• Drug Courts: A Bridge to Recovery

      Halpin, Susan M.; Bibaud, Timothy M.; St. George, Kayla; Reddy, Shenandoah (2019-01-01)
      Drug courts are an alternative to traditional prosecution in which a collaborative team of medical clinicians, social workers, lawyers and probation officers work together to try to find a path out of addiction. Supervised probation, mandatory treatments, as well as random drug testing with progress monitored by a supervising probation officer, the court works with a team of treatment providers, which provide clinical assessment, develop and monitor treatment placements and identify ancillary counseling, case management and outreach services. Join Judge Timothy Bibaud and Drug Court Graduates Kayla and Shenandoah for their informative, and personal stories about how drug courts address the underlying causes of criminal behavior, substance use disorder and/or mental illness. Judge Bibaud presides over the Dudley District Drug Court in Dudley, Massachusetts. Kayla and Shenandoah earned their lives back thanks to this innovative treatment strategy and Judge Bibaud’s team of caring and empathetic professionals at the Dudley District Drug Court. Learning Objectives: Participants will be able to do the following: Explain the treatment model that offers a structured approach for interacting with those involved with the justice system. Discuss how this model works with programs designed to curb criminal recidivism and reduce drug use. Discuss the prevalence of drug courts in the US. Explain the effectiveness of Drug Courts with success stories from the Dudley, MA Drug Court Discuss common problems with drug courts that can affect the successful
    • Multimodal imaging measures predict rearrest

      Steele, Vaughn R.; Claus, Eric D.; Aharoni, Eyal; Vincent, Gina M.; Calhoun, Vince D.; Kiehl, Kent A. (2015-08-03)
      Rearrest has been predicted by hemodynamic activity in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) during error-processing (Aharoni et al., 2013). Here, we evaluate the predictive power after adding an additional imaging modality in a subsample of 45 incarcerated males from Aharoni et al. (2013). Event-related potentials (ERPs) and hemodynamic activity were collected during a Go/NoGo response inhibition task. Neural measures of error-processing were obtained from the ACC and two ERP components, the error-related negativity (ERN/Ne) and the error positivity (Pe). Measures from the Pe and ACC differentiated individuals who were and were not subsequently rearrested. Cox regression, logistic regression, and support vector machine (SVM) neuroprediction models were calculated. Each of these models proved successful in predicting rearrest and SVM provided the strongest results. Multimodal neuroprediction SVM models with out of sample cross-validating accurately predicted rearrest (83.33%). Offenders with increased Pe amplitude and decreased ACC activation, suggesting abnormal error-processing, were at greatest risk of rearrest.
    • Neuroprediction of future rearrest

      Aharoni, Eyal; Vincent, Gina M.; Harenski, Carla L.; Calhoun, Vince D.; Sinnott-Armstrong, Walter; Gazzaniga, Michael S.; Kiehl, Kent A. (2013-04-09)
      Identification of factors that predict recurrent antisocial behavior is integral to the social sciences, criminal justice procedures, and the effective treatment of high-risk individuals. Here we show that error-related brain activity elicited during performance of an inhibitory task prospectively predicted subsequent rearrest among adult offenders within 4 y of release (N = 96). The odds that an offender with relatively low anterior cingulate activity would be rearrested were approximately double that of an offender with high activity in this region, holding constant other observed risk factors. These results suggest a potential neurocognitive biomarker for persistent antisocial behavior.
    • Struggles and Strategies for Survival Beyond the Walls of Jail

      Halpin, Susan M.; Diaz, Louie (2020-01-01)
      Louie Diaz is a substance use disorder counselor and re-entry specialist with the Middlesex County, Massachusetts Sheriff’s Office. In his youth, Louie sold drugs and stolen jewelry and was part of a crime theft ring. During his struggles with addiction, he received a 10-year prison sentence for stabbing a police officer while trying to flee a crime scene. It was during his last sentence that he made a commitment to change his life and developed a passion for helping other returning citizens. As a counselor and re-entry specialist, Louie now tends to the emotional and physical needs of others. Louie knows drugs and crime from both a criminal and a treatment perspective. “No re-entry program is going to go under the bridges and into the tent cities of the homeless looking for the guys who come out of jail and fall between the cracks. But if you are not willing to go to their places, they will end up back in jail.’ In this webinar Louie will share his own story of substance use disorder and incarceration as well as the work he is doing in the cities of Lowell and Lawrence, Massachusetts to address the addiction crisis. He will discuss what it was like to be followed by a film crew for 5 years as this documentary was being made. He will also share why this film is important as we begin to treat substance use disorder as a public health issue instead of a law enforcement issue. Learning Objectives: Understand the barriers individuals face when returning to the community after incarceration and how those barriers might affect the success of their transition back into society. Learn what “recidivism” is, and why 95% of people return to drugs and alcohol after release from prison and how substance use disorder relates to recidivism. In the film, Billy Cabrera says, “We get a handbook on how to conduct ourselves in prison, when you get released you don’t get a handbook on how to live life.” Learn what jails and prisons are doing to prepare individuals for re-entry into the community.