Using a Community-Engaged Survey to Describe Prison Environments and Measure the Mental Health Status of Correctional Staff and Incarcerated Individuals

• Published date: 01 November 2024
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/10439862241272311
• Author: Abigail M. Crocker,Kathryn J. Fox
• Date: 01 November 2024

https://doi.org/10.1177/10439862241272311

Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice

2024, Vol. 40(4) 735 –748

© The Author(s) 2024

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DOI: 10.1177/10439862241272311

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Original Article

Using a Community-Engaged

Survey to Describe Prison

Environments and Measure

the Mental Health Status

of Correctional Staff and

Incarcerated Individuals

Abigail M. Crocker1 and Kathryn J. Fox1

Abstract

The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world. Incarceration

is associated with significant negative mental health implications for both the

corrections staff who work in prisons and the individuals incarcerated in them.

Despite their scale and impacts, prisons are one of the country’s least transparent

and most understudied public institutions. Where research on prisons does exist,

it is often focused on either the corrections staff population or the incarcerated

population. Moreover, the perspectives of those most directly affected, incarcerated

populations and correctional staff are rarely included in the process. In this study,

we sought to focus on understanding the entire prison ecosystem, measuring the

mental health status of corrections staff and incarcerated individuals, and describing

potential interrelated factors in the prison environment that may affect these

outcomes. We used a community-engaged process to develop a prison survey to

measure the prison environment in a pilot facility in rural Vermont, incorporating

the Patient-Reported Outcomes Measurement Information System (PROMIS) Global

Mental Health 2a instrument to measure the mental health status of the corrections

staff and incarcerated individuals. Focus groups and interviews were conducted to

inform survey development and understand factors affecting the mental health of

these populations. Surveys were administered at three time points.

1The University of Vermont, Burlington, USA

Corresponding Author:

Abigail M. Crocker, Associate Professor of Statistics, Department of Mathematics and Statistics, College

of Engineering and Mathematical Sciences, The University of Vermont, 82 University Place, Burlington,

VT 05405, USA.

Email: Abigail.Crocker@uvm.edu

1272311CCJXXX10.1177/10439862241272311Journal of Contemporary Criminal JusticeCrocker and Fox

research-article2024