The goal of our research is to improve mental healthcare and promote well-being for individuals who are currently or formerly incarcerated.
We have a longstanding collaboration with the State of Wisconsin Department of Corrections that allows us to work with people currently incarcerated in state prisons. We also work with formerly incarcerated people in our community. Our research approach includes community engagement, clinical trials, as well as basic studies on psychological and neurobiological functions relevant for emotion and decision-making. More information regarding our studies is available below and on our publications page.
We collaborate with individuals and organizations from the community to establish research priorities related to incarceration and mental health, with an emphasis on identifying opportunities and overcoming barriers. This ongoing engagement efforts includes individuals directly impacted by incarceration (e.g., Nehemiah Center for Urban Leadership Development, EXPO/FREE) as well as officials from the Wisconsin Department of Corrections.
Community Engagement
From Ashes to Beauty: Stories After Incarceration (Documentary)
“Too often, narratives of formerly incarcerated people center on failure and tragedy. From Ashes to Beauty: Stories After Incarceration aims to share the humanity, beauty, hope, and joy that life after incarceration can be—and emphasize the role that peer support has in finding that. Created by recent UW-Madison graduate Mabel Malhotra, with the help of Deb Mejchar, Aaron Hicks, and Dr. Mike Koenigs, this documentary film highlights four individuals from across Wisconsin—Eugene Crisler’El and Anthony Cooper from Madison, Antonia Drew Norton from Milwaukee, and Vicky Harrison from the Menominee Reservation. Each person has a uniquely powerful story, but they all share a strong love for their families and communities. Having endured the Wisconsin prison system, their experiences before and during incarceration inform the impactful work each of them are doing in their communities now, lifting up those who are facing struggles they themselves know too well” (Malhotra, 2023).
UW-Madison Seminar: “Best of Both Worlds”: A Community-Academic Partnership Addressing Mental Health & Incarceration
“For the past three years, Aaron and Mike have worked together to identify barriers and opportunities for improving mental health and well-being among currently and formerly incarcerated individuals. This effort has been centered around the input of a community advisory board composed of individuals with lived experience of incarceration. In this seminar, Aaron and Mike discuss the development of this partnership, lessons learned, ongoing collaborative research projects, and future opportunities for UW-Madison to play a more substantial role in addressing health inequities in the community” (D&I Launchpad, 2024).
In our studies with incarcerated people, we employ diagnostic clinical assessment instruments, self-report measures, and neuropsychological testing to examine the psychological mechanisms underlying of a number factors that relate to involvement with the judicial system (e.g., psychopathic and antisocial personality traits, history of childhood trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder, drug and alcohol use). We also conduct clinical trials to determine the feasibility and efficacy of psychotherapy in the prison setting. In addition, we utilize self-report questionnaires and focus groups to combine quantitative and qualitative methods in order to learn from incarcerated individuals about their needs and preferences for mental health care and treatment methods in prison.
In a third (previous) line of work, we have studied neurobiological mechanisms underlying psychological processes of emotion processing and decision-making. We have conducted studies with neurological and neurosurgical patients who have undergone dramatic changes in emotion, personality, and social behavior as a result of focal brain lesions. By associating specific areas of brain damage with specific changes in emotion, one can infer which brain areas are critically involved in affective function, and ultimately, which brain areas may be responsible for disorders of emotion, such as depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder. In addition to detailed mapping of the patient’s structural brain damage, we have employed a range of assessment techniques that probe the patient’s emotional state as well as cognitive and psychosocial functions. Additionally, in collaboration with the Mind Research Network, we have examined measures of brain structure and function in incarcerated individuals, which was made possible through a unique mobile MRI unit that we have previously deployed to state prisons.
Selected Images from Lab Neuroscience Publications
