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\nDoes transinstitutionalization explain the overrepresentation of people with serious mental illnesses in the criminal justice system?<\/a><\/div>\nby Prins SJ<\/div>\nCommunity Mental Health Journal<\/font><\/strong>. 2011 47[6]:716-722.<\/div>\n<\/p>\n
Abstract<\/font><\/strong><\/em>: Although there is broad consensus that people with serious mental illnesses [SMI] are overrepresented in correctional settings, there is less agreement about the policy trends that may have created this situation. Some researchers and policymakers posit a direct link between deinstitutionalization and increased rates of SMI in jails and prisons, a phenomenon described as transinstitutionalization. Others offer evidence that challenges this hypothesis and suggest that it may be a reductionist explanation. This paper reviews claims from both sides of the debate, and concludes that merely increasing access to state psychiatric hospital beds would likely not reduce the number of people with SMI in jails and prisons.<\/font><\/strong> A more nuanced approach is recommended for explaining why people with SMI become involved in the criminal justice system and why developing effective strategies to divert them out of jails and prisons and into community-based treatment is needed to improve both their mental health and criminal justice outcomes.<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\nThe abstract was more of a teaser than an abstract, so I commandeered his Discussion section where he fleshes out what he’s getting at: <\/div>\n\nDiscussion In the debate summarized above, proponents of the transinstitutionalization hypothesis may be mistakenly drawing a causal connection between two merely correlated trends: the decline in availability of state psychiatric hospital beds and the rise in prevalence of SMI in jails and prisons. More specifically, they may [a] misinterpret deinstitutionalization as a flood of individuals who were released from state psychiatric hospitals only to be arrested and incarcerated, [b] conflate evidence that people released from psychiatric hospitals often require re-hospitalization with evidence that jails and prisons are serving that function [c] erroneously assume that people who require inpatient services are clinically and demographically similar to people with SMI who wind up in jails and prisons and [d] underestimate the effectiveness of high quality community-based treatment. The evidence against the transinstitutionalization hypothesis is compelling because [a] most people released from state psychiatric hospitals do not appear to end up incarcerated, [b] the characteristics of people with SMI in jails and prisons differ from both the characteristics of people who were deinstitutionalized and the past decades’ increasingly forensic state psychiatric hospital population, and [c] many agree that community-based treatment works for the majority of people with SMI.<\/div>\nThis is not to say, however, that conclusive evidence currently exists on either side of the debate. More rigorous analysis to clearly define the causal relationship between deinstitutionalization and the overrepresentation of people with SMI in jails and prisons is certainly warranted [for example, retrospectively matching archival inpatient, arrest, and incarceration records]. The arguments presented above should also not imply that the cases for and against increased access to inpatient services are irreconcilable. Indeed, the most important takeaway from this debate may be a fact that is often overlooked by policymakers working to address this issue: people with mental illnesses are not a homogenous population. Increased access to acute and intermediate psychiatric beds may, in fact, be necessary for a small but high-risk, high-cost group of people with severe mental illnesses who cycle through emergency rooms and the criminal justice system without obtaining the treatment they need [Pasic et al. 2005 ]. For these individuals, shortages of 24-hour hospital care [and for this group and others with SMI, affordable housing more broadly] are indeed a problem.<\/p>\n
Nevertheless, increased access to inpatient services may not be an optimal focus for a multi-systemic criminal justice\/mental health policy strategy. The ramifications of casting too wide an inpatient net would not only be expensive, but would move away from the goal of full community integration of people with mental illnesses that is the hallmark of the rights and recovery movement [New Freedom Commission on Mental Health 2003 ]. Pragmatically, it might be argued, that reinstitutionalizing people with SMI who become involved in the criminal justice system is the lesser of evils, since treatment conditions in psychiatric hospitals are bound to be better than those in jails and prisons. This reasoning, however, addresses one problem by creating a new [but familiar] one, and avoids tackling the issues at the heart of the matter.<\/p>\n
Broadly speaking, the popular account of current mental health policy is correct: people with SMI are being ‘‘locked up’’ in jails and prisons as was the case 200 years ago. Understanding why this is happening, however, is important for developing strategies to appropriately divert people with SMI out of jails and prisons and into the treatment they need to become productive members of their communities. The history of deinstitutionalization provides an intuitive but reductionist narrative about the reasons why people with SMI are overrepresented in correctional settings. At the very least, policymakers and researchers should treat the transinstitutionalization hypothesis with caution and not as a presupposition. Failure to approach this issue with the nuance it requires may unwittingly imply expen- sive interventions that will benefit only a fraction of the population at issue. For the large remainder of people with SMI in jails and prisons, other causes of their involvement with the criminal justice system should not be ignored. In this regard, shifts in philosophy and ideology behind the concept of deinstitutionalization are still relevant. For the majority of this group, the key to staying out of hospitals, jails, and prisons may be a place to live, a job or some income support, a meaningful relationship or social network, quality healthcare, or linkage to treatment instead of frequent arrest for substance use disorders — fundamental needs that can best be redressed in the community, not psychiatric or correctional institutions. <\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\nI was looking for numbers, and what I found was a think piece<\/em>, but it was a good think piece. S<\/em>o I wrote the author at the listed email address asking for references. Of course, the email bounced back not found<\/em>. But in looking around, I found this next article which is what I wanted to ask him about in the first place:<\/div>\n\n