The relationship between community resources and state hospital recidivism

Objective: The authors examined the propositions that a revolving state hospital door is an inevitable consequence of deinstitutionalization and that enhancing resources for community-based care can limit this phenomenon. Method: They analyzed the recidivism patterns of state hospital patients in a region of Massachusetts where, bemuse of a federal court consent decree, the level of funding for community programs was more than twice as high as it was in other regions in the state and compared the pattern of recidivism in this region with that observed in the other areas of the state