Interventions for Adult Offenders With Serious Mental Illness

This report is a great introduction to strategies for treating offenders with serious mental illness (i.e., schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, bipolar disorder, or major depression) in jails, prisons, forensic hospitals, or community reentry programs. The researchers “identified some promising treatments for individuals with serious mental illness during incarceration or during transition from incarceration to community settings. Treatment with antipsychotics other than clozapine appears to improve psychiatric symptoms more than clozapine in an incarceration setting. Two interventions, discharge planning with Medicaid-application assistance and integrated dual disorder treatment programs, appear to be effective interventions for seriously mentally ill offenders transitioning back to the community” (p. vii).