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The Impact Of Mental Illness Status On The Length Of Jail Detention And The Legal Mechanism Of Jail Release, Jeffrey Draine, Amy Blank Wilson, Stephen Metraux, Trevor Hadley, Arthur C. Evans
The Impact Of Mental Illness Status On The Length Of Jail Detention And The Legal Mechanism Of Jail Release, Jeffrey Draine, Amy Blank Wilson, Stephen Metraux, Trevor Hadley, Arthur C. Evans
Stephen Metraux
Objective:This analysis investigated whether persons with serious men-tal illnesses have longer jail detentions than other detainees andwhether they are released by different legal mechanisms. Methods:Jailrecords and mental health service records from a Medicaid databasewere matched for all admissions to the Philadelphia jail system in 2003.Survival analysis techniques were used to compare length of jail stays ofpersons with and without serious mental illnesses (N=24,290). Seriousmental illness was defined as a diagnosis either in the schizophreniaspectrum (DSM-IVcode 295.XX) or of a major affective disorder (DSM-IVcode 296.XX) recorded in Medicaid records (2001–2003). Mecha-nisms of release were also examined for those with release dates …