Forensic Mental Health Screening and Evaluation of Client-Offenders - An Overview

• NCJ Number: 79772
• Author(s): I Keilitz; W L Fitch; T B Marvell
• Date Published: 1981
• Length: 116 pages
• Grant Number(s): 79-NI-AX-0070
• Sponsoring Agency: National Institute of Justice (NIJ); US Dept of Justice NIJ Pub
• Corporate Author: National Ctr for State Courts
• Sale Source: National Ctr for State Courts; National Institute of Justice/
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: Perspectives on Mental Health and the Law, Occasional Paper Number 1.

Annotation

As part of NIJ's National Evaluation Program, this overview of the practice of forensic mental health screening and evaluation includes an operational definition and a survey of purposes, points of application, and resource allocation for forensic mental health evaluation in the criminal justice system.

Abstract

An estimated 1 million forensic mental health screenings and evaluations are conducted in the United States each year. Screening and evaluation is defined as the process conducted by mental health personnel, at the direction of criminal justice authorities, for the purposes of delineating, acquiring, and providing information about the mental condition of client-offenders that would be useful for decisionmaking in the criminal justice system. A brief telephone survey of 121 mental health evaluation programs throughout the country was used to gather information about overall project objectives, target populations, descriptive data specific to screening and evaluation activities, and other supplementary information. The questionnaire was administered from December 1979 through February 1980. Findings are presented under eight topics: purposes, stages in the criminal justice process at which screening and evaluation take place, facilities where screenings and evaluations are conducted, caseload, staff size and composition, problems encountered by the project, respondents' views toward innovation, and program evaluation of the project. The analysis indicates sets of characteristics that could be used to categorize forensic mental health screening and evaluation programs. For example, such programs can be grouped in terms of the basic elements of the forensic service delivery system: centralized State institutions, local and State corrections agencies, court clinics, community-based mental health centers, and civil mental health institutions and training schools. The advantages of such a typology include its ordering along a practical dimension, with centralization of services on one end and decentralization on the other. The typology is grounded in political and administrative reality and is consistent with the procedural emphasis of program evaluation. Tables, figures, and approximately 40 references are provided. An annotated bibliography and a State-by-State directory of forensic mental health programs in courts, jails, and other facilities are appended. For individual reports in the series, see NCJ 79773-77.