Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-8ctnn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-23T00:32:48.808Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Early adulthood psychiatric diagnoses and the subsequent risk of life-time incarceration: a cohort study

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 August 2019

Sophie D. Walsh*
Affiliation:
Department of Criminology, Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan5290002, Israel
Bruce P. Dohrenwend
Affiliation:
Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University and New York State Psychiatric Institute, New York, New York, USA Department of Epidemiology, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, New York, USA
Itzhak Levav
Affiliation:
Department of Community Mental Health, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israel
Mark Weiser
Affiliation:
Departments of Psychiatry, The Sackler School of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv and the Sheba Medical Center, Ramat Gan, Israel
Gilad Gal
Affiliation:
School of Behavioral Sciences, Tel Aviv-Yaffo Academic College, Tel Aviv, Israel
*
Author for correspondence: Sophie D. Walsh, E-mail: [email protected]

Abstract

Background

The association between incarceration and psychiatric disorders has been noted. Yet, existing studies are cross-sectional or examine the risk of recidivism, which has limited the predictive validity of psychiatric disorders as a risk factor for incarceration. To overcome this limitation, this study used a prospective cohort to examine whether psychiatric diagnoses in early adulthood predicted incarceration throughout a 30-year follow-up. It tested the association between psychiatric diagnoses with future incarcerations, their number and durations, controlling for education and ethnic status.

Methods

This study merged data from three sources in Israel: a prospective 10-year birth cohort study of young adults aged 25–34, conducted in the 1980s (N = 4914) that included a psychiatric interview; data from the Prison Service, including the cause, number and duration of incarcerations; and from the Vital Statistics Registry on death records.

Results

Multivariate analysis showed that substance-use disorders, antisocial personality and lower levels of education predicted future incarceration, their number and maximum duration. The remainder diagnoses were not significantly associated with future incarceration.

Conclusions

Results limited the prediction of future incarcerations to persons diagnosed with substance use and antisocial personality, and do not support an independent predictive association between additional psychiatric diagnoses and future incarceration.

