Police departments in the 194 U.S. cities with a population of 100,000 or more were surveyed in 1996 to identify strategies they used to obtain input from the mental health system about dealing with mentally ill persons. A total of 174 departments responded (90 percent). Ninety-six departments had no specialized response for dealing with mentally ill persons. Among the 78 departments with special programs, three basic strategies were found: a police-based specialized police response, a police-based specialized mental health response, and a mental-health-based specialized mental health response. At least two-thirds of all departments, even those with no specialized response program, rated themselves as moderately or very effective in dealing with mentally ill persons in crisis.

In one of the more important studies in the criminological literature over the past decade, Sampson and Groves analyze data from 238 British neighborhoods to test the mediating effect of indicators of social disorganization variables on the relationship between structural community characteristics and crime. In this article, the authors recognize that advances in statistical theory and software allow for a more detailed analysis of Sampson and Groves's integrated theory of community-level social disorganization. Using covariance structure modeling (LISREL), the results of their analysis reveal that (1) Sampson and Groves's argument regarding the mediating effect of social disorganization variables is only partially supported, (2) social disorganization is not one construct but rather represents several mechanisms by which communities maintain stability, and (3) the resulting model may be interpreted as supportive of several theories of crime, including peer affiliation theories, as well as social disorganization.

No abstract

Jail diversion programs have been proposed for use with persons with mental illnesses.While much support exists for these programs in theory, little is known about their characteristics, the individuals they divert, or their effectiveness. The current study focuses on identifying the characteristics of persons diverted through a court-based program in one midwestern city and their outcomes during the first 2 months after diversion. Information on participants (n = 80) was gathered through detainee interviews, staff interviews, and record abstracts. Two factors appear to be important in diversion: (1) community risk and ( 2) availability of specialized programs for diverted offenders. Demographic, clinical, and social context variables appear to influence diversion decisions. Overall, the diverted and nondiverted groups did approximately the same upon release, but one third of the nondiverted group never got released during the follow-up.

No abstract