Versión En Inglés: Review Article

Rezansoff, S. N., Moniruzzaman, A., Gress, C., & Somers, J. M. (2013, September 2). Psychiatric Diagnoses and Multiyear Criminal Recidivism in a Canadian Provincial Offender Population. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law. Advance online publication. Doi: 10.1037/a0033907

Jose Enrique Pallais

Developmental Psychology

4/16/2015

Study

The article is about how mental disorders may affect the recidivism that convicts show/experience after getting out of jail. Recidivism is the act of a person repeating an undesirable behavior after they have received negative consequences because of it.

The article begins with the presentation of background information about the topic and presents various studies that other people have made about this specific problem. The background information concluded the following: A great vast majority of the crimes are done by people who have already been in jail. I chose this article because it relates to the psychological branch that I am doing research on: Forensic Psychology.

The study is divided into four study groups, those are: 1. No diagnosis, 2. Non substance abuse mental disorder, 3. Substance use disorder, and 4. Dual Diagnosis (DDx): co-occurring mental and substance use disorders. The dependent variable is recidivism. The articles states: “The analyses is focused on the descriptive variables and recidivism for each diagnostic group, using a population-based retrospective cohort design.”

In simpler words, the study tried to see how the diagnostic groups (these are the variables of interest) affected the way they conducted after being set free from jail, that is the other variable: recidivism (the dependent variable or the outcome).

The hypotheses the experimenters had in the present scientific study were the following: “ recidivism would be less strongly associated with ND status and more strongly associated with NSMD, SUD, and DDx status; that DDx offenders would be more likely to reoffend than offenders with SUD or NSMD alone; that the majority of reoffending events would occur within the first year following an index offense (relative to subsequent years); and that offenders with DDx status would have shorter time to recidivism (in days) and a higher probability of multiple recidivism than individuals in the other diagnostic categories.”

The results are clearly presented, as the mean time to first offense in post period, and state the following points: a. the difference between the group of no mental disorder and that of the mental disorder alone is of one day. Which in matter of the experiment represents almost nothing, b. the difference between the non-substance abuse and substance abuse is the most visible one, being a difference of 20 days. And, c. the study group that has the least of the averages is the one that combines mental and substance abuse disorder (or DDx).

The

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