Correctional Mental Health: From Theory to Best Practice

A research-to-practice text offering a biopsychosocial approach to treating criminal offenders

Correctional Mental Health is a broad-based, balanced guide for students who are learning to treat criminal offenders in a correctional mental health practice.  Featuring a wide selection of readings, this edited text offers a thorough grounding in theory, current research, professional practice, and clinical experience. It emphasizes a biopsychosocial approach to caring for the estimated 20% of all U.S. prisoners who have a serious mental disorder. Providing a balance between theoretical and practical perspectives throughout, the text also provides readers with a big-picture framework for assessing current correctional mental health and criminal justice issues, offering clear strategies for addressing these challenges.

Thomas J. Fagan, Ph.D., is currently an Associate Professor of Psychology and the Director of the Division of Social and Behavioral Science at Nova Southeastern University in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. For 23 years he was a psychology practitioner and administrator with the Federal Bureau of Prisons where he was an active participant in developing correctional mental health programs, creating mental health policies and procedures, and training professional, paraprofessional, and correctional staff. Dr. Fagan was also the Bureau’s Chief hostage negotiator and coordinator of its crisis negotiation training program. Over the years, he has served as a consultant to numerous federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies in the areas of crisis negotiation, critical incident stress debriefing, and management of correctional mental health services and programs.

Dr. Fagan has published regularly in correctional and psychological journals, has authored several book chapters, and co-edited two books with Robert K. Ax, Ph.D. -Correctional Mental Health Handbook (2003) and Corrections, Mental Health, and Social Policy: International Perspectives (2007). He also published a book on crisis negotiation in correctional settings - Negotiating Correctional Incidents: A Practical Guide (2003).

Since 1997, Dr. Fagan has served as the American Psychological Association (APA)’s representative on the Board of Directors of the National Commission on Correctional Health Care (NCCHC) – a national organization dedicated to insuring quality health and mental health care to incarcerated individuals. He served as NCCHC’s Board Chair from 2002 - 2003. He is a Fellow in APA’s Divisions 12 and 18. Division 18 recognized his work in correctional mental health with a special achievement award in 1993 and he received APA’s Award for Distinguished Contributions to Practice in the Public Sector in 2006. He received is Bachelor’s degree from Rutgers University and his Master’s and Doctoral Degrees from Virginia Tech.

Robert K. Ax, Ph.D., received his doctorate in clinical psychology from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, and practiced in state and federal corrections for more than 20 years. He is a licensed clinical psychologist (Virginia), a Fellow of the American Psychological Association (APA), a member of the Canadian Psychological Association (CPA), and a former President of the APA Division of Psychologists in Public Service (18). He has twice been the recipient of Division 18’s Distinguished Service Award, and in 2009 received its highest honor, the Harold Hildreth Award. He was the training director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons’ first APA-accredited internship program at the Federal Correctional Institution, Petersburg, Virginia. Dr. Ax is the co-editor, with Dr. Thomas J. Fagan, of two previous volumes, the Correctional Mental Health Handbook, published by Sage in 2003, and Corrections, Mental Health and Social Policy: International Perspectives (Charles C Thomas, 2007). He has published articles on mental health training and correctional issues, currently serves on the editorial board of the journal Criminal Justice and Behavior, and has served as an invited reviewer for other journals, including American Psychologist, Psychological Services, and Professional Psychology: Research and Practice.

Dr. Ax has published several articles on organized psychology’s prescriptive authority initiative as well. He delivered an invited address on this issue at the annual CPA convention in 2008, and served as a content expert (1998-1999) for the development of the APA College of Professional Psychology’s Psychopharmacology Examination for Psychologists. Dr. Ax received the American Society for the Advancement of Pharmacotherapy’s (APA’s Division 55) National Leadership Award in 2006.