Aggressive and Socially Disruptive Behavior Among Maximum Security Psychiatric Patients - A Perspective

• NCJ Number: 84691
• Journal: Psychological Reports Volume: 51 Issue: 1 Dated: (August 1982) Pages: 259-263
• Author(s): J J Randolph; D Mason; D J Cuneo; J M Moore
• Date Published: 1982
• Length: 5 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: *This document is currently unavailable from NCJRS.

Annotation

This study examines the relative frequency of patients' violent or other behaviors, which constitute a management problem, as a function of the placement process followed at the Chester Mental Health Center in Illinois.

Abstract

Most patients have been committed to the facility either because of having been found unfit to stand trial for a felony charge or for crimes of violence, or because they are too violent to be handled at other mental health institutions. Degrees of internal security differ within the hospital, and patients are placed following a screening team's assessment of their perceived need for security. This placement is final unless the treatment team ascertains mis-screening within 2 weeks or unless a patient's behavior demonstrates need for greater security. Selected patients may be removed to a unit of lesser security if the higher security unit's population grows too large. Reports of incidents filed on units of intermediate and maximum security were analyzed for occurrence of 'socially disruptive' or 'aggressive' behaviors over a 6-month period. Total incidents numbered 279 in the intermediate unit and 340 in the maximum security unit. The differences between units in the relative frequency of incidents were statistically significant. The suggestion that even violent psychiatric patients show low incidence of aggressive behavior within a controlled treatment setting appears to have very limited generality even within the same institution. The data suggest that the overall rates and the rates of particular types of incidents vary as a function of perceived need for security as represented by placement on or movement to a particular treatment unit. Predictions of dangerousness may be more accurate if based on the patient's demonstrated history of dangerousness within the most secure unit of most security in a maximum security hospital. Tables, graphs, and two references are given.