Meet your new CJ section team

Chair

Ashley B. Batastini, PhD

Ashley Batastini earned her doctorate in counseling psychology at Texas Tech University in 2015 after completing a pre-doctoral internship at Western State Hospital in Tacoma, Washington. She received her Master of Science degree in psychology with a concentration in forensic psychology from Drexel University and her Bachelor of Science degree in psychology from the University of Pittsburgh. Ashley has over 10 years of experience conducting research with criminal justice-involved populations, including violence risk assessment and communication. She received an Early Career Achievement Award in 2018 from the American Psychological Association’s Div. 18 (Psychologists in Public Service) Criminal Justice Section and was a 2019 recipient of the Aubrey Keith Lucas and Ella Ginn Lucas Endowment for Faculty Excellence award. Regarding research activity at USM, Ashley has served as the principle investigator for several IRB-approved studies since she began her position in 2015.

Secretary/Treasurer

Shannon Griswold, PhD 

Shannon Griswold is currently a staff psychologist at FCI Terminal Island. Additionally, she is involved with TeleHealth. She has been licensed in the state of Pennsylvania since 2013 and recently became dually licensed in California. Currently, Shannon is active with Div. 18 as the communications chair and is serving her second term as secretary/treasurer for the Criminal Justice Division. In the past, she co-created The Gavel and created several recruitment initiatives to include the Student Campus Representative Position. Her interests include serious mental illness, malingering, hostage negotiations, suicide risk, management and assessment of violent behavior, LGBT and other diversity issues.

Student Representatives

Ashley Bozeman, BS

Ashley Bozeman completed her bachelor of science at The University of Southern Mississippi. Currently she is a second-year student in The University of Southern Mississippi’s counseling psychology program in the Correctional and Forensic Psychology Lab (the BatLab). Following the completion of her master’s degree, she intends to obtain her PhD. Her future career goals include providing therapeutic services to individuals that are incarcerated. When she is not in class or serving the CJ section, she enjoys spending time with her family, reading and doing various arts and crafts.

Faith Scanlon, BS 

Faith Scanlon is a third-year counseling psychology doctoral student at Texas Tech University, where she works with Robert Morgan. She received her BA in psychology from Temple University and her MA from Texas Tech. Her research interests include exploring the processes and outcomes of interventions for justice-involved persons with mental illness, as well as factors associated with criminal justice involvement among people with mental illness.

The Gavel Editor

Natalie Armstrong, PhD

Natalie received her clinical psychology doctoral degree from Sam Houston State University, focusing her research interests on public policy, trauma, at-risk youth and the forensic intersections of each. She then completed her internship at the Eastern Virginia Medical School and authored research pertaining to empirical validity of the MMPI-A-RF. She then completed a postdoctoral fellowship in forensic psychology at the Medical University of South Carolina, focusing her research efforts on juvenile forensics and outcome data of the forensic evaluation service. She is currently a forensic evaluator and research coordinator for Bridgewater State Hospital. Research efforts include disseminating information about patient demographics in a strict security setting, mitigating institutional violence, and understanding factors related to forensic readmission.

The Gavel Student Editor

Ashley C. T. Jones, MS

Ashley Jones is a second-year doctoral student in the counseling psychology program at the University of Southern Mississippi. She received her BS in psychology and her MS in research psychology at Arizona State University, where her researched focused on jury decision-making and public perceptions of crimes. Her current research interests include program development and evaluation of treatment for justice-involved persons and perceptions related to expert witnesses and forensic evaluations. Ashley is interested in working in a correctional treatment setting post-degree and continuing research in related areas.

Positions Available

CJ section leaders are looking to fill the following positions within the section:

• The Gavel student editors: This position is for a student section member to assist in organizing articles and editing submissions for publication. Student editors work alongside the co-editors.
• Listserv manager: This position is for a nonstudent section member to help organize and distribute relevant ongoing information to members, including relevant job openings, general CJ section business, related conference information, and approaching grant deadlines. The listserv manager will also manage discussions via the list.
• Section Awards Committee Chair: This is a nonstudent position responsible for soliciting and heading the call for and review of our annual section awards.  

If you are interested in any of the above positions or would otherwise like to get involved in the CJ section, please email current CJ section chair, Ashley Batastini with your name and the qualities you believe you could bring to the position.