Mental Disorder and Violent Crime: A 20 Year Cohort Study - A User's Guide to the Machine-Readable Files and Documentation, Original Instruments, and Codebook

• NCJ Number: 146224
• Author(s): F J Lexcen; J L Peterson
• Date Published: 1992
• Length: 97 pages
• Grant Number(s): 88-IJ-CX-0039
• Agencies: NIJ-Sponsored

Annotation

Recognizing the lack of systematic research on the relationship between mental disorders and violence, this study compared long-term patterns of violent crime for mentally disordered patients and prison inmates and assessed the predictive validity of a diagnosis of schizophrenia for subsequent violent crime arrests.

Abstract

Violent crimes included murder, manslaughter, rape, assault, kidnapping, and sodomy. Data were obtained from hospitalization, incarceration, and arrest histories of a sample of 1,593 subjects. Inmates admitted to New York State prisons in 1968 and 1978 were compared to patients admitted to New York State hospitals during the same time periods. Four groups were compared over time: inmates with no history of hospitalization, inmates with hospitalization records, patients with no prior arrest records, and patients with prior arrest records. The study employed a longitudinal design of two cohorts (1968 and 1978) and two groups (prison inmates and psychiatric patients). Follow-up on the 1968 groups covered 20 years, while follow-up on the 1978 groups covered 11 years or more. Arrest information on both prisoner and patient groups came from a system maintained by the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services. Although data resulting from the analysis are tabulated separately, a data completeness report, the study instruments, and a codebook are included. 3 references and 3 tables