Dr. Michael Ostermann
Professor
Education
Ph.D. (2009) Criminal Justice, Rutgers University, Newark; M.A. (2007) Criminal Justice, Rutgers University, Newark; B.S. (2004) Law and Justice, The College of New Jersey
Office Location
CLJ, 579F
Office Hours
Mondays, 3:00-5:00 PM
Areas of Specialization
Evidence-based crime policy
Reentry
Parole
Corrections
Program evaluation
Risk assessment
Translational criminology
Bio
Michael Ostermann is a Professor at the School of Criminal Justice at Rutgers University-Newark. His research interests primarily lie within the fields of institutional and community corrections, rehabilitation and reentry, and how they intersect with public policy. His recent work investigates the impact of in-prison and post-release rehabilitative services upon outcomes throughout the life course, as well as topics centering on the imposition of legal financial obligations on people involved in our criminal legal systems. Ostermann has served as Principal Investigator on several federally funded grants that investigate research questions about evidence-based crime policies and include partnerships with practitioners and other criminal justice stakeholders. A recently funded project that he leads involves a partnership with the Federal Bureau of Prisons to perform retrospective and prospective analyses of Criminal Thinking Groups that are administered through the First Step Act of 2018. He regularly interfaces with parole boards, departments of corrections, and rehabilitative service providers to address policy-centric research questions.
Publications
Ostermann, M. (in press). Legal Financial Obligations of Reentering People after Release from Prison: Exploring Predictors of Criminal Justice Debts. Forthcoming in Crime & Delinquency.
Hyatt, J.M. & Ostermann, M. (in press). Exploring Back-End Sentencing: A Study of Predictors of Parole Revocation Through a Focal Concerns Theoretical Framework. Forthcoming in Law & Social Inquiry.
Ostermann, M. & Hashimi, S. (2023). Recidivism Among Individuals Convicted of Gun Offenses: A Call to Better Leverage Reentry Resources to Decrease Gun Violence. Justice Quarterly, 40(6), 791-812.
Ostermann, M. (2022). Recidivism of Low-Risk People that Receive Residential Community-Based Corrections Programs: The Role of Risk Contamination. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 59(5), 659-695.
Ostermann, M. & Hyatt, J.M. (2022). Parole Officer Decision Making Before Parole Revocation: Why Context is Key when Delivering Correctional Services. Criminal Justice Policy Review, 33(3), 273-297.
Matejkowski, J. & Ostermann, M. (2021). The Waiving of Parole Consideration by Inmates with Mental Illness and Recidivism Outcomes. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 48(8), 1052-1071.
Gunn, J. F. III, Boxer, P., Andrews, T., Ostermann, M., Bonne, S., Gusmano, M., Sloan-Power, E., & Hohl, B. (2021). The Impact of Firearm Legislation on Firearm Deaths, 1991-2017. Journal of Public Health, 44(3), 614.624.
Hastings, C., Thomas, C., Ostermann, M., Hyatt, J.M., & Payne, S. (2021). Reducing Missed Appointments for Probation and Parole Supervision: A Randomized Experiment with Text Message Reminders. Cambridge Journal of Evidence-Based Policing, 5, 170-183.
Ostermann, M., Hyatt, J.M., & DeWitt, S. (2020). The Influence of Technical Violation Revocations on Parole Efficacy: Employing Competing Risks Survival Analyses to Address Methodological Challenges. Journal of Crime and Justice, 43(3), 323-341.
Bonne, S., Tufariello, A., Coles, Z., Hohl, B., Ostermann, M., Boxer, P., Sloan-Power, E., Gusmano, M., Glass, N., Kunac, A., & Livingston, D. (2020). Identifying Participants for Inclusion in Hospital Based Violence Intervention: An Analysis of 18 years of Urban Firearm Recidivism. The Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery, 89(1), 68-73.
Drawve, G., Caplan, J. &, Ostermann, M. (2019). Utilizing a Risk of Crime Measure for Recidivism Research: Moving Environmental Corrections Forward. Crime & Delinquency, 65(5), 606-629.
Hyatt, J.M. & Ostermann, M. (2019). Better to Stay Home: Evaluating the Impact of Day Reporting Centers on Offending. Crime & Delinquency, 65(1), 94-121.
Ostermann, M. & Hyatt, J.M. (2018). When Frontloading Backfires: Exploring the Impact of Outsourcing Correctional Interventions on Mechanisms of Social Control. Law and Social Inquiry, 43(4), 1308-1339.
Boxer, P., Docherty, M.*, Ostermann, M., Kubik, J.*, & Vesey, B.M. (2017). Effectiveness of Multisystemic Therapy for Gang-Involved Youth Offenders: One Year Follow-Up Analysis of Recidivism and Outcomes. Children and Youth Services Review, 73: 107-112.
Matejkowski, J., Conrad, A.A.*, & Ostermann, M. (2017). Does Early Onset of Criminal Behavior Differentiate for whom Serious Mental Illness has a Direct or Indirect Effect on Recidivism? Law and Human Behavior,41(1), 68-79.
Ostermann, M. & Hyatt, J.M. (2016). Is Something Better than Nothing? The Effect of Short Terms of Mandatory Parole Supervision. Justice Quarterly, 33(5), 785-810.
Docherty, M.*, Boxer, P., Veysey, B.M., & Ostermann, M. (2016). Gender Differences in Prevalence of Internalizing and Externalizing Symptoms in a Justice-Referred Sample of Youth. Journal of Juvenile Justice, 5(2), 104-120.
Ostermann, M. & Ragusa, L.M.* (2016). The Predictive Utility of the Level of Service Inventory-Revised at the Intersection of Race and Gender. The Prison Journal, 96(4), 554-575.
Miller, J., Caplan, J., & Ostermann, M. (2016). Assessing the Influence of Crime Hotspots on Parolee Failure. The Prison Journal, 96(3), 437-461.
Ostermann, M. & Caplan, J.M. (2016). How Much do Crimes Committed by Released Inmates Cost? Crime and Delinquency, 62(5), 563-591.
Miller, J., Caplan, J., & Ostermann, M. (2016). Home Nodes, Criminogenic Place, and Parolee Failure: Testing an Environmental Model of Offender Risk. Crime and Delinquency,62(2), 169-199.
Kubik, J.*, Docherty, M.*, Boxer, P., Veysey, B.M. & Ostermann, M. (2016). Examining the Moderating Role of Gang Involvement on the Context and Impact of Victimization. Journal of Criminological Research, Policy, and Practice, 2(2), 107-121.