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The Journal of Behavioral Health Services & Research

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01-10-2010

Categorizing Temporal Patterns of Arrest in a Cohort of Adults with Serious Mental Illness

Authors: William H. Fisher, PhD, Steven M. Banks, PhD, Kristen Roy-Bujnowski, MS, Albert J. Grudzinskas Jr., JD, Lorna J. Simon, MS, Nancy Wolff, PhD

Published in: The Journal of Behavioral Health Services & Research | Issue 4/2010

Abstract

Temporal patterns of arrest among mental health systems' clientele have not been well explored. This study uses “trajectory analysis,” a methodology widely employed by criminologists exploring patterns of desistence in offending, to examine patterns of criminal justice involvement in a cohort of mental health service recipients. Data for this study are from a statewide cohort of individuals who received services from the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health in 1991 (N = 13,876) and whose arrests were followed for roughly 10 years. Zero-inflated Poisson trajectory analysis applied to cohort members having two or more arrests identified five trajectories with widely varying arrest patterns. Analysis of differences in the composition of the five trajectory-based groups revealed few between-group differences in members' demographic and service use characteristics, while certain offense types were disproportionately prevalent among particular trajectory-based groups. The implications of these findings for understanding criminal justice involvement in this population and the utility of the trajectory model for system planning are discussed.

The cohort having at least one arrest featured greater proportions of males, persons who were younger, and persons who had been identified as “non-white.” Given the importance of demographic factors in offending, this relationship was explored further. Two logistic regression models incorporating age as a continuous variable, race and gender were developed, one predicting “any arrest” and another “two or more.” In the first, adjusting for gender and age, race (white/non-white) was not a significant predictor (B = −0.078, Wald statistic = −2.292, d.f. = 1, p = 0.130). However, in the second, predicting two or more arrests, the adjusted effect of white race was highly significant (B = −0.143, Wald statistic = 7.206, d.f. = 1, p = 0.007). In this model, the adjusted odds ratio for the race variable showed that white persons in the cohort were significantly less likely to experience multiple arrests over the period (OR = 0.867, 95%CI 0.780, 0.962). In both models, the effects of being male were highly significant with ORs of roughly 2.4 in each model.

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Title: Categorizing Temporal Patterns of Arrest in a Cohort of Adults with Serious Mental Illness
Authors: William H. Fisher, PhD
Steven M. Banks, PhD
Kristen Roy-Bujnowski, MS
Albert J. Grudzinskas Jr., JD
Lorna J. Simon, MS
Nancy Wolff, PhD
Publication date: 01-10-2010
Publisher: Springer US
Published in: The Journal of Behavioral Health Services & Research / Issue 4/2010
Print ISSN: 1094-3412
Electronic ISSN: 2168-6793
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11414-009-9188-9

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Categorizing Temporal Patterns of Arrest in a Cohort of Adults with Serious Mental Illness

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