OBJECTIVES to analyze changes in psychotic vulnerability following the implementation of a program of prison psychiatric treatment, recidivism after the release and various descriptive variables of criminological interest. MATERIALS AND METHODS review of a sample consisting of 50 patients diagnosed with schizophrenia admitted to the Prison Psychiatric Hospital of Seville. RESULTS there was ...

In evaluating the efficacy of most modern criminal justice systems, a vital relationship to understand is that between incarceration length (and likelihood) and recidivism. Because most previous attempts to estimate this relationship suffer from omitted variables bias, even the sign is unknown. In this paper, I build on previous work identifying substantial heterogeneity in attorney ability in ...

In 2010, the United Kingdom’s Ministry of Justice entered into an agreement with a nonprofit known as Social Finance to prevent reoffending by juvenile offenders released from prison in Peterborough, England. What made this contract unique is that the government payments to Social Finance were not based on delivery of services but instead on the level of government cost aversion from reduced re...

We used archival data to examine the predictive validity of a prerelease violence risk assessment battery over 6 years at a forensic hospital (N = 230, 100% male, 63.0% African American, 34.3% Caucasian). Examining “real-world” forensic decision making is important for illuminating potential areas for improvement. The battery included the Historical-Clinical-Risk Management–20, Psychopathy Chec...

Recent research suggested that the predictive validity of adult sexual offender risk assessment measures can be affected when used cross-culturally, but there is no published study on the predictive validity of risk assessment measures for youth who sexually offended in a non-Western context. This study compared the predictive validity of three youth risk assessment measures (i.e., the Estimate...

OBJECTIVE The failure of offenders to complete psychological treatment can pose significant concerns, including increased risk for recidivism. Although a large literature identifying predictors of offender treatment attrition has accumulated, there has yet to be a comprehensive quantitative review. METHOD A meta-analysis of the offender treatment literature was conducted to identify predictor...

Many programs for offenders with mental illness (OMIs) seem to assume that serious mental illness directly causes criminal justice involvement. To help evaluate this assumption, we assessed a matched sample of 221 parolees with and without mental illness and then followed them for over 1 year to track recidivism. First, compared with their relatively healthy counterparts, OMIs were equally like...

The Static-99 is the most commonly used actuarial risk assessment tool for the prediction of sexual recidivism. In addition, the use of psychopathy and sexual deviance has been common in assessing sexual offenders, based on research suggesting that these factors have predictive validity. It has also become common practice to modify risk assessments based on the Static-99/99R because of the pres...

The relationship of surgical castration to sexual recidivism in a sexually violent predator/sexually dangerous person (SVP/SDP) population is reviewed. A review of the literature on castrated sex offenders reveals a very low incidence of sexual recidivism. The low sexual recidivism rates reported are critiqued in light of the methodologic limitations of the studies. Better designed testicular/p...

OBJECTIVE Estimate the effectiveness of brief interventions in reducing trauma recidivism in hospitalized trauma patients who screened positive for alcohol and/or illicit drug use. METHODS Dynamic cohort study based on registry data from 1818 patients included in a screening and brief intervention program for alcohol and illicit drug use for hospitalized trauma patients. Three subcohorts emer...