NCJ Number
146292
Journal
Law and Human Behavior Volume: 17 Issue: 6 Dated: (December 1993) Pages: 611-623
Date Published
1993
Length
13 pages
Annotation
The validity of the Referral Decision Scale (RDS), a test designed to screen for mental disorders in jail inmates, was assessed using a sample of 790 men admitted to an urban pretrial jail in Vancouver, Canada, between August 1989 and July 1990.
Abstract
The sample represented approximately 50 percent of all men admitted to the jail during the study period. Of 881 men approached to participate in the study, interview-based assessment data were obtained on 790 inmates. In general, results indicated that the RDS had excellent reliability and acceptable validity as a screening measure for serious mental disorders in the jail setting. The RDS, however, exhibited a large number of false positive errors relative to both contemporaneous and subsequent assessments of mental disorders. The predictive validity of the RDS was considerably lower than that reported in an earlier study. The authors conclude that the RDS is well-suited for use in research but that more information is needed before the scale can be used in clinical settings. Potential problems associated with RDS use in correctional systems are addressed. 33 references and 3 tables