Changes in Jail Admissions Before and After Traumatic Brain Injury

• Published in: Journal of quantitative criminology Vol. 38; no. 4; pp. 1033 - 1056
• Main Authors: Schwartz, Joseph A., Wright, Emily M., Spohn, Ryan, Campagna, Michael F., Steiner, Benjamin, Epinger, Ebonie
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer US 01.12.2022; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Brain; Causality; Change agents; Criminal justice; Criminology; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Felony; Injuries; Jails; Law and Criminolgy; Methodology of the Social Sciences; Original Paper; Prisoners; Prisons; Recidivism; Self report; Sociology; Statistics; Timing; Trauma; Traumatic brain injury; Jail; Traumatic brain injury; Criminal justice contact; Collateral consequences
• ISSN: 0748-4518; 1573-7799
• DOI: 10.1007/s10940-021-09524-7

Objectives Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is differentially concentrated within incarcerated populations. Despite the consistency of this observation, the timing of within-individual changes in criminal justice contact in relation to TBI remains under-investigated. For example, previous studies have primarily considered TBI as a causal influence of later criminal justice contact. However, TBI may also serve as a consequence of criminal justice contact or a criminogenic lifestyle. The current study simultaneously observes both possibilities by examining criminal justice contact before, around the time of, and after the first reported TBI. Methods Drawing from a combination of self-report and lifetime official record data from a jail cohort admitted between February 2017 and September 2017 and who sustained their first reported TBI at age 21 or older ( N  = 531), the current study examines jail admissions in the 24 months before and 24 months after the first reported TBI and across eight biannual intervals ( N  = 4,248 person-periods). Results Any and misdemeanor admissions slightly increased pre-TBI and continued to increase around the time of and following TBI, never returning to pre-TBI levels. Felony admissions remained stable around the time of injury and increased post-TBI. Further analyses that incorporated a comparison group revealed that these patterns are unique to the TBI group and not a result of a larger systematic process. Conclusions These findings indicate that the probability of jail admission is greatest post-TBI, but also increases leading up to sustaining a TBI.