A prospective analysis of loss of control over eating, sociodemographics, and mental health during COVID-19 in the United States.

Purpose: The study assessed the relationships between sociodemographics, mental health, and prospective changes in loss of control over eating (LOCE).

Methods: Sixty-nine participants (M = 39.81 years, SD = 12.

Social networks and treatment adherence among Latino offenders with mental illness.

Mental health treatment adherence is often required for offenders with mental illness supervised on probation and parole. However, research on offenders with mental illness has largely overlooked cultural and ethnic responsivity factors that may affect adherence to treatment. Latinos are a quickly growing subgroup of offenders whose social networks differ in meaningful ways from European Americans' (e.

Using the MAYSI-2 to identify mental disorder among Latino juvenile offenders.

Many juvenile justice agencies have adopted the Massachusetts Youth Screening Inventory-Version 2 (MAYSI-2; Grisso & Barnum, 2006) to facilitate appropriate programming for young offenders with mental illness. Although Latinos are the fastest-growing ethnic group in the criminal justice system, there is scant research on the utility of the MAYSI-2 among Latino adolescents. The present study examined the utility of the MAYSI-2 in detecting diagnosable mental illness among 398 Latino and 60 European American adolescents in a juvenile justice agency.

Prevalence of internalizing, externalizing, and psychotic disorders among low-risk juvenile offenders.

To effectively allocate mental health services, agencies must be able to predict what proportion of youth will have a mental disorder. Prevalence estimates are available for juvenile offenders at intake, detained youth, and incarcerated youth, but there is limited research on prevalence of mental disorders for juvenile offenders who are low-risk to reoffend, many of whom are first time offenders (i.e.

Probation Officer Role Emphases and Use of Risk Assessment Information before and after Training.

This research examined how probation officers use risk information about offenders, and how its use is affected by what aspects of their role they emphasize. Officers (N = 152) were invited to complete surveys before and after a risk assessment tool training (46.0-65.

The relationship between officer orientation and supervision strategies in community corrections.

Community corrections (i.e., probation and parole) officers play a crucial role within criminal justice agencies: They have the onerous task to balance the competing demands of rehabilitating offenders while protecting the community.

High-fidelity specialty mental health probation improves officer practices, treatment access, and rule compliance.

Many probation agencies in the United States assign offenders with mental illness to relatively small specialty caseloads supervised by officers with relevant training, rather than to large general caseloads. Specialty caseloads are designed to improve the process and outcomes of probation, largely by linking these probationers with psychiatric treatment and avoiding unnecessary violations. In this multimethod, longitudinal matched trial, we tested whether a prototypical specialty agency (n = 183) differed from a traditional agency (n = 176) in officers' practices, probationers' treatment access, and probationers' rule violations.

Offenders with mental illness have criminogenic needs, too: toward recidivism reduction.

Many programs for offenders with mental illness (OMIs) seem to assume that serious mental illness directly causes criminal justice involvement. To help evaluate this assumption, we assessed a matched sample of 221 parolees with and without mental illness and then followed them for over 1 year to track recidivism. First, compared with their relatively healthy counterparts, OMIs were equally likely to be rearrested, but were more likely to return to prison custody.

Comparing the predictive utility of two screening tools for mental disorder among probationers.

To increase the likelihood that probationers with serious mental disorder can be identified by probation agencies, we tested the utility of two promising mental health screening tools, the K6 and the Brief Jail Mental Health Screen (BJMHS), in identifying probationers with DSM-IV Axis I mental disorders. In this study, 4,670 probationers completed the screening tools as part of routine intake procedures at a probation agency. We interviewed a subset of 149 probationers using a structured clinical interview to determine whether they met criteria for an Axis I anxiety, mood, or psychotic disorder at any point during their lifetimes.

Supervision practices in specialty mental health probation: What happens in officer-probationer meetings?

As the correctional population continues to increase, probation agencies struggle to adequately supervise offenders with unique needs, including those with mental disorder. Although more than 100 U.S.

How do probation officers assess and manage recidivism and violence risk for probationers with mental disorder? An experimental investigation.

