This proposal outlines a plan for continuing the work conducted under grant #AA05884 for an additional year. Funding is requested to pursue a serendipitous finding of #AA05884, specifically, the effect of concomitant psychopathology of the alcohol-crime relationship. The qualitative data form #AA05884 indicate that the psychiatric status of the suspect has potentially important bearing on the relationship between drinking and crime. The related literature also confirms the potential importance of concomitant psychopathology in understanding the alcohol- crime relationship. Since #AA05884 did not include variables pertaining to the psychiatric status of the observed citizens, this issue cannot be investigated using the #AA05884 data. However, another data set collected under grant #MH37988 is available for this purpose.
The aims of this new component are twofold: (a) The prevalence of Alcohol Abuse Disorders, Co-occurring Psychopathology, and state of intoxication at Time of the Crime. Although a number of studies have documented the prevalence of psychopathology and alcohol abuse patterns among jail detainees, there has not been any investigation of the co-prevalence of these disorders. This is a significant omission because date on psychiatric populations demonstrate a very high co-occurrence of alcohol use and psychopathology. Since both the type of psychopathology and its chronology of onset vis-a-vis alcoholism are known to impact on the course of alcoholism and the efficacy of alcohol abuse treatment, information on the psychiatric profiles of alcoholic detainees will be highly relevant to programmatic considerations concerning alcoholism intervention strategies. (b) Alcohol Use and Psychopathology as Predictors of Criminal Activity. There is evidence among psychiatric samples that diagnostic profiles differentiate criminal patterns among alcoholics. More important some research has shown that the efficacy of treatment in reducing criminal activity among alcoholics is dependent in part upon the presence and type of co-occurring disorders. Thus, the role of co-occurring psychopathology in determining criminal patterns would provide important information bearing on the nature of the alcohol-crime relationship and assist in making probabilistic assessments of criminal recidivism when making parole and probationary decisions for alcoholic detainees.
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