Mental Health and Criminal Justice

Before leaving Arizona State University and retiring from academia in 2014, Tom Winfree spent nearly 40 years studying prisons and jails in the United States and across the globe. He published extensively on inmate responses to institutional living conditions, including prisonization, suicide, and rebellion, as well as a textbook co-authored with his colleague Larry Mays on corrections that is in its fourth edition (Essentials of Corrections, 2014, Wiley Blackwell).

Beyond prisons and jails, Tom also spent much of his career looking at the problems of youth in contemporary society, particularly the misuse of drugs by adolescents and the role of street gangs in youthful socialization. In this latter regard, he also expanded his vistas to look internationally at gangs in other nations, including published works about youth gangs in the Netherlands, Germany, and Bosnia-Herzegovina. He continues to collaborate with colleagues in the Eurogang Project, as that group endeavors to define and examine troublesome youth groups in Europe. Tom’s interests in contemporary youth led him to once again partner with Larry Mays, the product being Juvenile Justice (2012, Aspen Publishing).

The third leg of Tom Winfree’s scholarship centers on the development of criminological theory. Beyond adding to the body of criminological theory, largely by his expansion on and extension of social learning theory into youthful drug use (including American Indian youth and illicit drugs), street gangs, and terrorist groups, Tom, working with Howard Abadinsky, authored the third edition of Understanding Crime: Essentials of Criminological Theory (Wadsworth). This book is currently being revised for Waveland Press.

As a way of taking his contemporary academic scholarship back to the community, Dr. Winfree worked with local jails to redefine their jail inmate handling policies and practices. He testified as a jail expert in several jail death cases filed under 42 U.S.C. 1983 (Civil Action for Deprivation of Rights). He worked with local communities in examining their gang problems. In particular, he was a collaborator on the first National Evaluation of G.R.E.A.T., working under the supervision of Finn-Aage Esbensen, the project’s principal investigator. Winfree provided the City of Las Cruces with an assessment of its Municipal DWI Drug Court using an experimental design. He supervised dozens of master’s theses, including ones that have directly benefited the local, state, and federal criminal justice agencies employing the graduate students.

According to Google Scholar™, his more than 100 published works—articles, books, and book chapters—have been cited nearly 3,000 times. Winfree previously served as a member of the editorial boards for the following journals: Women and Criminal Justice, Crime & Delinquency, Youth & Society, and the Journal of Drug Issues.

While a faculty member at NMSU, Tom received the Dennis Darnell Award for Excellence in Teaching, Research, and Service (2003) and the International Programs Globalization Award (2006-2007). He has also been included in many Who’s Who publications over the past 30 years, but his favorite is Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers (three times), as these nominations come from students.