Several celebrity songbirds appeared in the headlines recently for issues related to DUI arrests and DUI charges.

One is a Grammy winning songwriter, producer and actress best known for her soul-pop music, and the other is a one-time teen heartthrob slated to appear in a film about Liberace.

Singer and Grammy-winner Faith Evans pleaded no contest to DUI charges in a Los Angeles courtroom recently, following a DUI arrest back in August. The Grammy Award-winner was stopped at a DUI checkpoint in Marina del Rey on August 21 at around 10:40 p.m.

Evans was subsequently arrested for suspicion of misdemeanor drunk driving. As a part of the no contest plea, Evans will serve three years of probation, pay $300 in fines, agree not to drive with any alcohol in her system and undergo a 3-month alcohol treatment program, according to the Baltimore Sun.

She pleaded no contest to the misdemeanor count of reckless driving.

Evans, well-known after she arrived on the pop music scene in the mid-90s, tweeted to her fans following the DUI arrest, telling them that “After completing a full day of wardrobe prep I was stopped at a random checkpoint. I’m fine and well, and thank you for your prayers, kind words and concerns.” She signed the tweet “- Fizzy.”

Evans and her husband were arrested for drug possession charges in 2004, for which she entered a drug abuse treatment program.

Teen idol David Cassidy also faced DUI trouble recently, when he was arrested for drunk driving in Florida, according to the LA Times.

Cassidy has a court date in mid January for charges that he failed a field sobriety test at around 6 in the evening. Police reportedly witnessed Cassidy weaving on the road and making an erratic lane change.

A Breathalyzer test came back having registered a .141 and a .139 blood alcohol content for the singer and actor.

Cassidy pleaded not-guilty to the charge. He admitted that he was tired, and that he had a glass of wine with lunch and took a hydrocodine pill for back pain.

According to police, there was a bottle of bourbon in the back seat that was half empty.

Cassidy faces a misdemeanor charge of DUI, failure to maintain a single lane and driving with an open container.

Mike Williams, a rookie wide receiver for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, was arrested on suspicion of DUI in Florida, early in the morning before he was to show up at practice the next day.

The arrest garnered headlines because Williams has become one of the best players on the Tampa Bay team after being drafted only last year. He has started every game this NFL season.

According to police, the vehicle that Williams was driving, a Cadillac Escalade, was swerving in and out of traffic and exceeding the speed limit when they pulled it over at around 2:30 A.M. The sheriff’s report said that Williams had a glassy look in his eyes, and police smelled alcohol in the car.

According to the St. Petersburg Times, he failed a field sobriety test.

Williams took a Breathalyzer test, the results of which showed that he had a .065 blood-alcohol content. This number is below the Florida legal driving limit of .08 percent. Williams was still arrested, however, and taken in, then release on $500 bond.

According to Florida police, they can make a DUI arrest even if the breath test shows a blood-alcohol content below the legal limit if there is evidence that a driver was impaired. Such evidence can include the way the person was driving.

According to officials, Williams also submitted to a urine test. The results of that test are expected within a month to six weeks.

In a peculiar turn, the Buccaneers team also had Williams submit a urine sample to them, to allow them to test for several substances, some of which are banned in the NFL, according to the St. Petersburg Times. They did this, apparently, in order to more quickly obtain results of the tests. Buccaneers coach Raheem Morris was happy with the results of this private test, and told the press that he was satisfied that Williams was “clean.”

He also added that the team will be fining Williams “a lot of money” following the late-night incident. The coaching staff had already expressed their disappointment to Williams himself.

“He was very remorseful, which is a good sign,” said offensive coordinator Greg Olson. “He wasn’t full of excuses, and that’s a good sign. I think it’s obviously unfortunate that it happened. We’re certainly disappointed that he would be out that late knowing that we had a big game and practice.”

Substance abuse is increasingly common in prison inmates. This article presents findings on substance abuse and service needs of male and female inmate parents in Arizona, with a particular focus on gender and ethnic differences across inmates. A sample of 838 incarcerated fathers and 1,441 mothers completed anonymous questionnaires regarding traumatic and stressful events experienced as children and/or adults, including addiction. Exposure to childhood and adult traumatic events, especially child abuse, was related to self-reported alcohol and drug problems for both males and females. Mothers reported significantly more postrelease service needs than fathers. Implications for practice and policy are discussed.

This article presents the results of a study carried out in Finland on the position of children who accompany their parent to prison. The study consists of document analyses and staff and inmate interviews in the two Finnish prisons with special units for children. The results highlight the lack of information on children residing in prisons as well as the lack of guidelines for practice illustrated by the term "institutional invisibility." The term "institutional invisibility" informs about the vagueness of the prison practices in relation to children and their parents.

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Traditionally, research on the tremendous variation in the use of incarceration across time and space has focused on the issue of whether imprisoning more offenders reduces crime. More recently, research has begun to explore the collateral consequences of mass incarceration for the families and communities of those imprisoned. The current study adds to this burgeoning literature by examining the impact of incarceration rates on child poverty rates. Employing a panel design for North Carolina county data, 1995-2007, we use instrumental variable techniques to disentangle the effect of incarceration on poverty from the effect of poverty on incarceration. The results indicate that mass incarceration has significantly increased child poverty rates. The impact of adult incarceration on child poverty appears especially pronounced in counties with a high proportion of non-White residents.

In 2007, approximately 810,000 men and women in state and federal prisons were parents to more than 1.7 million children under the age of 18, one third of whom will turn 18 while their parent(s) is incarcerated. Parental incarceration increases the risk that children will experience later behavioral and emotional problems, have troubles in school, and become involved in the juvenile and criminal justice systems. Parenting-related prison programming offers some promise in lessening the negative consequences of parental incarceration, both for children and the incarcerated parent. This study presents the results from a national survey of wardens from male and female correctional facilities to measure the prevalence of programs and services for incarcerated parents and their underage children.

This article examines mothers in prison, highlighting the complexity and detrimental consequences incarceration has for their families and children. It documents the legal remedies available to pregnant prisoners, focusing on their unique medical needs. After reviewing the U.S. Supreme Court’s standard for liability, the article explores lower court case law to establish the legal parameters of pregnant prisoners’ health care needs. The article concludes that although correctional health care systems have made strides in bringing appropriate medical care to pregnant prisoners, more remains to be done to raise the quality of care to those similarly situated in the free-world.