This project is a """"""""competing"""""""" application for """"""""Mental Disorder in an Urban Jail"""""""" (MH37988) which was funded for 3 years. The goal of MH37988 was to provide data relevant to the criminalization hypothesis, i.e., the speculation that mentally ill persons who might heretofore have been treated with in the mental health system are increasingly managed by the criminal justice process. Criminalization is though to be a consequence of modifications in mental policies, i.e., deinstitutionalization, more stringent commitment criteria, and reductions in treatment programs for the mentally ill. MH37988 had two goals: (1) Prevalence--to ascertain the prevalence rates of mental disorder among 728 randomly-selected male detainees in one typical urban county jail. Of particular importance was to determine if the rates of severe mental disorder (psychosis) were significantly different form baseline population data as ascertained from the Epidemiological Catchment Area (ECA) Project. (2) Detection and Treatment--to explore the extent to which detainees exhibiting signs of serious mental disorder are detected and given psychiatric treatment while being processed through the criminal justice system. While MH37988 provides crucial information concerning the prevalence and treatment of male mentally disordered offenders, the epidemiology and criminology literature indicates that we cannot generalize these findings to females. This proposal sets forth a plan to replicate using a female sample. Although there have been several investigations of mental disorder among samples, prior research has suffered from 4 methodological limitations: (1) insufficient sample size to reliably detect rare events such as severe mental disorder, (2) non-random samples, e.g., treatment samples, (3) imprecise measurement of mental disorder, and (4) lack of baseline comparisons. The lack of reliable data on female offenders is particularly unfortunate because both the volume of female criminal activity and the sheer number of incarcerated females are at am a;;-time high and are increasing at a substantially higher rate than among males. The proposed study will move beyond the extant research by incorporating the following characteristics: (1) a random sampling strategy, (2) a sufficiently large N (750), (3) a reliable method of diagnosis (the NIMH-DIS), and (4) baseline comparisons with the NIMH Epidemiological Catchment Area (ECA) project. This research will aid in planning public policy modifications and health delivery strategies within the mental health and criminal justice systems, as well as suggest viable alternatives to incarceration for mentally disordered female offenders.
| McClelland, Gary Michael; Teplin, Linda A; Abram, Karen M et al. (2002) HIV and AIDS risk behaviors among female jail detainees: implications for public health policy. Am J Public Health 92:818-25 |
| McClanahan, S F; McClelland, G M; Abram, K M et al. (1999) Pathways into prostitution among female jail detainees and their implications for mental health services. Psychiatr Serv 50:1606-13 |
| Teplin, L A; Abram, K M; McClelland, G M (1997) Mentally disordered women in jail: who receives services? Am J Public Health 87:604-9 |
| Teplin, L A; Abram, K M; McClelland, G M (1996) Prevalence of psychiatric disorders among incarcerated women. I. Pretrial jail detainees. Arch Gen Psychiatry 53:505-12 |
