Temporal Patterns of Arrest in a Cohort of Adults Receiving Mental Health Services: The Massachusetts Mental Health / Criminal Justice Cohort Study

Criminal Justice Involvement among Clientele is a Major Concern for State Mental Health Agencies. Mental health and criminal justice systems provide services at various points along the interface of these systems to reduce offending and re-offending, including: - Diversion programs - Mental Health Courts - Re-Entry Little information about scope of offending to guide service development. This study provides data on the prevalence, type and temporal patterns of arrest for a large sample of adults followed for roughly 9.5 years

Serious Mental Illness and Chronic Crimial Justice Involvement: Findings from The Massachusetts Mental Healthy / Criminal Justice Cohort Study

Presents findings from 1990 through 2000 from The Massachusetts Mental Health/Criminal Justice Cohort Study

Association of Demographic Factors and Comorbid Diagnoses with Crime Typein an Arrest Cohort with Schizophrenia and/or Related Psychosis

The implications of the interface between the criminal justice system and individuals with schizophrenia persist despite decades of research on criminalization and risk of arrest. Research exploring the broader construct of criminality has predominantly focused on individuals with severe mental illness as a collective. This study diverges from others by examining diagnoses comorbid with schizophrenia and related psychoses and their relationships with risk of arrest across a spectrum of criminal categories ranging in severity

Assessment of Parental Mental Disorders in the National Children’s Study (NCS)

Introduction: Parental mental disorders are powerful risk factors for children’s behavioral and mental disorders, making it critical to obtain estimates of parental mental disorders in NCS baseline assessments. These disorders are usually clinically assessed and diagnosed using lengthy interview instruments. This study will validate a brief set of mental health screens against the gold-standard Composite International Diagnostic Interview (CIDI). Methods: Sample: Up to 1200 English-speaking pregnant women and their male partners, aged \u3e17 with over-sampling of racial and ethnic minorities. Instruments: A brief 25-minute set of REDCap based screening scales will be administered. Probability sub-samples of 450-600 respondents with or without DSM-IV diagnoses will be selected for clinical reappraisal using the CIDI. Patients without DSM-IV diagnoses but with subsyndromal disorders will be used to optimize the sensitivity and specificity of screening scales. Diagnostic Assessment: Major depression, bipolar spectrum disorders, generalized anxiety, panic, post-traumatic stress, and substance abuse will be assessed. Analytic Methods: Kappa statistics, Receiver Operating Curve and regression methods will be used to evaluate concordance between diagnoses from screening scales and the CIDI at the aggregate and individual levels. Sensitivity and specificity will be reported for the cohort and separately for mothers and fathers as well as racial and ethnic minorities. Significance: This is the largest investigation of the epidemiology of mental disorders in a representative sample of community based pregnant mothers and their male partners. Information will be used to study the importance of parental psychopathology in the emergence of mental disorders in children over 21 years of follow-up of the parents and their children

Community Mental Health Services and Criminal Justice Involvement Among Persons with Mental Illness

Dr. Fisher is also editor of the book in which this chapter is included: Community-Based Interventions for Criminal Offenders with Severe Mental Illness (Research in Community and Mental Health, Volume 12), ISBN 0762309725. Summary: The original ‘plan’ for deinstitutionalization of America\u27s population of persons with severe and persistent mental illness saw community mental health services as providing many of the functions of large mental hospitals in community settings. While substantial effort and resources have been committed to this enterprise, many persons with mental illness encounter significant problems in adjusting to life in the community. Prominent among these problems is the disproportionate involvement in the criminal justice system of persons with psychiatric disorders. This problem, popularly described as the ‘criminalization’ of mental illness, often threatens the clinical stability and safety of persons with mental disorders, and at the same taxes heavily the resources of the criminal justice system. This paper reviews data exploring the relationship between levels and availability of community-based services and the likelihood that persons with mental illness will become involved with the criminal justice system. Finding no relationship, we conjecture that community mental health services are effective with only certain individuals, and move toward a taxonomy of offenders with mental illness. This classification scheme takes into account the relationship between psychiatric disorder, lifestyle and pre-morbid criminal involvement, and is designed to inform system actors with regard to the targeting of these resources

Public policy and limits of diversion programs for reducing jail exposure of persons with serious mental illness

OBJECTIVE: Diverting potential arrestees with serious mental illnesses from the criminal justice system to mental health services has become a mainstay of public policy. Federal funding for local diversion and mental health court programs mandates that recipients of funds focus on nonviolent misdemeanants, allowing more serious offenders to proceed through the justice system. This study explored the potential effects of applying such exclusions to a group of arrestees with serious psychiatric illnesses. METHODS: Data on charges in a cohort of mental health service recipients (N=13,816) were analyzed. RESULTS: Episodes of felony arrest, including some involving violence toward others, outnumbered misdemeanors. Under federal funding policies, many such cases would be processed through the justice system. CONCLUSIONS: Expanding inclusion criteria is necessary if diversion is to significantly affect incarceration rates among persons with mental illnesses. Policy makers should heed the accumulating evidence in this area in determining priorities for funding