But specialized supervision on probation for people with mental
illness can radically reduce the odds they’ll be re-arrested within
five years, a new study suggests.
Those who were supervised on specialty probation were nearly three
times less likely to return to jail within two years after their
release than those on regular probation, researchers reported in
JAMA Psychiatry.
Positive support appears to be key, with specialty probation
officers acting as part counselor and part cop, said lead author
Jennifer Skeem, professor of social welfare and public policy at the
University of California at Berkeley.
“It’s about good, caring relationships with a professional. They
seem to have that with specialty officers,” she said in a phone
interview.
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“The rules are clear. There’s fairness, there’s firmness in
implementing the rules and then caring. It helps keep people out of
trouble with the law,” she said.
Under specialty mental health probation, officers have smaller
caseloads and training in mental illness. They coordinate
probationers’ treatment and collaborate with treatment providers to
keep them out of jail.
Skeem, a clinical psychologist, and her team analyzed data for
ethnically diverse men and women from two urban probation agencies,
one in Texas using specialty probation, and another in California
employing traditional probation. All 359 participants had been
diagnosed with mental illness following a psychological evaluation.
The average caseload for specialty probation officers was 50,
compared to 100 probationers for traditional officers.
The odds of probationers being arrested after two years were 2.68
times higher for those on traditional probation than for those on
specialty probation.
After five years, the probability of re-arrest was 64 percent for
traditional probationers, compared to 38 percent for specialty
probationers.
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Dr. Fred Osher, director of health systems and services policy at
The Council of State Governments Justice Center in New York City,
called specialty mental health probation “a win-win-win.”
“They’re in the community, they’re getting the support they need,
and they’re able to move forward with their own recovery,” he said
in a phone interview.
“It’s hard to recover from mental illness if you’re sitting in a
jail cell,” said Osher, who was not involved with the study.
The upfront costs for specialty probation are higher, but Skeem said
a cost analysis she prepared as part of an as-yet unpublished
follow-up study shows that specialty mental health probation saves
money over the course of two years. The savings come from the
reduced need for emergency room visits and other hospital stays, she
said.
The study findings were consistent with less-rigorous studies
pointing in the same direction, Osher said.
“It’s research like this that will allow policymakers to consider
implementing a program that will have a major impact on people with
mental illness in their jails,” he said.
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“Even a day or two in jail really messes up a person’s life. You can
end up losing your job and housing,” he said. “We want to maximize
the use of alternatives to jail if individuals don’t pose a risk.”
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/2hQDmfU JAMA Psychiatry, online August 9,
2017.
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