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Background: Individuals with serious mental illness (SMI) have disproportionately high rates of criminal legal system involvement. For many, this becomes a repeated cycle of arrest and incarceration. Treatments that address symptoms of mental illness are a critical component of the continuum of services for people with SMI in the legal system; yet on their own, psychiatric treatments have not been successful at reducing criminal legal system involvement for this population. Research suggests that criminogenic risk factors, the major drivers of criminal legal system involvement, are disproportionately prevalent among individuals with SMI. However, promising criminogenic-focused interventions have only just begun to be adapted for individuals with SMI. The proposed study will examine the capacity of Forging New Paths (FNP), a novel criminogenic-focused group intervention developed for individuals with SMI, to engage its primary and secondary outcomes when delivered in community mental health settings. Methods: The proposed pilot study will engage a small-scale clinical trial comprising three cycles of FNP delivered in a community mental health center in a Southeastern state in the U.S. The anticipated total sample size is N = 72 and will consist of community-dwelling adults with SMI who have a moderate or higher criminogenic risk level and a history of criminal legal system contact. This study will examine the extent to which FNP is able to engage its primary (aggression and community tenure) and secondary (criminal attitudes and impulsivity) treatment outcomes. Discussion: FNP provides an important new service for community-based mental health settings to reduce criminal legal system involvement (and recidivism) among the individuals they serve with SMI. Clinical Trial Registration: NCT06290648. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intellectual functioning impacts defendants' competence to stand trial, though research on this population remains limited. This study replicated and advanced prior work, focusing on defendants' demographic, clinical, cognitive, and criminal justice variables and their association with length of hospitalization and restoration determinations. Participants were 74 male and female criminal defendants in a midwestern state who were adjudicated incompetent to stand trial, had a diagnosis related to intellectual deficits, and completed competency restoration. Most defendants (83.7%) were restored to competency. Demographic factors were unrelated to restoration outcomes; violence of alleged offense predicted shorter hospitalization. Receiver Operating Characteristic Curve analyses determined an IQ score cut-off of 63.5 for which participants were of greater likelihood to be determined restored, providing guidance on the likelihood of restoration for defendants with intellectual disability related diagnoses. Specifically, this score can be used with clinical data to inform competency determinations for defendants with cognitive deficits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Black men and people belonging to sexual minority groups are disproportionately impacted by criminal legal involvement and sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Traumatic experiences are often associated with later criminal legal involvement, depression symptoms, sexual risk behavior, and STIs. Research on the joint influence of trauma and incarceration on STI risk among racial and/or sexual minority people is limited. This study tested the association between posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms and incarceration on sexual risk behavior and STI among Black sexual minority men (SMM), a population that may be at higher risk for contracting STIs. Using data from the HIV Prevention Trials Network 061 Study, a longitudinal study of adult Black SMM in six U.S. cities (N = 855), we tested associations between past 6-month incarceration and subsequent sexual risk behavior, STI, and depression symptoms, for those with and without preincarceration PTSD symptoms. PTSD symptoms were elevated among participants who reported Hispanic ethnicity, having sex with both men and women, and previous incarceration. Although there were no significant differences between recent incarceration and sexual risk for those with and without PTSD, incarceration was linked to some sexual risk behaviors regardless of PTSD symptoms. Among people with PTSD symptoms, there was a higher prevalence of sexual risk and depression symptoms, regardless of incarceration. These findings suggest a potentially compounding influence of PTSD symptoms and incarceration on sexual risk and infection among Black SMM. Public Significance Statement: The results of this study show that sexual risk and infection may be amplified for Black sexual minority men with posttraumatic stress disorder symptoms and criminal legal involvement. This study highlights the potential importance of further assessment, intervention, and referrals for newly released racial and sexual minority men with trauma histories, to reduce sexually transmitted infections and promote sexual health. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Psychological Inventory of Criminal Thinking Styles-Short Form (PICTS-SF) is an abbreviated 35-item version of the PICTS, a measure of cognitions that support a criminal lifestyle. Despite use in research and clinical work, the PICTS-SF's psychometric properties have not been tested. Using two archival datasets, we analyzed the PICTS-SF's reliability and structural validity in multiply imputed data from adult males and females on probation in a residential treatment facility (n = 514). We also tested the PICTS-SF's reliability and discriminant and postdictive validities among adult males in administrative segregation in prison (n = 95). We found evidence for the PICTS-SF's internal consistency (α and ω ≥.89), structural validity (CFI =.90, RMSEA =.05), discriminant validity (.22 ≤ r ≤.39), and postdictive validity for receiving disciplinary infractions (incident rate ratio = 1.04). These results support the PICTS-SF's use in research, and qualified use in clinical applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explored whether the rational (certainty of punishment) and nonrational (criminal thinking) aspects of antisocial decision‐making interact. A convenience sample of 319 undergraduates (106 men, 213 women) completed a measure of criminal thinking and responded to three fictional vignettes (i.e., cheating on a final examination in a class they were in jeopardy of failing, stealing $50 off a table in a dorm room, and selling marijuana for a friend) at three different levels of risk or certainty of apprehension (50%, 10%, and 1%). Results indicated that participants reported that they would be more likely to engage in antisocial behavior when the certainty of getting caught was low and the level of proactive (P) or reactive (R) criminal thinking was high. An interaction between certainty and criminal thinking was also observed in which the gap between lower and higher criminal thinking respondents grew as the probability of getting caught fell. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Correction Notice: An Erratum for this article was reported online in Psychological Services on Oct 8 2020 (see record 2020-75253-001). In the article, the authors listed the wrong version of a measure in the Method section of Study 2. The article should have listed PICTS-Layperson-Short Form (PICTS-L-SF) instead of the PICTS-Short Form (PICTS-SF) as the measure used. The correct citation for the measure appears in the erratum.] Corrections research literature is replete with treatment and intervention outcome studies but lacking empirical examinations of the process of change in justice-involved populations. The current studies expand upon previous outcome evaluations of Changing Lives and Changing Outcomes (CLCO) , a treatment program for justice-involved persons with mental illness, by using process research designs to examine therapeutic mechanisms of change. Study 1 used CLCO participants' ( n = 264) pre and post module quizzes to examine differences in content retention between Mental Illness, Criminalness, and Both mental illness and criminalness domains to determine if participants differentially learn treatment content. In Study 2, 1 CLCO module was administered to 9 groups of adult men on probation in a residential treatment facility ( n = 4 to 8 per group) in 3 iterations: (a) Mental Illness-only content ( n = 16), (b) Criminalness-only content ( n = 20), (c) Full module (mental illness and criminalness content; n = 22). Results for both studies indicated significant treatment gains across outcome measures of interest (namely content retention and symptomology). Contrary to expectations in Study 1, effect sizes of Mental Illness and Criminalness content retention were similar, suggesting there are not differential effects in the magnitude of content retained between the 2 domains. In Study 2, the integration of mental illness and criminalness content produced greater global improvement than focusing on mental illness or criminalness alone. These results underscore the necessity and effectiveness of integrating mental illness and criminalness in the treatment of justice-involved persons with mental illness. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).