Substance Use Disorders Among Deaf Offenders

Criminal justice experts recognize that many individuals who are incarcerated have substance abuse issues that may be compounded by co-occurring mentalillness and that many may begin to use substances to cope with mental illness or physical pain (Kim et al., 2015). Among sentenced prisoners under the jurisdiction of state correctional authorities in December 2016, about 15%, or 190,100 prisoners, had been convicted of a drug offense as their most serious crime (Bronson & Carson, 2019). When individuals are incarcerated, there may be an opportunity to connect hard-to-reach and underserved people to treatment while in a fairly stable setting. However, substance