NCJ Number
178967
Journal
Psychology, Public Policy and Law Volume: 3 Issue: 1 Dated: March 1997 Pages: 126-183
Date Published
1997
Length
58 pages
Annotation
This article argues that inpatient treatment of mentally disordered offenders (MDOs) should especially target aggression and problems of institutional management, criminal propensity, life skills deficits and substance abuse.
Abstract
However narrowly defined, MDOs are heterogeneous in demographics, diagnoses, offense characteristics, risk, and clinical needs. Treatment planning for MDOs should begin with an assessment of risk of future violent behavior in the community and risk of violence toward self or others inside an institution. Treatments should attempt to reduce risk of future violence and to alleviate the mental disorder. Relevant outcome measures include criminal and violent behavior, psychiatric symptomatology, admission to correctional or psychiatric facility and quality of life. Whenever risk levels and legal circumstances permit, community treatment is preferred. The article discusses sex offenders as a group for whom specialized services are indicated. The article recommends methods for guiding treatment planning at both individual and system levels. It also discusses obstacles to implementing empirically based treatments and suggests ways to overcome those obstacles. References