Abstract Submission

Welcome!

The Academic Consortium on Criminal Justice Health (ACCJH) is pleased to announce that our annual conference will take place at the Marriott Renaissance Hotel in Austin, Texas on March 17-19, 2025.

We invite you to submit your abstract to participate in the conference. We look forward to an event rich in learning, networking, and sharing best practices.

Submission Deadline is Friday, October 4, 2024 at 11:59 pm EST.

Conference Learning Objectives

Learn about emerging research at the intersection of health and the criminal-legal systems and gain skills in applied research and cross-disciplinary and systems collaboration
Network with a multidisciplinary group of attendees interested in learning and sharing criminal-legal health practices
Gain new skills to develop academic-criminal legal health partnerships and overcome barriers to research in your agency
Learn from individuals with lived experience and those working in academic and community agencies
Reflect on emerging health policy issues in criminal-legal health

Presentation Types and Descriptions

60-Minute Oral Presentations: 60-minute presentations will be accepted for panels and workshops. We encourage groups working cross-disciplinarily and cross-institutionally to facilitate workshop presentations.
20-Minute Oral Presentations: 12-minute presentations with 8 minutes devoted to Q&A focused on completed research, research in progress, findings from program evaluation or quality improvement projects.
8-Minute Oral Presentations: 6-minute presentations with 2 minutes Q&A on completed research, research in progress, findings from program evaluation, or quality improvement projects.
Poster Presentations: The poster format may be used for submissions of research results or other types of communications, e.g., policy, works in progress, research methods, practice transformation, and program evaluation/quality improvement techniques.

Topics of Interest

The overarching topic (e.g., the focus of the plenary and keynote presentations) of the 2025 conference will be on research, practice, and advocacy efforts to reform unjust policies and laws and the use of policies to ensure health equity for individuals impacted by the criminal legal system. Our scope will be broad and include policies by the local, state or federal government, jail or prison agencies, re-entry policies, probation/parole, housing, food, employment, hospital/health-care policies, immigration policies and more.

While this is the theme for Keynote and Plenary speakers, we also encourage applications that address a wide array of topics relevant for individuals and agencies at the intersection of health and criminal legal systems. Other topics that we are particularly interested in are: diversion or alternative to police programs (e.g., pre-arrest, pre-booking), health during community re-entry, juvenile justice and health, chronic and preventative care in carceral settings, mental health, reproductive health, substance use disorder and treatment, infectious diseases, and innovation in research methods. We are also interested in the following sub populations: individuals with disabilities, aging carceral populations, LGBTQIA+ populations, veterans, and indigenous and tribal health and carcerality.

Individuals with Lived Experience

ACCJH is committed to centering the voices, knowledge, and expertise of individuals with lived experience in the criminal legal system. We strongly encourage those with lived experience to submit applications for conference presentations. If you are interested in additional support in developing an application, please reach out as soon as possible to accjh@umassmed.edu.

Submission Guidelines

The abstract review committee takes several factors into account when ranking your submission. Depending on the nature of the topic and presentation, some of these factors will be particularly critical to the review process:

Relevance to criminal legal systems and health
Scientific strength
Innovation and originality
Clarity/organization
Learning objectives and audience engagement (60 min presentations only)

Research presentations should follow structured abstract categories:

Title
Background
Research goals, research questions, or hypotheses
Methods or Approach
Results
Conclusions

Non-research presentations, including workshops, training, program reviews, non-traditional research, or academic presentations, may use an alternative structure for the abstract but describe the relevance, applicability, significance, and innovation of the topic.

Glossary of Suggested Terms

ACCJH is committed to avoiding stigmatized terminology and promoting person-first and inclusive language. We support recommendations by the National Institutes of Health's First Person and Destigmatizing Language Guide to eliminate stigmatizing language in conference print materials, proceedings, and presentations. Thus, we ask proposals to incorporate the suggested (or similar) terminology outlined below:

Suggested terms:

Person who is incarcerated
Person in pre-trial
Person who is criminal-legal involved
Formerly incarcerated person
Person on parole or probation

Demographic language for race and ethnicity:

Capitalize racial/ethnic groups such as Black, Asian, Native American, Indigenous, etc.
Avoid the term "minority" if possible as it may imply inferiority because minorities often are not in the numerical minority. As an alternative, include: "Historically marginalized populations."

Language describing disability:

Person with a mental illness
Person with a disability(ies)
Wheelchair user

*Please note - Presentations will be saved at the conference and may be posted on the ACCJH website (www.accjh.org) unless we are asked in writing not to post it.

*Word Limit: All categories have an abstract word limit so make sure to read instructions carefully.

*Co-Authors who are not planning on attending the event and presenting should NOT be listed within this submission system. Instead, identify non-presenter/attendee co-authors during the presentation.

Editorial Style Guide
General Instructions