Abstract
Although the research on specialty mental health probation (SMHP) is promising, there have been no randomized controlled trials (RCT) of the prototypical model advanced in the research literature and little focus on SMHP implementation. This study assesses the adoption of SMHP in two counties and examines its impact on mental health and criminal justice outcomes. Researchers conducted a RCT within a hybrid implementation-effectiveness study to examine intervention adoption as well as mental health treatment engagement and criminal justice outcomes for 100 individuals with serious mental illnesses on probation in one rural and one urban county in a southeastern state. Randomization produced equivalent treatment (n = 47) and control (n = 53) groups with no statistically significant differences between groups on demographic or background characteristics. Compared to standard probation officers, SMHP officers addressed the mental health needs of individuals with serious mental illness (i.e., adoption) at higher rates (p < 0.001). Compared to individuals on standard caseloads, individuals on SMHP had a higher rate of mental health engagement (e.g., mental health assessment, attending treatment appointment; p < 0.050); however, more individuals on SMHP caseloads had a new crime violation during follow-up compared with individuals on standard caseloads (p < 0.01). In conclusions, results suggest successful adoption of the intervention and increased mental health engagement among those on SMHP caseloads. Results are consistent with the mixed findings on the impact of SMHP on improving criminal justice outcomes.
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Data Availability
Data from this study will be made available by the Principal Investigator (PI) as freely as possible while safeguarding the confidentiality of the data and privacy of participants. Researchers with a convincing scientific interest in the data can contact the study PI and establish a data sharing agreement.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would also like to acknowledge Stacey Burgin for project coordination and the NC Department of Public Safety for their leadership and implementation efforts.
Funding
This study was funded by the North Carolina Governor’s Crime Commission. In addition, the first author is supported by the Lifespan/Brown Criminal Justice Research Training Program (National Institute of Drug Abuse [NIDA], R25DA037190).
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All authors contributed to the study conception and design. Material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by TBVD, AG, and GC. The first draft of the manuscript was written by TBVD and all authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study. The informed consent form also indicated that data would be de-identified and shared in aggregate in any future publications.
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Approval was obtained from the Institutional Review Board at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (8/19/2014; #14-0492).
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Dr. Cuddeback was the principal investigator on this study.
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Van Deinse, T.B., Givens, A., Cowell, M. et al. A Randomized Trial of Specialty Mental Health Probation: Measuring Implementation and Effectiveness Outcomes. Adm Policy Ment Health 49, 415–428 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10488-021-01172-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10488-021-01172-0