Forensic Services Certificate

Faculty

Andrea Leverentz, Ph.D., University of Chicago, Assistant Professor of Sociology; Program Director
Professor Leverentz is conducting research on the reentry of female prisoners and on community attitudes towards crime and reentry.
Representative Publications:
  • Leverentz, Andrea (forthcoming). "The neighborhood context of attitudes towards crime and reentry." Punishment and Society.
  • Leverentz, Andrea (2010). "Barriers to Reentry" in Lior Gideon and Hun-En Sung (eds.) Rethinking Corrections: Rehabilitation, Reintegration, and Reentry. Sage Publications.
  • Deng, Xiaogang, Lening Zhang, and Andrea Leverentz (2009). "The Dual System of Land Use Policy and Its Related Problems in Contemporary China" in Reza Hasmath and Jennifer Hsu (eds.) China in an Era of Transition: Understanding Contemporary State and Society Actors. Palgrave MacMillan.
  • Leverentz, Andrea, Juan Carlos Gorlier, and Sarah Hogue (2008). Justice for Youth, Justicia para las/los Jóvenes: Latino/a Youth and the Juvenile Justice System. Gastón Institute, University of Massachusetts Boston.
  • Leverentz, Andrea. 2006. "The love of a good man? Romantic relationships as a source of support or hindrance for female ex-offenders." Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 43 (4): 459-488.
Paul Benson, Ph.D. (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill), Professor of Sociology
During the past several years, Professor Benson has been involved in research projects evaluating recent changes in mental health policy and services at the state and national level. These include community-based mental health services, family support services, and mental health services under managed care.
Representative Publications:
  • A Statewide Network of Family Support Services: The Massachusetts Family Support Project. Evaluation & Program Planning (1996).
  • Mental Health Policy and Programs in International Perspective. The International Journal of Law & Psychiatry. (1996)
Susan Gore, Ph.D, (University of Pennsylvania), Professor of Sociology
Professor Gore’s research lies in the study of social stress and its role in mental health processes. More specific interests include the study of gender in relation to mental health, and the role of family and other relationships in stress and social support. Her current research project investigates the social and psychological functioning of young people as they make the transition from high school into the world of work and further schooling. The study involves the participation of students from a diversity of schools in southeastern Massachusetts, and includes young people who dropped out of their graduating cohort. It is supported by the National Institute of Mental Health.
Representative Publications:
  • Mary Ellen Colten and Susan Gore. 1991. Adolescent Stress. Aldine Press.
  • Jennifer Harnish, Robert Aseltine and Susan Gore. 2000. Resolution of stressful experiences as an indicator of coping effectiveness in young adults. Journal of Health and Social Behavior. Vol 41(2), 2000.
  • Gore, Susan and Robert H. Aseltine, Jr. (in press). Race and ethnic differences in depressed mood following the transition from high school. Journal of Health and Social Behavior.
Stephanie Hartwell, Ph.D., (Yale University), Associate Professor of Sociology; Graduate Program Director in Applied Sociology; Adjunct Associate Professor of Research at UMass Medical School, Department of Psychiatry, Center for Mental Health Services Research
Professor Hartwell is conducting research on community re-entry of ex-inmates with psychiatric disabilities, jail diversion of veterans with trauma histories, and juvenile delinquents leaving detention and residential treatment.
Representative Publications:
  • Hartwell, Stephanie W., William H. Fisher, and Maryann Davis. (Forthcoming). "Emerging Adults with Psychiatric Disabilities Involved with the Criminal Justice System." International Journal of Offender Therapy and Comparative Criminology.
  • Hartwell, Stephanie W., William H. Fisher and Xiaogang Deng. 2009. "The Impact of Regionalization on Reentry Service Outcomes." Psychiatric Services. Vol. 60:394-397.
  • Hartwell, Stephanie W. (Forthcoming). "Ex-inmates with Psychiatric Disabilities Returning to the Community from Correctional Custody: The Forensic Transition Team Approach After a Decade." RSSSP Vol. 17.
  • Hartwell, Stephanie W. and Karin Orr. 2009. "Reentry Needs of Female Mentally Ill Offenders." In Rosemary Gidio and Lanette Dalley (Editor), The Mental Health Needs of Women In the Criminal Justice System, Ch. 12, pp.216-224. Prentice Hall.
  • Hartwell, Stephanie W. 2008. "Homelessness and Crack Use: A Case Study in Historical, Environmental and Social Context." In Robert Hartmann McNamara (Editor), Homelessness in America, Vol. 2, pp.75-92. Greenwood Publishing Group.
  • Hartwell, Stephanie W. 2008. "More of a Danger to Myself: Community Re-entry of Dually Diagnosed Females Involved in the Criminal Justice System." In Anderson, Tammy (Editor), Neither Villain nor Victim: Toward an Empowered Approach to Women and Drugs, Rutgers University Press.
  • Hartwell, Stephanie W. and Paul Benson. 2007. "Social Integration." In William R. Avison, Jane D. McLeod, and Bernice A. Pescosolido (eds), Mental Health, Social Mirror, New York: Springer Publishing.
