Recidivism and Inmate Mental Illness

Authors

  • William D. Bales Florida State University, College of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Eppes Hall, 145 Convocation Way, Tallahassee, Florida 32306-1273, USA
  • Melissa Nadel Florida State University, College of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Eppes Hall, 145 Convocation Way, Tallahassee, Florida 32306-1273, USA
  • Chemika Reed Early Learning Coalition of Miami-Dade/Monroe County Florida, USA
  • Thomas G. Blomberg Florida State University, College of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Eppes Hall, 145 Convocation Way, Tallahassee, Florida 32306-1273, USA

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.6000/1929-4409.2017.06.05

Keywords:

Mental illness, recidivism, prisoner re-entry.

Abstract

Purpose: With over 700,000 mentally ill inmates are held in U.S. jails and prisons, this study provides a comprehensive assessment of the effect of mental illness among released prisoners on a series of re-entry recidivism outcomes.

Methods: Using a cohort of 200,889 inmates released from Florida prisons from 2004 to 2011, several recidivism outcomes are examined among 40,145 individuals with a mental health diagnosis and 10,826 with a serious mental illness are compared with inmates without a mental illness diagnosis. We control for a host of factors known to influence recidivism outcomes using binary logistic regression for one, two, and three year follow-up periods and survival analysis to assess the timing to recidivism.

Results: Inmates diagnosed with any type of mental illness are significantly more likely to recidivate and among inmates with a mental illness, those diagnosed with a serious mental condition are significantly more likely to recidivate than those with a less serious mental illness diagnosis.

Conclusions: Policies and practices need to ensure that in-prison and community mental health systems have sufficient resources and capacity to adequately address the needs of inmates with mental health issues to reduce the likelihood of these individuals re-offending and ultimately returning to prison.

References

Allison, Paul. D. 1991. Logistic Regression Using SAS: Theory and Application. SAS Institute and John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Baillargeon, Jacques, Inrid A. Binswanger, Joseph V. Penn, Brie A. Williams, B. and Owen J. Murray. 2009. Psychiatric disorders and repeat incarcerations: The revolving prison door. American Journal of Psychiatry, 166, 103-109. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.2008.08030416 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.2008.08030416

Bales, William D. and Daniel P. Mears. 2008. Inmate social ties and the transition to society: Does visitation reduce recidivism? Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 45, 287-321. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022427808317574 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0022427808317574

Bales, William D., Thomas G. Blomberg and Kevin Waters. 2013. Inmate tattoos and in-prison and post-prison violent behavior. International Journal of Criminology and Sociology 2, 20-31. https://doi.org/10.6000/1929-4409.2013.02.4 DOI: https://doi.org/10.6000/1929-4409.2013.02.4

Beck, Allen J. and Bernard E. Shipley. 1997. Recidivism of Prisoners Released in 1983. Bureau of Justice Statistics - Special Report. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice.

Bonta, J., Law, M. and Hanson, K. 1998. The prediction of criminal and violent recidivism among mentally disordered offenders: A meta-analysis. Psychological Bulletin 123 (2), 123-142. https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.123.2.123 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.123.2.123

Cloyes, Kristin G., Bob Wong, Seth Latimer and Jose Abarca. 2014. Time to prison return for offenders with serious mental illness released from prison: A survival analysis. Criminal Justice and Behavior 37, 175-187. https://doi.org/10.1177/0093854809354370 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0093854809354370

Cloyes, Kristen. G., Bob Wong, Seth Latimer and Jose Abarca. 2010. Women, serious mental illness and recidivism: A gender-based analysis of recidivism risk for women with SMI released from prison. Journal of Forensic Nursing 6, 3-14. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1939-3938.2009.01060.x DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1939-3938.2009.01060.x

Chen, Keith M. and Jesse M. Shapiro. 2007. “Do harsher prison conditions reduce recidivism? A discontinuity-based approach.” American Law and Economics Review 9:1-29. https://doi.org/10.1093/aler/ahm006 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/aler/ahm006

DeMaris, Alfred (1992). Logit Modeling: Practical Applications. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781412984836 DOI: https://doi.org/10.4135/9781412984836

Durose, Matthew. R., Alexia D. Cooper, and Howard N. Snyder. 2014. Recidivism of prisoners released in 30 states in 2005: Patterns from 2005 to 2010. U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Feder, Lynette. 1991. A comparison of the community adjustment of mentally ill offenders with those from the general prison population. Law and Human Behavior 15, 477-493. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01650290 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01650290

Florida Department of Corrections. 2013b. 2012 Florida Prison Recidivism Study – Releases From 2004 to 2011. Retrieved from http://www.dc.state.fl.us/pub/recidivism/2012/Recidivism 2012.pdf

Grann, Danesh M. and S. Fazel. 2008. The association between psychiatric diagnosis and violent re-offending in adult offenders in the community. BMC Psychiatry 8, 92-98. https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-244X-8-92 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-244X-8-92

James, Doris J. and Laruen E. Glaze. 2006. Mental Health Problems of Prison and Jail Inmates.” Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report No. NCJ 213600. Washington, DC: US Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs.

Kubrin, Charis E. and Eric A. Stewart. 2006. Predicting who reoffends: The neglected role of neighborhood context in recidivism studies. Criminology 44:165-197. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-9125.2006.00046.x DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-9125.2006.00046.x

Langan, Patrick A. and David J. Levin. 2002. Recidivism of Prisoners Released in 1994. Bureau of Justice Statistics – Special Report. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice.

Menard, Scott. 1995. Applied Logistic Regression Analysis. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Sims, Georgia. L. 2009. The criminalization of mental illness: How theoretical failures create real problems in the criminal justice system. Vanderbilt Law Review 62(3), 1-16.

Smith, Nadine and Lily Trimboli. 2010. Comorbid substance and non-substance mental health disorders and re-offending among NSW prisoners. Crime and Justice Bulletin 140, 1-16.

Theurer, Gregory and David Lovel. 2008. Recidivism of offenders with mental illness released from prison to an intensive community treatment program. Journal of Offender Rehabilitation 47, 385-406. https://doi.org/10.1080/10509670801995023 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/10509670801995023

Walters, Glenn D. and Gregory Crawford. 2014. Major mental illness and violence history as predictors of institutional misconduct and recidivism: Main and interaction Effects. Law and Human Behavior 38 (3), 238-247. https://doi.org/10.1037/lhb0000058 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1037/lhb0000058

Downloads

Published

2017-03-30

How to Cite

Bales, W. D., Nadel, M., Reed, C., & Blomberg, T. G. (2017). Recidivism and Inmate Mental Illness. International Journal of Criminology and Sociology, 6, 40–51. https://doi.org/10.6000/1929-4409.2017.06.05

Issue

Section

Articles