Demography of Health and Aging Seminar- Ruth Wygle & Anna Holleman - Duke University
Wygle: The effect of confinement conditions on recidivism: a look at the practice of jail leasing by a state prison system Holleman: The Paradox of Mental Health Services in Religious Congregations: The Impact of Orientations Toward Spiritual and Secular Healing
Date: 03/05/2020 (Thu)
Time: 3:30pm- 5:00pm
Location: Seminar will be held on-site: Gross Hall 270
Organizer: Scott Lynch
Meeting Schedule: (Not currently open for scheduling. Please contact the seminar organizer listed above.)
All meetings will be held in the same location as the seminar unless otherwise noted.
3:30pm - Seminar Presentation (3:30pm to 5:00pm)
Additional Comments: ABSTRACTS Wygle: The enormous growth of the US correctional population between 1972 and 2009 forced many states to increase the capacity of their correctional systems (Carson & Mulako-Wangota 2019). States did so by expanding existing prisons, building new prisons, contracting with private prisons, and by relying on county facilities through a practice known as “jail leasing.” As a result of the latter, it has become increasingly common for individuals to serve some or all of their sentence for a felony conviction in a local jail rather than a state prison. The differences between these two facility types has been well documented (Wildeman et al 2018). Lesser understood, however, is the degree to which the facility type an individual is confined in impacts the chance of that individual returning to the state’s jurisdiction and how soon once they are released. In this paper, I explore the effect of facility type on recidivism for individuals released after serving time for a felony conviction. Holleman: Though the primary role of religious congregations is to offer worship services and guidance in the religious lives of their parishioners, they also play a central role in the provision of mental health services in the United States to both parishioners and non-parishioners alike. Approximately a quarter of individuals who experience mental illness turn to religious congregations for assistance (Wang et al. 2003), with about half of these individuals relying only on religious congregations for their mental health needs (Wang et al. 2005). Though past research has identified numerous characteristics of religious congregations that provide mental health services, a key contradiction has arisen concerning the practice of spiritual healing and its relationship to the provision of mental health services (Frenk 2014; Wong et al. 2018). The current study attempts to adjudicate between these past contradictions by operationalizing a reliance on spiritual prayer for the healing of mental disorders, which past research has shown to be in opposition to a reliance on secular medicine. I find that congregations that practice spiritual healing are more likely to offer mental health services that relate specifically to substance abuse disorders. Understanding this relationship is vital for mental health professionals and policy makers who benefit from understanding the ways the orientation of religious congregations towards secular medicine could aid or impede congregations’ willingness to collaborate to assist individuals in need of mental health services.