Envisioning the Next Generation of Behavioral Health and Criminal Justice Interventions

"The purpose of this paper is to cast a vision for the next generation of behavioral health and criminal justice interventions by presenting a set of empirically informed individual and environmental factors that directly and indirectly contribute to criminal justice involvement for individuals with SMI and are, therefore, critical targets for intervention. Although justice-involved persons with SMI bear unique stressors attributable to their mental illness, they also have many “normal” risk factors for criminal behavior. Attending to these shared risk factors, when combined with those associated directly with mental illness, provides a richer, more nuanced foundation for the next generation of interventions, which will likely improve their performance in reducing recidivism and psychiatric relapse" (p. 428). Sections of this article include: introduction; first-generation mental health and criminal justice intervention, such as "jail diversion programs, mental health courts, specialized probation and parole caseloads, and forensic mental health services emphasizing psychiatric rehabilitation" (p. 427); the next generation of behavioral health and criminal justice interventions-person-place framework attributes of criminality, person-level factors (mental illness, criminogenic risk, addictions, and trauma), place-level factors (social and environmental disadvantages), stress as a mediating catalyst, and identifying "intervenable" risk factors; recommendations for the next generation of interventions; and conclusions.