Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

The effect of the labor market on mental hospital and prison use: An international comparison

  • Symposium On Economic Change, Scarcity And Mental Health Administration
  • Published:
Administration in mental health Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Mental hospital and prison occupancy vary widely between industrial nations. A multiple regression procedure was used to study the relationship of these variables to a number of social indicators in a sample of Western industrial nations, expanded, where possible, to include Eastern Bloc countries. The provision of mental hospital beds in 1965 was found to be positively associated with national unemployment and per capita G.N.P. in Western and Eastern Bloc nations. By 1974 these associations had disappeared and were replaced by correlations with other social indicators. A correlation between prison incarceration rates and unemployment was found to exist in the Western nations in 1974. It is argued that whereas the labor market no longer determines the extent of national psychiatric hospital use, the unemployment rate does influence prison incarceration rates. The ratio of mental hospital to prison use was inversely correlated with the national infant mortality rate in 1974, reflecting, it is suggested, an association with the national commitment to health and welfare provisions.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Aronson, J. Cultural values and response to schizophrenia.International Journal of Psychiatry 6: 363–364, 1968.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Auster, S. L. Impressions of psychiatry in one Russian city.American Journal of Psychiatry, 124: 538–542, 1967.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Babigian, H. M. Schizophrenia: Epidemiology. In Kaplan, H. I., Freedman, A. M., and Sadock, B. J., eds.,Comprehensive Textbook of Psychiatry-III. Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins, 1980.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bassuk, E. L. and Gerson, S. Deinstitutionalization and mental health services.Scientific American 235: 46–53, 1978.

    Google Scholar 

  • Baxter, E. and Hopper, K. The new mendicancy: Homeless in New York City.American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 52: 393–408, 1982.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Biles D. and Mulligan, G. Mad or bad?—The enduring dilemma.British Journal of Criminology 13: 275–279, 1973.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brenner, M. H.Mental illness and the economy. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1973.

    Google Scholar 

  • Brenner, M. H.Estimating the social costs of national economic policy: Implications for mental and physical health and criminal aggression. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1976.

    Google Scholar 

  • C.I.A. National Foreign Assessment Center.Handbook of economic statistics 1980. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1980.

    Google Scholar 

  • Carlson, K., Evans, P., and Flanagan, J.American prisons and jails: Volume II: Population trends and projections. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, 1980.

    Google Scholar 

  • Clark, D. H.Social therapy in psychiatry. Baltimore: Penguin Books, 1974.

    Google Scholar 

  • Davis, J. M. and Cole, J. O. Antipsychotic drugs. In Freedman, A. M., Kaplan, H. I., and Sadock, B. J., eds.,Comprehensive textbook of psychiatry—II. Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins, 1975, pp. 1921–1941.

    Google Scholar 

  • Doleschal, E. and Newton, A. International rates of imprisonment. Unpublished document. New Jersey: National Council on Crime and Delinquency, 1981.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ellman, M.Socialist planning. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1979.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ellsworth, R., Maroney, R., Klett, W., Gordon, H., and Gunn, R. Milieu characteristics of successful psychiatric treatment programs.American Journal of Orthopsychiatry 41: 427–441, 1971.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Field, M. G. and Aronson, J. Soviet community mental health services and work therapy: A report of two visits.Community Mental Health Journal 1: 81–90, 1965.

    Google Scholar 

  • Foucault, M.Madness and civilization: A history of insanity in the age of reason. New York: Vintage Books, 1973.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gibbs, J. J. Psychological and behavioral pathology in jails: A review of the literature. Presented at the Special National Workshop on Mental Health Services in Local Jails, Baltimore, September 27–29, 1978.

  • Gorman, M. Soviet psychiatry and the Russian citizen.International Journal of Psychiatry, 8: 841–857, 1969.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Greenberg, D. G. The dynamics of oscillatory punishment processes.Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology 68: 643–651, 1977.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gunderson, J. G. and Mosher, L. R. The cost of schizophrenia.American Journal of Psychiatry 132: 901–906, 1975.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Hein, G. Social psychiatric treatment of schizophrenia in the Soviet Union.International Journal of Psychiatry 6: 346–362, 1968.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Jankovic, I. Labor market and imprisonment.Crime and Social Justice 8: 17–31, 1977.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jones, K.A history of the mental health services. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1972.

    Google Scholar 

  • Juviler, P. H.Revolutionary law and order: Politics and social change in the U.S.S.R. New York: Free Press, 1976.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lamb, H. R. The new asylums in the community.Archives of General Psychiatry 36: 129–134, 1979.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Langsley, D. G. Community psychiatry. In Kaplan, H. I., Freedman, A. M., and Sadock, B. J., eds.,Comprehensive textbook of psychiatry—III. Baltimore: Williams and Wilkins, 1971, pp. 2836–2854.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lindblom, C. E.Politics and markets: The world's political-economic systems. New York: Basic books, 1977.

    Google Scholar 

  • Maddison, A.Economic growth in the west: Comparative experience in Europe and North America. New York: Twentieth Century Fund, 1966.

    Google Scholar 

  • McGowan, J. F. and Porter, T. L.An introduction to the vocational rehabilitation process. Washington: U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, Vocational Rehabilitation Administration, 1967.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mechanic, D.Mental health and social policy. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, 1969.

    Google Scholar 

  • Morgan, C. H. Service delivery models. Prepared for the Special National Workshop on Mental Health Services in Local Jails, Baltimore, September 27–29, 1978.

