Emotional Disorder Among Offenders: Inter- and Intrasetting Comparisons

• NCJ Number: 114834
• Journal: Criminal Justice and Behavior Volume: 15 Issue: 4 Dated: (December 1988) Pages: 433-453
• Author(s): G D Walters; M F Mann; M P Miller; L L Hemphill; M L Chlumsky
• Date Published: 1988
• Length: 21 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Research (Applied/Empirical)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

The prevalence of serious emotional disorder, as measured by a structured diagnostic interview, was found to range between 7 percent and 10 percent in groups of State, Federal, and military prison inmates.

Abstract

Seriously disturbed offenders sampled from a military prison population (N=51) were found to be younger, better educated, less criminally sophisticated, and more likely to satisfy criteria indicative of a primary affective disorder than an emotionally disturbed State (N=54) and Federal (N-52) inmates. State inmates, on the other hand, evidenced higher levels of schizophrenic psychopathology than prisoners in the other two conditions. Despite a relatively large number of significant demographic, background, and diagnostic differences among these three groups, the MMPI results for State, Federal, and military offenders with serious emotional problems were nearly identical. In addition, all three groups of emotionally disturbed inmates displayed much poorer institutional adjustment relative to their counterparts in each of the respective general populations. (Author abstract)