Co-occurring serious mental illnesses and substance use disorders as predictors of assaultive infraction charges among adult male jail inmates

Abstract

This study used self-report data from 4642 adult male jail inmates to test the hypothesis that inmates with co-occurring serious mental illnesses (SMIs) and substance use disorders (SUDs) (i.e. co-occurring disorders) would report having been officially charged for assaulting staff or inmates more often than inmates without co-occurring disorders. Negative binomial regression indicated that relative to inmates with neither SMI nor SUDs, assault charges were most likely to be reported by inmates with co-occurring SMI and substance abuse, co-occurring SMI and substance dependence, and only substance abuse, respectively (ps ≤ .01). Having been charged with assault was also strongly associated with assault victimization before and while incarcerated (ps ≤ .05). This article concludes with recommendations for jail policies and future research.

Keywords:

• Co-occurring Disorders
• jail inmates
• inmate assault

Acknowledgments

The original collector of the data, the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research, and the relevant funding agency bear no responsibility for use of the data or for interpretations or inferences based on such uses.