Article The Impact of Traumatic Brain Injury on Prison Health Services and Offender Management

A large percentage of incarcerated offenders report a history of traumatic brain injury (TBI) with concomitant neuropsychiatric and social sequelae. However, research looking at the relationship between TBI and delivery of correctional health services and offender management is limited. In this study, the relationships between TBI and use of correctional medical/psychological services, chemical dependency (CD) treatment completion rates, in-prison rule infractions, and recidivism were investigated. Findings indicated that TBI history has a statistically significant association with increased usage of correctional medical/psychological services, including crisis interventions services, and with higher recidivism rates. Results also showed a trend toward offenders with TBI incurring higher rates of in-prison rule infractions and lower rates of CD treatment completion. Implications and future directions for correctional systems are discussed. Keywords traumatic brain injury, offenders, correctional health services, prison, recidivism Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is estimated to affect some 1.7 million Americans each year (Langlois Orman, Kraus, Zaloshnja, &Miller, 2011) and is considered one of the most significant public healt