Psychiatric and criminal histories of persons referred for pretrial evaluations: Description and policy implications

Abstract

Although the number of state hospital psychiatric beds in the United States has declined over the past few decades, the number of persons with a mental illness being treated in prison has increased. Of concern is that challenging transitions from the prison or state hospitals back into the community are resulting in a high number of persons who commute between our nation's prisons and state psychiatric facilities. The purpose of this article is to investigate the psychiatric and criminal histories of consecutive admissions (N = 342) over a 5-month period to a pre-trial evaluation program established for persons accused of a crime and thought to have a mental illness. Our findings revealed that 286 (83.6%) had prior contact with one or both systems; 92 (26.9%) had been in prison, 48 (14.0%) in a state psychiatric hospital, while 146 (42.7%) had been in both systems. Policy implications of these findings are discussed.