Characteristics of Technical Probation Violations By Adults in a Specialty Mental Health Probation Program

Background: Over one million individuals diagnosed with serious mental illness are involved with the justice system annually, many of whom are under community supervision as an alternative to incarceration, but who experience disparate probation outcomes in violations, revocations, and recidivism. The criminal justice system has invested considerable resources in reducing substantive probation violations (convictions for committing new crimes), but little is known about the types and frequencies of technical violations (violation of rules and conditions of probation), which limits our understanding of how to optimize criminal justice and mental health outcomes for individuals on probation who have mental illnesses. This study aims to increase our understanding of technical probation violations by justice-involved individuals with psychiatric disabilities by exploring variations among violations by gender and age, which could be informative to specialty mental health probation and mental health court programs.

Methods: This study analyzed administrative data from 186 individuals enrolled in a study of specialty mental health probation in a southeastern state. The sample was majority male (58.60%, n=109), with an average age of 34 years (M= 33.60, SD=11.14), and who were racially and ethnically diverse (48.39% African-American, 42.47% Caucasian, 5.38% Hispanic, and 3.76% from another race or ethnicity). Age was categorized as emerging adulthood, defined as 30 and under (45.70%, n= 85), or adult, defined as 31 and over (54.30%, n=101). We compared probation violations and probation outcomes. Chi-square, Fisher’s exact, and independent sample t-tests were conducted to examine the frequency and types of probation violations by gender and age.

Results: Nearly two-thirds of the sample 65.05% had at least one technical violation (M= 5.02, SD =4.19) which included: missed fees (50.54%), substance use (i.e., illicit substance use, positive drug test result, or failure to complete mandated substance use assessment or treatment; 35.48%), reintegration (e.g., failure to maintain employment and/or housing, failure to report address changes, or associating with people known to be convicted of felony charges; 22.58%), and a residual category of other technical violations (19.35%). Participants had more technical (65.05%) than substantive violations (16.67%). There were no differences in types or frequency of violations by gender; however, compared to adults, emerging adults were more likely to have a technical violation within six months (X²(1)=6.06, p<.01), had more technical violations for missed probation payments (1.69 vs. 2.13 for adult vs. emerging adults, t(92)=2.45, p<.02), and were more likely to have a probation revocation (18.82% vs. 7.92% for emerging adults vs. adults, respectively, X²(1)=4.88, p<.03).

Conclusions and Implications: The majority of technical violations were for missed fees or substance use and emerging adults were more likely to have a technical violation and had more violations and revocations compared to adults. This study advances our knowledge of criminal justice outcomes among justice-involved individuals with mental illnesses and provides information for social workers working across mental health and criminal justice sectors. Future research should explore strategies for decreasing technical violations, focusing on missed fees and substance use, especially among emerging adults with mental illnesses who are under community supervision.