Melissa Schaefer Morabito, Ph.D. (American University), Assistant Professor of Sociology
Professor Morabito conducts research on policing, public health, mental illness, and intimate partner violence. She is currently working with the Boston Police Department on a project to predict property crime.
Representative Publications:
  • Watson, Amy, Beth Angell, Melissa Schaefer Morabito and Noel Robinson. 2008. "Defying Negative Expectations: Dimensions of Fair and Respectful Treatment by Police Officers as Perceived by People with Mental Illness". Administration and Policy in Mental Health and Mental Health Services Research, In press.
  • Morabito, Melissa Schaefer (in press). "The Adoption of Police Innovation: The Role of the Political Environment" Policing: An International Journal of Police Strategies and Management.
  • Morabito, Melissa Schaefer. 2008. "Understanding Community Policing as an Innovation: Patterns of Adoption." Crime and Delinquency.
  • Watson, Amy, Melissa Schaefer Morabito, Jeffrey Draine and Victor Ottati. 2008. "Improving Police Response to Persons with Mental Illness: A Multi-Level Conceptualization of CIT". International Journal of Law and Psychiatry, 31: 359-368.
  • Morabito, Melissa Schaefer. 2007. "Horizons of Context: Understanding the Police Decision to Arrest People with Mental Illness." Psychiatric Services, 58(12): 1582-1587.
Esmaeil Mahdavi, Ed.D. (Indiana University), Lecturer in Counseling
Professor Mahdavi is a licensed mental health counselor. He has experience with cross-cultural counseling, marital and family therapy, substance abuse treatment and prevention, depression and anxiety disorders, group counseling, and working with minorities and disadvantaged populations.
Representative Publications:
  • "Stages of Selecting a Spouse". Journal of Medicine and Spiritual Hygiene (2002), 43, 93-103.
  • "The effectiveness of Structural Family Therapy in the Improvement of Family functionality and the empowerment of Marital Satisfaction in the Families with Children Diagnosed with Separation Anxiety". Journal of Family Scientific Research, Winter 2006, Number 4 (co-author).
  • "A Comparison Between Beliefs of Women Filing for Divorce and Women Who Would Like to Continue Marital Life", Journal of Family Scientific Research, Summer 2005, Number 2 (co-author).
Paul Nestor, Ph.D. (Catholic University of America), Professor of Psychology; Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Professor Nestor has two programmatic areas of research interests: social, cognitive, and affective neurosciences of attention, memory, decision-making and intelligence as applied to healthy functioning as well as clinical disorders, particularly schizophrenia and substance abuse; interpersonal violence in relation to mental disorder, personality, neuropsychology, cognition, and beliefs.
Representative Publications:
  • Nestor, P.G., Kimble, M., Berman, I. Haycock, J. (2002). Psychosis, psychopathy, and homicide: A preliminary neuropsychological inquiry American Journal of Psychiatry, 159, 138-140
  • Nestor, P.G. (2002). Mental disorder and violence: Personality dimensions and clinical features. American Journal of Psychiatry, 159, 12, 1973-1978.
  • Nestor, P.G., Daggett, D., Haycock, J., & Price, M. (1999). Competence to stand trial: A neuropsychological inquiry. Law and Human Behavior, 23, 397-412.
Russell K Schutt, Ph.D. (University of Illinois at Chicago), Professor of Sociology; Lecturer on Sociology, Department of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Professor Schutt’s research interests include relationships between individuals and the social environment, with a particular focus on people with housing, medical and/or legal problems, on the organizations that respond to their needs, and on the role of service preferences and social processes in influencing their outcome.
Representative Publications:
  • Books:
    • Schutt, Russell K. 2010 [Forthcoming]. Homelessness, Housing and Mental Illness, with contributions by Stephen M. Goldfinger and Larry J. Seidman. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
    • Schutt, Russell K. 2009. Investigating the Social World: The Process and Practice of Research, 6th ed. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE/Pine Forge Press.
    • Schutt, Russell K. 1986. Organization in a Changing Environment: Unionization of Welfare Employees. Albany: SUNY Press.
  • Articles:
    • Schutt, Russell K. and E. Sally Rogers. 2009. "Empowerment and Peer Support: Structure and Process of Self Help in a Consumer-Run Center for Individuals with Mental Illness." Journal of Community Psychology 37:697-710.
    • Schutt, Russell K., Larry J. Seidman, Brina Caplan, Anna Martsinkiv, and Stephen M. Goldfinger. 2007. "The Role of Neurocognition and Social Context in Predicting Community Functioning among Formerly Homeless Seriously Mentally Ill Persons." Schizophrenia Bulletin, 33:1388-1396.
    • Schutt, Russell K., Robert E. Rosenheck, Walter E. Penk, Charles E. Drebing, and Catherine Leda Seibyl. 2005. "The Social Environment of Transitional Work and Residence Programs: Influences on Health and Functioning." Evaluation and Program Planning, 28:291-300.
    • Schutt, Russell K. and W. Dale Dannefer. 1988. "Detention Decisions in Juvenile Cases: JINS, JDs and Gender." Law & Society Review, 22:509-520.
    • Dannefer, W. Dale and Russell K. Schutt. 1982. "Race and Juvenile Justice Processing in Court and Police Agencies." American Journal of Sociology, 87:1113-1132.