High percentages of justice-involved individuals have experienced serious trauma throughout their lifetime. The reverberating effects of trauma experiences can challenge a person’s capacity for recovery and pose significant barriers to accessing services, often resulting in an increased risk of coming into contact with the criminal justice system. Trauma-informed criminal justice responses can help to avoid re-traumatizing individuals, thereby increase safety for all, decrease recidivism, and promote and support recovery of justice-involved individuals with behavioral health challenges
By the end of this presentation, the participant will be able to:
- Discuss how trauma is often ongoing for many individuals involved in the criminal justice system
- Describe how the impact of trauma can be experienced throughout life and affect various aspects of functioning and behavior
- Describe how trauma relates to mental health and substance use disorders
- Describe how certain behaviors may reflect a person’s attempt to survive
- Discuss how a history of trauma may result in problematic behavior, poor relationships, and justice involvement
- Describe the cycle of violence as a response to childhood physical abuse
- List examples of individual differences that may lead to resilience or increased vulnerability to trauma
- List four things people need in their interpersonal interaction with officers: respect, information, safety, and choice
- List and describe ways in which the criminal justice system may re-traumatize
- Discuss how to improve policies and procedures to make them trauma-informed
This highly interactive training is specifically tailored to community-based criminal justice professionals including:
- Community corrections (probation, parole, and pre-trial services officers)
- Court personnel
- Police
- Behavioral Health & Other Human Services Providers Working with Criminal Justice Involved Individuals
Intermediate
Participants must attend entire presentation and complete a course evaluation in order to receive credits