison Service and wider social policy

Effects of rapid prey evolution on predator-prey cycles

We study the qualitative properties of population cycles in a predator-prey system where genetic variability allows contemporary rapid evolution of the prey. Previous numerical studies have found that prey evolution in response to changing predation risk can have major quantitative and qualitative effects on predator-prey cycles, including: (i) large increases in cycle period, (ii) changes in phase relations (so that predator and prey are cycling exactly out of phase, rather than the classical quarter-period phase lag), and (iii) "cryptic" cycles in which total prey density remains nearly constant while predator density and prey traits cycle. Here we focus on a chemostat model motivated by our experimental system [Fussmann et al. 2000,Yoshida et al. 2003] with algae (prey) and rotifers (predators), in which the prey exhibit rapid evolution in their level of defense against predation. We show that the effects of rapid prey evolution are robust and general, and furthermore that they occur in a specific but biologically relevant region of parameter space: when traits that greatly reduce predation risk are relatively cheap (in terms of reductions in other fitness components), when there is coexistence between the two prey types and the predator, and when the interaction between predators and undefended prey alone would produce cycles. Because defense has been shown to be inexpensive, even cost-free, in a number of systems [Andersson and Levin 1999, Gagneux et al. 2006,Yoshida et al. 2004], our discoveries may well be reproduced in other model systems, and in nature. Finally, some of our key results are extended to a general model in which functional forms for the predation rate and prey birth rate are not specified.Comment: 35 pages, 8 figure

Integrating evolution into ecological modelling: accommodating phenotypic changes in agent based models.

PMCID: PMC3733718This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.Evolutionary change is a characteristic of living organisms and forms one of the ways in which species adapt to changed conditions. However, most ecological models do not incorporate this ubiquitous phenomenon. We have developed a model that takes a 'phenotypic gambit' approach and focuses on changes in the frequency of phenotypes (which differ in timing of breeding and fecundity) within a population, using, as an example, seasonal breeding. Fitness per phenotype calculated as the individual's contribution to population growth on an annual basis coincide with the population dynamics per phenotype. Simplified model variants were explored to examine whether the complexity included in the model is justified. Outputs from the spatially implicit model underestimated the number of individuals across all phenotypes. When no phenotype transitions are included (i.e. offspring always inherit their parent's phenotype) numbers of all individuals are always underestimated. We conclude that by using a phenotypic gambit approach evolutionary dynamics can be incorporated into individual based models, and that all that is required is an understanding of the probability of offspring inheriting the parental phenotype

Temporal evolution of the transpolar potential after a sharp enhancement in solar wind dynamic pressure

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/95384/1/grl23891.pd