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Converging Concerns: Criminal Justice and Health Partnerships

NCJ Number
186197
Date Published
January 2001
Length
26 pages
Annotation
This publication provides some examples of promising partnerships between criminal justice professionals and health care providers.
Abstract
The booklet highlights the benefits of combining health and criminal justice efforts to reduce and prevent crime. The programs described illustrate how partnerships have proved helpful in both criminal justice and health arenas, and they indicate the roles that each field might play in such a collaboration. Assessments of such partnerships show improved outcomes for individuals and communities, identify potential challenges inherent in forming such partnerships, and point to key lessons learned. One of the programs described involves cooperation between criminal justice professionals and clinicians in New Haven, CT, for the purpose of identifying and treating children who have been exposed to violence. A partnership program in Richmond, VA, involves cooperation between police and hospital personnel in the investigation of crimes that have led to the hospitalization of victims and/or offenders. A program called "Kid's Korner" was created in Reno, NV; it involves teams of community health nurses and police officers who visit local motels that house low-income families to check on children's welfare and provide families access to community resources. Other partnership programs described include a tattoo removal project, a women's death review team, a program that uses a sexual assault nurse examiner in the investigation of sexual assaults, and a hospital-based program that targets survivors and perpetrators of violence. A listing of 22 resources