The effects of treatment exposure on prison misconduct for female prisoners with substance use, mental health, and co-occurring disorders

Abstract

Inmates with mental health and co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders present difficult challenges for correctional institutions and treatment providers. The complex nature of co-occurring disorders further exacerbates these difficulties and is associated with poor treatment compliance and increased likelihood of engaging in institutional misconduct. The current study examines whether exposure to prison-based treatment reduces involvement in prison misconduct among a sample of female prison inmates controlling for disorder types (i.e. mental health disorder only, substance use disorder only, and co-occurring mental and substance use disorders). Findings revealed that with exposure of more than 181 days of treatment, the odds of misconduct involvement among females with co-occurring disorders more than doubled compared to receiving no treatment. This finding is at odds with treatment retention literature that suggests that a minimum period of time in treatment is needed to affect post-treatment success. Possible explanations for these findings and policy implications are discussed.

Keywords:

• co-occurring disorders
• mental illness
• females
• prisoners
• misconduct
• treatment

Acknowledgments

The opinions in this paper are those of the authors. The authors alone take full responsibility for errors or omissions that may have been made. A preliminary version of this paper was presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Society of Criminology, Chicago, 2012. We extend our thanks to our colleagues, Wayne Welsh, Matthew Hiller, and Gary Zajac for their help with this research.

Notes

1. Some scholars have criticized the mental health statistics provided by the Bureau of Justice Statistics as inflated (see Slate, Buffington-Vollum, & Johnson, 2013 for a full discussion).