In the News

last updated 5-16-2022

Published: | Author: Karen Murphy | Source: The Capitolist

A new training program, “Resiliency Behind the Badge,” aimed at identifying and addressing post-traumatic stress will soon be available to law enforcement officers across the state.

“While departments routinely focus on maintaining an officer’s physical health, it is equally important to address their mental health as well, including the effects of exposure to extremely stressful or traumatic events. Healthy officers are better equipped to safely serve their community,” said Carrie Pettus-Davis, PhD, MSW, founder and executive director of IJRD. “Law enforcement officers experience an extraordinary amount of stress on the job. Providing them with specific techniques to understand and manage that stress can help improve their overall well-being and response to future events.”

Category: Resiliency Behind the Badge
Published: | Author: Flaglerlive | Source: Flaglerlive.com

The Florida Sheriffs Association (FSA) and Florida State University’s Institute for Justice Research and Development (IJRD), alongside Florida House Speaker Chris Sprowls (R-Palm Harbor) and Walton County Sheriff Michael Adkinson, Jr., today announced a collaborative new training program, “Resiliency Behind the Badge,” aimed at identifying and addressing post-traumatic stress in law enforcement officers across the state.

Category: Resiliency Behind the Badge
Published: | Author: Mike Vasilinda | Source: News4Jax

Florida law enforcement officers have a new tool to help them spot post-traumatic stress disorder in themselves and coworkers.

The goal of the online delivery program developed at Florida State University is to help officers understand why and when they are feeling abnormal stress and how to manage what they are feeling.

Few of us go to work and the first assignment is dealing with a dead body. But for officers, dead bodies, physical threats and constant danger are the job.

This story was also picked up by WJHG-TV NBC Panama City, Newsbreak, WBBH-TV NBC Ft. Myers, and WFLA-TV NBC Tampa.

Category: Resiliency Behind the Badge
Published: | Author: Renzo Downey | Source: FLAPOL

Law enforcement leaders and researchers hope to combat post-traumatic stress in the force with a collaborative new training program in Florida.

Florida State University’s Institute for Justice Research and Development created the “Resiliency Behind the Badge” program, available across the state beginning Thursday through the Florida Sheriffs Association.

Through the program, law enforcement officers can learn to recognize traumatic stress’ physical and mental indicators and practice managing and responding to that stress both on and off the job. Officers also learn to identify potential symptoms in their peers and direct them to help if necessary.

 

This was also featured in FLAPOL's Sunburn.

Category: Resiliency Behind the Badge
Published: | Author: Gil Ziffer | Source: Orlando Sentinel

Individuals leaving incarceration and returning home deserve much more than the right to vote. They need the opportunities to enable them to successfully rejoin society.

We can implement proven solutions and offer help to those newly released. We need to start with better preparation within prison prior to release, including better job training. We also need to fund post-release mental health and substance-abuse counseling and help identifying suitable housing. We need to listen to the experts like Dr. Pettus-Davis and start treating these issues with knowledge-based solutions and stop ignoring the existing results that negatively impact us all.

Category: Op-Ed
Published: | Author: Andrew Afifian | Source: Washington Examiner

Prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic and the nationwide unrest of the summer months, local, state, and federal authorities are taking a fresh look at significant reforms to how the criminal justice system engages with those in its charge. One important area is the need to address how to maintain and increase access to mental health and rehabilitation programs for those who have contact with the criminal justice system and whose release back into the community is imminent.

A recent study from the Institute for Justice Research and Development focused on people returning home after a period of incarceration, and the myriad challenges they face, reveals just how much this population’s mental health is affected by trauma of a nature that is much less common in the broader society. The study found that over the course of the first eight months following release from incarceration, 47% had experienced at least one traumatic event, with one in five of those actually losing a loved one to homicide

Category: Op-Ed
Published: | Source: The Crime Report

News of the dangerous conditions inside correctional facilities have flooded the headlines throughout the pandemic, but now that many incarcerated individuals have been released to slow the spread behind bars, some are finding reentry “overwhelming,” according to Florida State University’s Institute for Justice Research and Development (IJRD). The researchers set out to empirically document the prisoners’ experiences and perspectives, while also highlighting how prisons attempted to contain the spread of COVID-19.

Published: | Author: Paula Zerfoss | Source: Asheville Citizen-Times

People likely don’t want to read about PTSD among cops, but it exists and it’s creating a lot of our problems if it is untreated. In his April 8, 2019 article in the National Institutes of Justice Journal, Jim Dawson notes that up to 27% of police officers suffer from PTSD. Dr. Carrie Pettus-Davis of Florida State University studies the psychological issues of police officers. She states that “Untreated PTSD can lead officers to a misappraisal of cues in certain situations.”

Category: Op-Ed
Published: | Author: Susan Miller | Source: GCN: The Technology that Drives Government IT

Researchers from Purdue University, Florida State University, and University of Alabama-Huntsville have been awarded a $1.9 million grant from the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) to see whether an AI-based support and monitoring system can reveal the risky behaviors and stressful situations that often lead people back to incarceration. The project will also address obstacles faced overburdened caseworkers.

“This solution can get us on a path to substantially reduce the size of our criminal justice system, which is desperately needed in our country,” said Carrie Pettus-Davis, executive director and founder of FSU’s Institute for Justice Research and Development.

Published: | Author: Kevin Krause | Source: Dallas Morning News

Omar Narvaez said his brother had trouble finding a job in Houston when he was released from prison. The Dallas City Council member said he doesn’t want that to happen to others who have paid their debt and want to become productive members of society. He and other council members voted unanimously Wednesday to allocate up to $500,000 in state grant money toward housing and job skills training and placement for those leaving prison so they don’t wind up back behind bars.

This move was bolstered by the 5-Key Model program being tested in Dallas. The program’s leader, Carrie Pettus-Davis, the founding executive director of the Institute for Justice Research and Development, has called Dallas a natural test site. She has said the city was well ahead of the curve on providing reentry services for its large ex-offender population.