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A Trauma-Informed Approach to Justice-Involved Veterans
For many veterans, justice involvement does not happen in isolation from their life experiences. Trauma can shape how a person responds to stress, authority, relationships, and support, and for some veterans, those experiences may be connected to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). PTSD can...
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Justice-Impacted Older Adults: Supporting a Vulnerable Population
When we think about justice-impacted older adults, there are three facts we need to keep in mind: A post-incarceration transition is difficult under the best of circumstances. Justice-impacted older adults tend to have complex behavioral and physical health needs. Adults over age 60 are...
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Still Arresting Our Way Out: Why New York Needs to Expand Its Diversion Courts
For decades, New Yorkers dealing with mental health and substance use issues have been funneled into our jails and prisons and denied the treatment they need to get better. Far too often, local correctional facilities end up serving as the default mental health provider. New York is not alone in...
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Financial Stability: Building Practical Infrastructure for Reentry
James1 completes a 90-day residential treatment program with a job interview set up for the coming week and a probation meeting he cannot miss. He also leaves with thousands of dollars in outstanding legal financial obligations (LFOs), a suspended driver's license related to unpaid fees, and no...
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Beyond Punishment: Rethinking Behavioral Health Care in the Justice System
Correctional facilities in the United States have increasingly become major providers of mental health care (Cherson, 2025). One in every two to three people incarcerated in U.S. prisons is estimated to live with a mental illness, far higher than the general population (Dumont et al., 2012)....
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The Director Who Was Once the Intake: What Justice-Involved Clients Taught Me From Both Sides of the Desk
I have occupied three chairs in the behavioral health system's relationship with justice-involved people: the client in the residential program with a record behind him, the counselor across the desk, and the director deciding who gets the bed. Most practitioners spend a career in one of those...
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The NYSPA Report – The Fifteen-Month Clock: Substance Use Disorder, Recovery Timelines, and the Law’s Deadline for Parents
The forensic dilemma at the intersection of substance use disorder (SUD) and family law appears at several junctures: pregnancy, child welfare, custody and divorce, juvenile justice, and education. Pregnancy is an especially telling case, a physical state that invites a future orientation toward...
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The Missing Intercept: From Lived Experience to Lived Expertise – The Case for Justice Peers
A behavioral health crisis can become a 911 call, which can then become police contact. Police contact can become arrest or, in some cases, death. Arrest can become detention, which interrupts medication, housing, employment, treatment, family connection, social supports, and recovery. When all is...
