From Future Orientation to Readiness for Reentry: An Exploratory Study of Prelease Cognitions of Incarcerated Men

Incarceration ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 263266632110522
Author(s):  
Mateja Vuk ◽  
Brandon K. Applegate

The literature suggests that individual characteristics of offenders are related to cognitive patterns before their release from prison. Empirical evidence shows that such cognitions can influence the extent to which offenders take an active role in rehabilitation. Given that many studies upon which these conclusions are made are dated, qualitative, or use bivariate analyses, it is unclear how salient, strong, and significant these associations are. Therefore, the aim of this exploratory study is to identify the factors that are associated with two prelease cognitions, future orientation and readiness for release, and to investigate whether future orientation is associated with greater involvement in structured activities. This study uses survey data collected from a sample of 503 people incarcerated in medium-security prisons in South Carolina in the United States. Ordered logistic regression models reveal that idleness, marital status, and drug dependence are associated with future orientation, while idleness, engagement in work and education, age, marital status, sentence phase, and mental health issues are related to readiness for release. Negative binomial regression shows that future orientation is associated with more extensive involvement in structured activities. Overall, the study concludes that while inmates are generally future-oriented, they are less confident that they are prepared for release from prison. The limitations of this study, including low scale reliabilities for key variables and a substantial amount of missing data, are also discussed.

2013 ◽  
pp. 81-120 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susanne Durst

Intangibles are viewed as the key drivers in most industries, and current research shows that firms voluntarily disclose information about their investments in intangibles and their potential benefits. Yet little is known of the risks relating to such resources and the disclosures firms make about such risks. In order to obtain a more balanced and complete picture of firms' activities, information about the risky side of their intangibles is also needed. This exploratory study provides some descriptive insights into intangibles-related risk disclosure in a sample of 16 large banks from the United States (US), United Kingdom (UK), Germany and Italy. Annual report data is analyzed using the three Intellectual Capital dimensions. Study findings illustrate the variety of intangibles-related risk disclosure as demonstrated by the banks involved.


2019 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Youssef J. Carter

The Mustafawi Tariqa is a transnational Sufi Order that was initiated in 1966 by the late Cheikh Mustafa Gueye Haydara (d. 1989) in Thiès, Senegal. Yet, only since 1994 has this specific Sufi network reached westward across the water, bringing American Muslims—many of whom are converts—into the larger network. In the United States, the majority of students who have entered the Tariqa and have declared allegiance (bayah) to Shaykh Arona Rashid Faye Al-Faqir are African-Americans who have inserted themselves religiously, culturally, and pedagogically into a West African Sufi tradition which emphasizes religious study and the practice of dhikr (remembrance of God). Shaykh Arona Faye is a Senegalese religious leader who relocated to the southeastern region of the United States from West Africa to spread the religion of Islam and expose American Muslims to the rich West African tradition of spiritual purification and Islamic piety. At the same time, many of those who are African-American members of this tradition have made it a point to travel to Senegal themselves to strengthen transatlantic ties with West African compatriots and visit sacred burial sites in the small city of Thiès. I examine how two sites of pilgrimage for the Mustafawi—Moncks Corner, South Carolina and Thiès, Senegal—play a part in the infrastructure of Black Atlantic Sufi network. Moncks Corner is the central site in which access to the Tariqa’s most charismatic living shaykh, Shaykh Arona Faye, has worked for the past two decades teaching and mentoring those on the Path. On the other hand, Thiès is the location where the Tariqa’s founder is buried and travelers visit the town in order to pay homage to his memory. I show how these sites catalyze mobility and operate as spaces of spiritual refuge for visitors in both local and regional contexts by looking at how a local zawiyah produces movement in relation to a broader tariqa. By looking at pilgrimage and knowledge transmission, I argue that the manner in which esoteric approaches to spiritual care and the embodiment of higher Islamic ethics via the West African Sufi methodology of the Mustafawi informs the manner in which Muslims of varying African descent inhabit a broader diasporic identification of “Black Muslimness.”