  • Murphy, J. G. and Datel, W. E. A cost-benefit analysis of community versus institutional living.Hospital and Community Psychiatry 27: 1965–1970, 1976.

    Google Scholar 

  • Nagel, J. H. Crime and Incarceration: A reanalysis. NCJRS microfiche, 1977.

  • Nagel, W. G. A statement on behalf of a moratorium on prison construction. Proceedings of the 106th Annual Congress of the American Correctional Association, Denver, August 1976, pp. 79–87.

  • Netherlands Criminal Justice Investigative Seminar. How Holland supports its low incarceration rate: The lessons for us. NCJRS microfiche, 1978.

  • Norton, A. Mental hospital ins and outs: A survey of patients admitted to a mental hospital in the past 30 years.British Medical Journal 1: 528–536, 1961.

    Google Scholar 

  • Odegard, O. Pattern of discharge from Norwegian psychiatric hospitals before and after the introduction of the psychotropic drugs.American Journal of Psychiatry 120: 772–778, 1974.

    Google Scholar 

  • O'Hare, A. and Walsh, D. First admissions to Irish psychiatric hospitals 1965–1969: Preliminary findings.Journal of the Irish Medical Association 65: 189–192, 1972.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Penrose, L. S. Mental disease and crime: Outline of a comparative study of European Statistics.British Journal of Medical Psychology 18: 1–15, 1939.

    Google Scholar 

  • Priest, R. G. A USA-UK comparison.Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine, 63: 441–445, 1970.

    Google Scholar 

  • Reich, R. and Siegel, L. The emergence of the Bowery as a psychiatric dumping ground.Psychiatric Quarterly, 50: 191–201, 1978.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Robin, A. A. The effect of tranquilizers on some aspects of the treatment of long stay patients.American Journal of Psychiatry 119: 1076–1081, 1968.

    Google Scholar 

  • Roth, L. H. and Ervin, F. R. Psychiatric care of federal prisoners.American Journal of Psychiatry 128: 424–430, 1928.

    Google Scholar 

  • Scull, A. T.Decarceration: Community treatment and the deviant: A radical view. Englewood Cliff: Prentice Hall, 1977.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sharfstein, S. S. and Nafziger, J. C. Community care: Costs and benefits for a chronic patient.Hospital and Community Psychiatry 27: 170–173, 1976.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Sinfield, A.What unemployment means. Oxford: Martin Robertson, 1981.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sneznevskij, A. V. Dispensary method of registering psychiatric morbidity and the Soviet system of psychiatric service.Living Conditions and Health 1:236–241, 1959.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sorrentino, C. Unemployment in international perspective. In Showler, B. and Sinfield, A., eds.,The workless state. Oxford: Martin Robertson, 1980.

    Google Scholar 

  • Swank, G. E. and Winer, D. Occurrence of psychiatric disorder in a county jail population.American Journal of Psychiatry 133: 1331–1336, 1976.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Tizard, J. and O'Connor, N. The employability of high grade mental defectives: I.American Journal of Mental Deficiency 54: 563–576, 1950.

    Google Scholar 

  • Torrey, E. F.Schizophrenia and civilization. New York: Jason Aronson, 1980.

    Google Scholar 

  • U.S. Bureau of the Census.Historical statistics of the United States: Colonial times to 1970: Part I. Washington, D.C., 1975.

  • United Nations. The treatment of offenders in custody or in the community, with special reference to the implementation of the standard minimum rules for the treatment of prisoners adopted by the United Nations. Prepared for the Fifth United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders, Toronto, Canada, September 1–12, 1975.

  • Van Putten, I. and Spar, J. E. The board-and-care home: Does it deserve a bad press?Hospital and Community Psychiatry 30: 461–464, 1979.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Waldron, R. J. and Pospichal, T. J. The relationship between unemployment rates and prison incarceration rates. NCJRS microfiche, 1980.

  • Waller, I. and Chan, J. Prison use: A Canadian and international comparison.Criminal Law Quarterly 17: 47–71, 1974.

    Google Scholar 

  • Warner, R. The influence of economic factors on outcome from schizophrenia.Psychiatry and Social Science 1: 79–106, 1981.

    Google Scholar 

  • Weeke, A. and Stromgren, E. Fifteen years later: A comparison of patients in Danish psychiatric institutions in 1957, 1963, 1967, and 1972.Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica 57: 129–144, 1978.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Wheeler, G. S.The human face of socialism: The political economy of change in Czechoslovakia. New York: Lawrence Hill, 1973.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wing, J. K.Reasoning about madness. New York: Oxford University Press, 1978.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wing, J. K.Schizophrenia and its management in the community. Surbiton, England: National Schizophrenia Fellowship, 1978.

    Google Scholar 

  • World Bank.World tables: The second edition. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980.

    Google Scholar 

  • World Health Organization.World health statistics annual: Vol. I. 1963–1977 series. Geneva, 1968–1977.

Download references

Authors
  1. Richard Warner
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Additional information

Richard Warner, M.B., D.P.M., M.A., is Medical Director of the Mental Health Center of Boulder County, Inc., 1333 Iris Ave., Boulder, CO 80302. Requests for reprints should be directed to the author at that address.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Warner, R. The effect of the labor market on mental hospital and prison use: An international comparison. Administration in Mental Health 10, 239–258 (1983). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00823103

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00823103

Keywords

Search

Navigation