CMAP Nexus Series: Suicide Prevention in U.S. Jails: A Public Mental Health and Corrections Collaboration

Dr. Penn is a Clinical Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, UTMB, Galveston, Texas. He was previously a Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, at Brown University and the Warren Alpert Medical School, Providence Rhode Island. He returned to his home state of Texas in 2008. 

Dr. Penn has served as a consultant regarding correctional and non-correctional mental health care delivery and standards of care. He has performed numerous civil, criminal, and other independent psychiatric evaluations of children, adolescents, adults, and has been qualified and testified as an expert witness in state and federal courts. He has served as a consultant regarding correctional and non-correctional mental health care delivery and standards of care. He has published and presented on correctional health care, and various law and psychiatry issues, including seclusion and restraint, restrictive housing, psychotropic medications, telemedicine and telepsychiatry, transgender and gender dysphoria, access to mental health care in correctional settings, suicide prevention, violence risk assessment and prediction of future violence.

He serves as the board liaison from the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law (AAPL) to the National Commission on Correctional Health Care (NCCHC). He has served twice as Chair of the NCCHC Board of Directors. He is Past Chair, Council of Children, Adolescents and Their Families, American Psychiatric Association (APA). Penn is a past president of the Texas Society of Psychiatry Physicians (TSPP), and past president of the Titus Harris Society. Penn was a recent gubernatorial appointee to the TCOOMMI Advisory Committee to the Texas Board of Criminal Justice on Offenders with Medical or Mental Impairments. He has also provided forensic psychiatric consultation to NASA regarding astronaut candidate fitness for duty and selection.

In 2005 he was named to Best Doctors in America.

Madalyn K. Wasilczuk is an Assistant Professor of Law at the University of South Carolina Joseph F. Rice School of Law. Her work focuses on criminal legal system issues, including policing, race, extreme sentencing, conditions of confinement, and the prosecution and detention of children and pregnant people. She directs the Youth Defender Clinic and teaches 8th Amendment Law & Litigation, Criminal Adjudication, and a Juvenile Justice Seminar.

Professor Wasilczuk’s scholarship appears in publications such as the Georgetown Law Journal, Wisconsin Law Review, and Buffalo Law review, and has been featured by numerous local and national news outlets. Her database on deaths in custody in South Carolina, hosted at incarcerationtransparency.org/southcarolina features publicly available information and documentation of deaths in South Carolina lockups, juvenile detention centers, jails, and prisons since 2015.

Before joining the University of South Carolina Joseph F. Rice School of Law faculty, Professor Wasilczuk taught at Louisiana State University Paul M. Hebert Law Center, where she directed the Juvenile Defense Clinic and taught courses on capital punishment and carceral abolition. Prior to that, she worked at the Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide, where she taught in the International Human Rights Clinic and Capital Punishment Clinic, and at the Defender Association of Philadelphia, where she was an Assistant Defender. She has also served as a fellow with the International Legal Foundation in Myanmar and Tunisia, where she mentored and trained local public defenders.

Professor Wasilczuk holds a B.A. in International Studies with Honors, summa cum laude, from American University and a J.D. from New York University School of Law, where she earned the Leonard J. Schreier Memorial Prize in Ethics. She is licensed to practice law in Louisiana, the U.S. Court for Middle District of Louisiana, the U.S. Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina (limited to clinical practice).

Dr. Weinstock is a clinical psychologist and Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at Brown, where she conducts research on the development and evaluation of adjunctive behavioral interventions for severe mood disorders and suicide prevention, especially during vulnerable transitions in care (e.g., from inpatient to outpatient treatment, following ED discharge, and from criminal legal to community settings). Most exemplary of her research program is her current work as MPI of the NIMH-funded National Center for Health and Justice Integration for Suicide Prevention (NCHATS; P50MH127512).  Dr. Weinstock is Director of Training for the Brown University Predoctoral Clinical Psychology Internship Program and Co-Director of Brown's T32 Postdoctoral Training Program in Suicide Research. She maintains clinical appointments at Butler Hospital and the VA Finger Lakes Healthcare System and is affiliated with the Brown University Health Center for Health and Justice Transformation.  She also serves as an Associate Director of the Brown DPHB Consortium for Research Innovation in Suicide Prevention (CRISP).

Ryan is a dedicated nonprofit professional with over ten years of experience in voluntary health organizations. As Senior Director of Special Projects in AFSP's Program Operations department, he spearheads suicide prevention initiatives across Corrections Systems, Firearms, Construction, and Military & Veteran communities.

His passion for corrections-based suicide prevention developed after collaborating with the Oregon Department of Corrections to establish an innovative awareness and education program for adults in custody. Ryan also played a key role in developing "Talk Saves Lives, Suicide Prevention in Corrections Systems – A Module for Staff," an impactful presentation designed to equip corrections personnel with essential suicide prevention information. This program also focuses on the wellbeing of corrections staff and encourages staff to seek help and utilize resources like Employee Assistance Programs to take care of their mental health.