Manchak Sarah M, Skeem Jennifer L, Kennealy Patrick J, Louden Jennifer Eno
School of Criminal Justice, University of Cincinnati.
School of Social Welfare and Goldman School of Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley.
Law Hum Behav. 2014 Oct;38(5):450-61. doi: 10.1037/lhb0000076. Epub 2014 Apr 21.
Many probation agencies in the United States assign offenders with mental illness to relatively small specialty caseloads supervised by officers with relevant training, rather than to large general caseloads. Specialty caseloads are designed to improve the process and outcomes of probation, largely by linking these probationers with psychiatric treatment and avoiding unnecessary violations. In this multimethod, longitudinal matched trial, we tested whether a prototypical specialty agency (n = 183) differed from a traditional agency (n = 176) in officers' practices, probationers' treatment access, and probationers' rule violations. The specialty agency yielded significantly (a) better officer practices (e.g., problem solving rather than sanction threats; higher quality relationships with probationers; more boundary spanning), (b) greater rates of treatment involvement, and (c) lower rates of violation reports than the traditional agency. Additionally, officers' use of sanctions and threats increased probationers' risk of incurring a probation violation, whereas high-quality officer-probationer relationships protected against this outcome. When implemented with fidelity, specialty mental health caseloads improved the supervision process for this high-need group.
美国许多缓刑机构会将患有精神疾病的罪犯分配到相对较小的特定案件量中，由经过相关培训的官员进行监管，而不是分配到大量的普通案件量中。特定案件量的设计旨在改善缓刑程序和结果，主要方式是将这些缓刑人员与精神治疗联系起来，并避免不必要的违规行为。在这项多方法纵向匹配试验中，我们测试了一个典型的特定机构（n = 183）与一个传统机构（n = 176）在官员做法、缓刑人员获得治疗的情况以及缓刑人员违反规定方面是否存在差异。与传统机构相比，特定机构在以下方面表现显著：（a）官员做法更好（例如，解决问题而非威胁制裁；与缓刑人员的关系质量更高；跨部门协作更多），（b）治疗参与率更高，以及（c）违规报告率更低。此外，官员使用制裁和威胁会增加缓刑人员违反缓刑规定的风险，而高质量的官员与缓刑人员关系则可防止出现这种结果。如果切实执行，特定的心理健康案件量可改善对这一高需求群体的监管过程。