Type
Original Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Baillargeon, J, Binswanger, IA, Penn, JV, Williams, BA and Murray, OJ (2009) Psychiatric disorders and repeat incarcerations: the revolving prison door. American Journal of Psychiatry 166, 103109.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Baillargeon, J, Penn, JV, Knight, K, Harzke, AJ, Baillargeon, G and Becker, EA (2010) Risk of reincarceration among prisoners with co-occurring severe mental illness and substance use disorders. Administration and Policy in Mental Health and Mental Health Services Research 37, 367374.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Baranyi, G, Cassidy, M, Fazel, S, Priebe, S and Mundt, AP (2018) Prevalence of posttraumatic stress disorder in prisoners. Epidemiological Reviews 40, 134145.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bebbington, P, Jakobowitz, S, Mckenzie, N, Killaspy, H, Iveson, R, Duffield, G and Kerr, M (2017) Assessing needs for psychiatric treatment in prisoners: 1. Prevalence of disorder. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology 52, 221229.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Black, DW, Gunter, T, Loveless, P, Allen, J and Sieleni, B (2010) Antisocial personality disorder in incarcerated offenders: psychiatric comorbidity and quality of life. Annals of Clinical Psychiatry 22, 113120.Google ScholarPubMed
Blumstein, A and Cohen, J (1987) Characterizing criminal careers. Science 237, 985991.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bond, CEW and Jeffries, S (2011) Indigeneity and the judicial decision to imprison: a study of Western Australia's higher courts. The British Journal of Criminology 51, 256277.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brennan, PA, Mednick, SA and Hodgins, S (2000) Major mental disorders and criminal violence in a Danish birth cohort. Archives of General Psychiatry 57, 494500.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chang, Z, Larsson, H, Lichtenstein, P and Fazel, S (2015) Psychiatric disorders and violent reoffending: a national cohort study of convicted prisoners in Sweden. The Lancet Psychiatry 2, 891900.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Copeland, WE, Miller-Johnson, S, Keeler, G, Angold, A and Costello, EJ (2007) Childhood psychiatric disorders and young adult crime: a prospective, population-based study. American Journal of Psychiatry 164, 16681675.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dirkzwager, AJ & Nieuwbeerta, P (2018) Mental health symptoms during imprisonment. Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica 138(4), 300311. https://doi.org/10.1111/acps.12940.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dohrenwend, BP, Levav, I and Shrout, P (1986) Screening scales from the psychiatric epidemiology research interview (PERI). In Weissman, MM, Meyers, JK and Ross, C (Eds.), Epidemiologic Community Surveys. (pp. 249375). New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.Google Scholar
Dohrenwend, BP, Levav, I, Shrout, PE, Schwartz, S, Naveh, G, Link, BG, Skodol, AE and Stueve, A (1992) Socioeconomic status and psychiatric disorders: the causation-selection issue. Science 255, 946.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fazel, S and Danesh, J (2002) Serious mental disorder in 23,000 prisoners: a systematic review of 62 surveys. The Lancet 359, 545550.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fazel, S and Seewald, K (2012) Severe mental illness in 33,588 prisoners worldwide: systematic review and meta-regression analysis. The British Journal of Psychiatry 200, 364373.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fazel, S, Bains, P and Doll, H (2006) Substance abuse and dependence in prisoners: a systematic review. Addiction 101, 181191.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fazel, S, Hayes, AJ, Bartellas, K, Clerici, M and Trestman, R (2016) Mental health of prisoners: prevalence, adverse outcomes, and interventions. The Lancet Psychiatry 3, 871881.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Fovet, T, Geoffroy, PA, Vaiva, G, Adins, C, Thomas, P and Amad, A (2015) Individuals with bipolar disorder and their relationship with the criminal justice system: a critical review. Psychiatric Services 66, 348353.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Greenberg, GA and Rosenheck, RA (2014) Psychiatric correlates of past incarceration in the national co-morbidity study replication. Criminal Behaviour and Mental Health 24, 1835.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Harris, CT, Steffensmeier, D, Ulmer, JT and Painter-Davis, N (2009) Are Blacks and Hispanics disproportionately incarcerated relative to their arrests? Racial and ethnic disproportionality between arrest and incarceration. Race and Social Problems 1, 187199.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hodgins, S (1998) Epidemiological investigations of the associations between major mental disorders and crime: methodological limitations and validity of the conclusions. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology 33, S29S37.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hodgins, S, Côté, G and Toupin, J (1998) Major mental disorder and crime: an etiological hypothesis. In Cooke, DJ (ed.), Psychopathy: Theory, Research and Implications for Society, (pp. 231256). Dordrecht: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kendler, KS, Aggen, SH and Patrick, CJ (2012) A multivariate twin study of the DSM-IV criteria for antisocial personality disorder. Biological Psychiatry 71, 247253.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kinner, SA and Young, JT (2018) Understanding and improving the health of people who experience incarceration: an overview and synthesis. Epidemiological Reviews 40, 411.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Levav, I, Kohn, R, Dohrenwend, BP, Shrout, PE, Skodol, AE, Schwartz, S and Link, BG (1993) An epidemiological study of mental disorders in a 10-year cohort of young adults in Israel. Psychological Medicine 23, 691691.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lochner, L and Moretti, E (2004) The effect of education on crime: evidence from prison inmates, arrests, and self-reports. American Economic Review 94, 155189.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maccio, A, Meloni, FR, Sisti, D, Rocchi, MBL, Petretto, DR, Masala, C and Preti, A (2015) Mental disorders in Italian prisoners: results of the REDiMe study. Psychiatry Research 225, 522530.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ndegwa, D and Johnson, D (2010) Black and minority ethnic prisoners. In: Wilson, S and Cumming, I (eds), (pp. 125131). Psychiatry in Prisons: A Comprehensive Handbook. London, England: Jessica Kingsley Publishers.Google Scholar
Priebe, S, Badesconyi, A, Fioritti, A, Hansson, L, Kilian, R, Torres-Gonzales, F, Turner, T and Wiersma, D (2005) Reinstitutionalisation in mental health care: comparison of data on service provision from six European countries. BMJ 330, 123126.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Roberts, ADL and Coid, JW (2007) Psychopathy and offending behaviour: findings from the national survey of prisoners in England and Wales. The Journal of Forensic Psychiatry & Psychology 18, 2343.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schwartz, S, Link, BG, Dohrenwend, BP, Naveh, G, Levav, I and Shrout, P (1991) Separating class and ethnic prejudice: a study of North African and European Jews in Israel. Social Psychology Quarterly 54, 287298.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shrout, PE, Skodol, AE and Dohrenwend, BP (1986). A two-stage approach for case identification and diagnosis: First-stage instruments. In Barrett, JE and Rose, RM (Eds.), Proceedings of the American Psychopathological Association, Vol. 42. Mental disorders in the community: Progress and challenge (pp. 286303). New York, NY, US: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Sykes, GM (1958). The society of captives: A study of a maximum security prison. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Spitzer, RL, Endicott, J and Robins, E (1978) Research diagnostic criteria: rationale and reliability. Archives of General Psychiatry 35, 773782.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Steadman, HJ, Mulvey, EP, Monahan, J, Robbins, PC, Appelbaum, PS, Grisso, T, Roth, LH and Silver, E (1998) Violence by people discharged from acute psychiatric inpatient facilities and by others in the same neighborhoods. Archives of General Psychiatry 55, 393401.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Steadman, HJ, Osher, FC, Robbins, PC, Case, B and Samuels, S (2009) Prevalence of serious mental illness among jail inmates. Psychiatric Services 60, 761765.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Torrey, EF, Stanley, J, Monahan, J and Steadman, H (2008) The MacArthur Violence Risk Assessment Study revisited: two views ten years after its initial publication. Psychiatric Services 59, 147152.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Vacca, JS (2004) Educated prisoners are less likely to return to prison. Journal of Correctional Education 55, 297305.Google Scholar
Vinkers, DJ, Van De Vorst, M and Hoek, HW (2012) Severe mental illness in prisoners worldwide. The British Journal of Psychiatry 201, 327328.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Vinokur, D and Levine, SZ (2019) Non-suicidal self-harm in prison: a national population-based study. Psychiatry Research 272, 216221.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Western, B and Pettit, B (2010) Incarceration & social inequality. Daedalus 139, 819.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Williams, JW and Spitzer, RL (1982) Research diagnostic criteria and DSM-III: an annotated comparison. Archives of General Psychiatry 39, 12831289.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Supplementary material: File

Walsh et al. supplementary material

Appendices S1-S2

Download Walsh et al. supplementary material(File)
File 16.1 KB