Evaluating Administered Differences of Brief Jail Mental Health Screener and Impacts of Diagnoses & Treatment of Linked Inmates with Severe Mental Illness

The United States is the world's leading country in incarceration. American citizens constitute five percent of the global population, but 20% of the world's inmates [5]. Those suffering from mental illnesses are disproportionately affected. According to a 2017 study by the Department of Justice, 64% of inmates in local jails have a history of mental health problems, and 60% are actively experiencing symptoms [2]. To lower the number of Americans behind bars, effective mental health treatment needs to be provided to those in need within the criminal justice system. This project, supported by the Jefferson Area Community Criminal Justice Board, is the continuation of a decade of research into the intersection between mental illness and incarceration in the Central Virginia. The primary goal was to evaluate the efficacy of the Brief Jail Mental Health Screener (BJMHS) used by the region's two jails to determine whether an inmate needs further mental health evaluation following their release. Data was obtained from both jails: the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail (ACRJ) and the Central Virginia Regional Jail (CVRJ), as well as two community programs that provide services to former inmates, Offender's Aid and Restoration (OAR) and Region Ten Community Services (R10). The BJMHS was found to predominantly identify people who had already received treatment. The screener's effectiveness was also found to vary by the location it was given and by the recipient's demographics: Females tended to make up a statistically significantly larger proportion of the screened-in population than expected, and black individuals a smaller proportion. When people took the screener multiple times at different locations (ACRJ, CVRJ, or OAR) and were changing their answers to therapeutic questions, they were more likely to acknowledge they were previously hospitalized for mental health treatment at OAR than they were at either jail. Additionally, of the cohort of inmates screening in multiple times at ACRJ, it was found that as their number of arrests increased, so did the proportion of the group that screened in and group that matched with R10. The findings of this paper will be used to improve the screener process and ideally increase its ability to correctly identify those who require mental health services.