Saturday, 15 January 2005 - 12:00 PM

This presentation is part of: Poster Session II

Criminal Justice System Involvement among New Clients at Outpatient Mental Health Agencies

Matthew T. Theriot, PhD, The University of Tennessee and Steven P Segal, University of California, Berkeley.

Objective: The criminal justice system is increasingly addressing the needs of mentally ill jail and prison inmates with diversion or early release programs. Though this may be a more humane approach to serve the mentally ill, it also shifts responsibility for these individuals to the mental health system. This presentation describes the criminal justice system involvements of new community mental health patients in order to assess how much is being asked of already overburdened community mental health agencies in caring for such individuals.

Methods: Interview assessments and criminal records were obtained for 673 new clients of twenty-one outpatient mental health agencies. Descriptive statistics, chi-square tests, and MANOVA were used to describe these new help seekers and their criminal justice system involvement.

Results: Forty-five percent (n = 303) of the sample had at least one contact with the criminal justice system prior to agency arrival. The mean number of criminal justice system contacts was 7.81 (s.d. ± 9.12); 35.5% (n = 240) had at least one criminal conviction, including 19% (n = 128) with a felony conviction. Common charges and convictions included petty theft, assault & battery, felony theft, narcotics, and misdemeanor drug offenses. Patients involved with the criminal justice system were more likely to be homeless, have greater psychological disability, and lower personal empowerment than other patients.

Implications: There appears to be an increasing criminalization of the public mental health system. The population overlap and the multiple problems facing criminally-involved clients argues for greater collaboration between the systems and a comprehensive package of services to meet the multiple needs of this population.


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