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ghdeer Tashkandi ◽  
Samina Abidi

BACKGROUND Preoperative services and education allow patients to take an active role in their recovery and reduce the risk of post-operative complications. Exploring patients’ perceptions and attitudes regarding pre-anesthesia services and education helps reveal gaps in patients’ uptake of them so that targeted educational interventions can be designed and implemented. OBJECTIVE This is an exploratory study aimed at increasing the understanding of patients’ perceptions and concerns about and the adequacy of the pre-anesthesia services and educational content provided to them at the pre-anesthesia clinic (PAC) of the National Guard Hospital (NGH) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The information gathered will be used to design and develop an electronic patient education system that will allow patients to access personalized, evidence-based pre-anesthesia information relevant to their upcoming surgeries. METHODS Quantitative research methods are used to collect relevant information from patients using a closed-ended questionnaire. The questionnaire includes items on demographics, patients’ perceptions and concerns regarding anesthesia, and the assessment of pre-anesthesia information adequacy. RESULTS Our results showed that 94% of the participants consider the PAC very important, and more than half of the participants (56%) were interested in receiving additional educational information about anesthesia via mobile applications. While 100% of the participants were satisfied with the information and services provided at the clinic, the assessment of this information and service adequacy indicated that participants were not adequately informed about anesthesia. Among the most common anesthesia-related concerns were the inability to wake up after anesthesia, becoming paralyzed after spinal anesthesia, the possibility of staying in the ICU after the surgery and developing back pain. CONCLUSIONS This gathered information will be used to design and develop an educational intervention that will deliver evidence-based, personalized and easy to understand educational instructions to patients to better prepare them for their upcoming surgery. The proposed system will overcome the problems of (i) the spread of generalized unrelated educational information and instructions, (ii) patients forgetting or misunderstanding the given instructions, (iii) issues with the accessibility of information, and (iv) a lack of communication and interaction between patients and their anesthetist.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bankole Olatosi ◽  
Jiajia Zhang ◽  
Sharon Weissman ◽  
Zhenlong Li ◽  
Jianjun Hu ◽  
...  

BACKGROUND The Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) remains a serious global pandemic. Currently, all age groups are at risk for infection but the elderly and persons with underlying health conditions are at higher risk of severe complications. In the United States (US), the pandemic curve is rapidly changing with over 6,786,352 cases and 199,024 deaths reported. South Carolina (SC) as of 9/21/2020 reported 138,624 cases and 3,212 deaths across the state. OBJECTIVE The growing availability of COVID-19 data provides a basis for deploying Big Data science to leverage multitudinal and multimodal data sources for incremental learning. Doing this requires the acquisition and collation of multiple data sources at the individual and county level. METHODS The population for the comprehensive database comes from statewide COVID-19 testing surveillance data (March 2020- till present) for all SC COVID-19 patients (N≈140,000). This project will 1) connect multiple partner data sources for prediction and intelligence gathering, 2) build a REDCap database that links de-identified multitudinal and multimodal data sources useful for machine learning and deep learning algorithms to enable further studies. Additional data will include hospital based COVID-19 patient registries, Health Sciences South Carolina (HSSC) data, data from the office of Revenue and Fiscal Affairs (RFA), and Area Health Resource Files (AHRF). RESULTS The project was funded as of June 2020 by the National Institutes for Health. CONCLUSIONS The development of such a linked and integrated database will allow for the identification of important predictors of short- and long-term clinical outcomes for SC COVID-19 patients using data science.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 ◽  
pp. 238212052110258
Author(s):  
Haritha Pavuluri ◽  
Nicolas Poupore ◽  
William Michael Schmidt ◽  
Samantha Gabrielle Boniface ◽  
Meenu Jindal ◽  
...  