Persons with mental disorder are overrepresented in the criminal justice system. Once involved in the criminal justice system, offenders with mental disorder are more likely to return to custody while on probation than their nondisordered counterparts, often for breaking the rules of community supervision. Risk assessments and risk management strategies employed by probation officers can lead to higher rates of returns to custody for probationers with mental disorder, and the current study is the first to examine these experimentally.

Firm, fair, and caring officer-offender relationships protect against supervision failure.

A growing body of research suggests that high quality dual role relationships between community corrections officers and offenders reduce risk of recidivism. This study assesses whether this finding generalizes from offenders with mental illness to their relatively healthy counterparts. More importantly, this study tests the possibility that this finding is spurious, reflecting the influence of pre-existing offender characteristics more than a promising principle of practice.

Social networks and social control of probationers with co-occurring mental and substance abuse problems.

Probationers with co-occurring mental and substance abuse problems (PCPs) are both subject to considerable social control, and at high risk of probation failure. In this study, we screened 601 probationers for symptoms, interviewed 82 identified PCPs about their relationships, and then followed these PCPs for eight months to record treatment nonadherence and other probation violations. First, PCPs' social networks were small, heavily comprised of professionals and opposing forces who engaged in risky behavior, and saturated with pressure to adhere to treatment.

Does the three-factor model of psychopathy identify a problematic subgroup of young offenders?

The present study tests the utility of the personality-based three-factor model of psychopathy according to the Hare Psychopathy Checklist: Screening Version (PCL:SV). This model of psychopathy excludes aspects of criminal behavior as opposed to other models of psychopathy. The main research question was to what extent the three-factor model of psychopathy can identify a problematic subgroup of young offenders.

Assessing relationship quality in mandated community treatment: blending care with control.

Traditional measures of the therapeutic alliance do not capture the dual roles inherent in relationships with involuntary clients. Providers not only care for, but also have control over, involuntary clients. In 2 studies of probationers mandated to psychiatric treatment (n=90; n=322), the authors developed and validated the revised Dual-Role Relationships Inventory (DRI-R).

Two subtypes of psychopathic violent offenders that parallel primary and secondary variants.

Although psychopathy usually is treated as a unitary construct, a seminal theory posits that there are 2 variants: Primary psychopathy is underpinned by an inherited affective deficit, whereas secondary psychopathy reflects an acquired affective disturbance. The authors investigated whether psychopathy phenotypically may be disaggregated into such types in a sample of 367 prison inmates convicted of violent crimes. Model-based cluster analysis of the Revised Psychopathy Checklist (PCL-R; R.

Constructing insanity: jurors' prototypes, attitudes, and legal decision-making.

Research consistently indicates that jurors' intuitive prototypes of insanity and case-relevant attitudes shape their verdicts more strongly than legal definitions of insanity. Based on a sample of 113 prospective jurors, this study was designed to (a) assess the extent to which three prototypes of insanity held by jurors in a past study generalize to a sample of jurors in another state and (b) determine the relative influence of attitudes toward the insanity defense and prototypes of insanity on jurors' case judgments across four insanity case vignettes. Results suggest that jurors' attitudes toward the insanity defense affected case judgments so strongly (r = .

Toward evidence-based practice for probationers and parolees mandated to mental health treatment.

Objectives: Many individuals with serious mental illness are on probation or parole. These individuals are twice as likely as those without mental illness to fail on supervision-that is, to have their community term revoked for a technical violation or a new offense. This article reviews a small but growing body of research on this problem and on practices designed to respond to it.

Venirepersons's attitudes toward the insanity defense: developing, refining, and validating a scale.

Given the prevalence and predictive strength of negative attitudes toward the insanity defense, we conducted three studies with 426 venirepersons to develop an understanding and a measure of public attitudes toward the insanity defense. In these studies, we developed, iteratively refined, and cross-validated the insanity defense attitude-revised (IDA-R) scale. The results suggest that IDAs are underpinned by one's degree of (a) orientation toward strict liability, and (b) concern about perceived injustice and danger associated with the defense.

Perspectives on probation and mandated mental health treatment in specialized and traditional probation departments.

Despite the prevalence of mentally ill probationers, and probation officers' (POs') central role in their supervision, this is the first reported study to investigate how POs implement mandates to participate in psychiatric treatment. Five focus groups were conducted in major cities with 32 POs and 20 probationers representing a mix of traditional and "specialty" probation agencies. Three key findings resulted.