Effects of Access to Mental Health Services Following Release from Custody

About a third of current inmates in the United States prisons and jails suffer from severe mental illness (Collier, 2014). For most of these inmates, their untreated mental health needs contribute to their return to custody within the criminal justice system. A 2011 study reported that approximately 68% of inmates with an untreated mental illness and substance abuse diagnoses return to custody at least once within 4 years of the initial release, compared to 60% of those who do not suffer from either mental illness or substance abuse diagnoses (Bronson et al., 2017). This project extends over a decade of prior research examining current mental health services available to those released from the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail (ACRJ). The primary objective of this project was to identify individuals within the ACRJ, which serves jurisdictions in Charlottesville, Albemarle, and Nelson County who were recommended for services following screening through the Brief Jail Mental Health Screener (BJMHS) to answer questions surrounding the return to custody rate of those linked vs not linked to services.To examine the demographics of inmates screened, types of charges, and length of stay in the criminal justice system, data sets were obtained from Region Ten Community Services Board (R10), ACRJ, Offender Aid and Restoration (OAR), and the Thomas Jefferson Area Coalition for the Homeless (TJACH) after each member of the team completed a training on protecting personally identifiable information (PII) and signing a nondisclosure agreement (NDA). The research team analyzed 60 months of data spanning from July 2015 through June 2020. The data include individuals booked into ACRJ and individuals who received mental health, substance abuse, and intake/access/emergency services from R10. The data from ACRJ, the BJMHS, and R10 were merged to form a single data set compiling relevant information for each individual in ACRJ, such as booking details, BJMHS screener scores, and services received from R10.According to the merged data, of the individuals who took the BJMHS when they were booked into ACRJ, 26% screened in, meaning their BJMHS results indicated they should be referred for further mental health evaluation. The team analyzed the cohort of individuals who screened-in and were available to receive services from R10 following their release from custody. The key findings and outcomes of the study included:•From the ACRJ dataset from 2015 to 2019, 913 individuals screened-in for referral to mental health services. This is 26% of the total inmates who were screened at ACRJ.•Individuals who received services from R10 were more likely to return to custody (19%) within 12 months than screened-in individuals who did not receive these services (11%).