Substance Use Disorder (SUD) is a debilitating chronic illness with significant morbidity and mortality across the United States. The AAMC and LCME have supported the efforts for more effective medical education of SUD to address the existing stigma, knowledge, and treatment gaps. The Coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and associated social, economic, and behavioral impacts have added to this urgency. The University of South Carolina School of Medicine Greenville (USCSOMG), in collaboration with community organizations, has successfully implemented an integrated SUD education curriculum for medical students. Students learn about SUD in basic sciences, receive case-based education during clinical exercises, and are provided the opportunity to become a recovery coach and participate in the patient and family recovery meetings through this curriculum during preclinical years. During the clinical years, SUD education is enhanced with exposure to Medication for Addition Treatment (MAT). Students also partake in the care coordination of patients with SUD between the hospital and community recovery organizations. All students receive MAT waiver training in their final year and are prepared to prescribe treatment for SUD upon graduation. The experiences in this integrated curriculum integration can perhaps assist other organizations to implement similar components and empower the next generation of physicians to be competent and effective in treating patients with SUD.


Incarceration ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 263266632097780
Author(s):  
Alexandra Cox ◽  
Dwayne Betts

There are close to seven million people under correctional supervision in the United States, both in prison and in the community. The US criminal justice system is widely regarded as an inherently unmerciful institution by scholars and policymakers but also by people who have spent time in prison and their family members; it is deeply punitive, racist, expansive and damaging in its reach. In this article, we probe the meanings of mercy for the institution of parole.


Land ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 309
Author(s):  
Elena A. Mikhailova ◽  
Hamdi A. Zurqani ◽  
Christopher J. Post ◽  
Mark A. Schlautman ◽  
Gregory C. Post ◽  
...  

Sustainable management of soil carbon (C) at the state level requires valuation of soil C regulating ecosystem services (ES) and disservices (ED). The objective of this study was to assess the value of regulating ES from soil organic carbon (SOC), soil inorganic carbon (SIC), and total soil carbon (TSC) stocks, based on the concept of the avoided social cost of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions for the state of South Carolina (SC) in the United States of America (U.S.A.) by soil order, soil depth (0–200 cm), region and county using information from the State Soil Geographic (STATSGO) database. The total estimated monetary mid-point value for TSC in the state of South Carolina was $124.36B (i.e., $124.36 billion U.S. dollars, where B = billion = 109), $107.14B for SOC, and $17.22B for SIC. Soil orders with the highest midpoint value for SOC were: Ultisols ($64.35B), Histosols ($11.22B), and Inceptisols ($10.31B). Soil orders with the highest midpoint value for SIC were: Inceptisols ($5.91B), Entisols ($5.53B), and Alfisols ($5.0B). Soil orders with the highest midpoint value for TSC were: Ultisols ($64.35B), Inceptisols ($16.22B), and Entisols ($14.65B). The regions with the highest midpoint SOC values were: Pee Dee ($34.24B), Low Country ($32.17B), and Midlands ($29.24B). The regions with the highest midpoint SIC values were: Low Country ($5.69B), Midlands ($5.55B), and Pee Dee ($4.67B). The regions with the highest midpoint TSC values were: Low Country ($37.86B), Pee Dee ($36.91B), and Midlands ($34.79B). The counties with the highest midpoint SOC values were Colleton ($5.44B), Horry ($5.37B), and Berkeley ($4.12B). The counties with the highest midpoint SIC values were Charleston ($1.46B), Georgetown ($852.81M, where M = million = 106), and Horry ($843.18M). The counties with the highest midpoint TSC values were Horry ($6.22B), Colleton ($6.02B), and Georgetown ($4.87B). Administrative areas (e.g., counties, regions) combined with pedodiversity concepts can provide useful information to design cost-efficient policies to manage soil carbon regulating ES at the state level.


2000 ◽  
Vol 36 ◽  
pp. 299-318
Author(s):  
J. R. Oldfield

Some years ago I was invited to spend a day in an elementary school in Columbia, South Carolina. The day began, as I imagine every day began, with the national anthem and the pledge of allegiance to the American flag. The children then sang a song, a ditty really, which began as it ended with the simple refrain: ‘I am special’. Later I was shown some of the work the class had been doing. Across the back of the room were pinned up the children’s attempts to answer a question that had been exercising me, namely what was special about the United States. Some of the responses were fairly predictable. America was special, one seven-year-old wrote, because it was a democracy. Others singled out freedom or liberty as their country’s unique virtue. One brave soul boldly asserted that America was special because Americans were rich, while another thought the secret had something to do with happiness.


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