Nursing in the American Justice System
Section snippets
Contemporary correctional nursing
Emerging from the work of Dix and others, are correctional nurses (CN) who choose to work in the intersection of justice, public and mental health care systems. There are limitations in what is known about the role of the CN, and contemporary knowledge is not well disseminated. The impact upon the ability of nurses to provide adequate care to incarcerated, detained, or supervised patients is influenced in part by a lack of funding to correctional healthcare. The Urban Institute (Schaenman et
Challenges to the future of correctional nursing
The recommendations in the Future of Nursing report focus on the critical intersection between the health needs of patients across the lifespan and the readiness of the nursing workforce to meet the health needs of targeted populations. The context in which nursing services are provided, the complexity of care, professional and public stigma, and workforce issues significantly influence the efforts by CNs to improve healthcare for justice-involved persons.
Impact upon CN practice
There has been little research completed related to correctional nursing job satisfaction and retention (Almost et al., 2013). There is even less research in development of evidence to support correctional nursing practice for competency in managing clinically complex patients, role performance within a secure environment and maintenance of job satisfaction and retention in the specialty (Schoenly, 2013; White and Larsson, 2012). As noted by Flanagan and Flanagan (2002) job stress and job
Call to action to transform correctional healthcare
In a review of the Future of Nursing report, Fineberg and Lavizzo-Mourey (2013) note that a blueprint for transforming the nursing profession focused upon removing barriers to practice and care, expanding opportunities for nurses to serve as leaders, and increasing the proportion of nurses with a baccalaureate degrees to 80% by 2020. Nursing within justice systems has hills to climb to achieve these recommendations.
Recommendations
This paper sought to highlight the current practice of correctional nursing in response to the Future of Nursing report (IOM, 2011). Considering advances being made across nursing, correctional nurses have some unique challenges (Knox, 2015). Yet, despite these challenges, correctional nurses enjoy highly autonomous practice opportunities. To promote the correctional nursing specialty the following recommendations are a direct call to CNs for action:
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2022, Journal of Professional NursingCitation Excerpt :Efforts to enhance professional practice and increase the presence of academically prepared nurse leaders, along with the development of National Commission on Correctional Health standards, American Nurses Association Correctional Nursing Scope and Standards for Practice (2021), and other national nursing certifications through the American Nurses Credentialing Center have contributed to the evolution of this nursing specialty. APPs have existed for a few decades, but successful partnerships are limited in the literature (Kang-Yi, 2019), particularly regarding implementation and sustainability in carceral settings (Maruca & Shelton, 2015; Shelton et al., 2020). What should be emphasized is the time and persistence required by nursing faculty to initiate and sustain these clinical partnerships.
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