A Causal Analysis of the Effect of Psychiatric Disorders on Criminal Justice Outcomes in New York State

• In Event: California Prison Realignment and Pathways into Prison in New York

Abstract

In this study we explore the relationship between psychiatric disorders and criminal justice outcomes, namely, probation violation, probation revocation and prison sentence and examine the extent to which the observed association represents a causal relationship. We combine data from different administrative sources, Integrated Probation Registrant System, Computerized Criminal History, Correctional Offender Management Profiling for Alternative Sanctions and Department of Corrections and Community Supervision. The sample comprises 105,031 individuals sentenced to probation between 2008 and 2012 in New York State.
Our basic estimation strategy involves examining the role of mental illness as a “criminogenic need” factor after accounting for possible mediating factors, using a probit model. Subsequently, we examine whether probationers’ mental health problems are a cause of offending behavior and prison entry by using an instrumental variables approach, which accounts for unobservable factors which may confound the relationship between mental illness and the criminal justice outcomes in our study.

Authors

• Sarah Tahamont, University at Albany, SUNY

• Souvik Banerjee, University of Washington