A collaborative research project between the Center and the New Jersey Department of Corrections that provides integrated trauma/addiction treatment (Seeking Safety) combined with a skills-based reentry course (Community 101) was featured in the Justice Center newsletter. See the attachment for more details.

February 11th and 13th, 2009: Residents at the Edna Mahan Correctional Facility (EMCF) for Women in Clinton, NJ had the opportunity to demonstrate their reentry skills and positive outlooks at the inaugural "Community 101" Expo Day. Community 101 is an empowerment focused reentry intervention, designed by Dr. Wolff, to help people inside prison gain skills for reentering the community. As part of Expo Day, graduates developed posters and handouts on topics covered in class and gave moving speeches that described the value of what they learned from Community 101. The event was attended by representatives from six state agencies, housing and employment programs, and professionals and researchers from the community. These events were also attended by over 300 residents of EMCF. By attending these events, current residents of EMCF learned about the skills taught through Community 101 and about the new Community Centers that are available to facilitate their reentry preparation. Two new Community Centers were opened at EMCF in November as part of the Community 101 initiative. These peer-run centers have resource binders for each NJ county, self-help books, computers and printers, as well as other resources central to successful reentry. See The Bridge Newsletter for more information about Community 101 and the Community Centers.

The Center was awarded a five-year grant from the National Institute of Mental Health to advance research on behavioral health services and criminal justice research. See our September 2008 Newsletter for more details.

Policy issue briefs focus on aspects of the Center’s research, such as quality of life inside prison; police diversion, drug/mental health court, reentry, or treatment interventions; recidivism and desistance; and communities of practice. Our first Policy Issue Brief, based on findings from the Center’s Survey of Victimization inside Prison, provides prevalence estimates of victimization by mental disorder, summarizes the role of mental disorder as a predictor of victimization, and describes our new intervention study of integrated- trauma treatment inside prison. For more details see our September 2008 Policy Issue Brief.

Please contact Ms. Jenny Shi with suggestions for topics for future policy issue briefs.

With funding from the JEHT Foundation, the Center developed a Reentry Readiness Assessment Manual that can be self-administered or administered by a social worker or paraprofessional. It is designed to assess readiness, identify areas of unreadiness, and guide the user toward readiness. See our Technical Assistance webpage for other manuals developed by the Center.

New peer-reviewed articles on victimization, policing, reentry interventions, academic-practice partnerships, and other topics can be found on our Publications webpage, under the years 2007 and 2008. Of note are articles by Jeffrey Draine and colleagues on critical time intervention; William Fisher and Bob Drake on forensic mental illness and policy misadventures; Melissa Schaefer Morabito and Amy Watson and colleagues on police responses to people with mental illness.