Criminal history predicts recidivism even among persons with mental illnesses

For decades, policymakers have grappled with the issue of crime and mental illness, with service design being generally guided by the belief that the involvement with the criminal justice system of those with mental illnesses can often be attributed to inadequate mental health services. In new research, William Fisher and co-authors find that clinical factors, such as having a history of substance abuse, were not significant in terms of the potential for recidivism among those prisoners who had been classified as ‘open mental health cases’. They write that the odds of persons with juvenile histories being rearrested were roughly 36 percent greater than those without, and that each additional previous jail term increased the odds of re-arrest by roughly 10 percent.