A growing body of research suggests that high quality dual role relationships between community corrections officers and offenders reduce risk of recidivism. This study assesses whether this finding generalizes from offenders with mental illness to their relatively healthy counterparts. More importantly, this study tests the possibility that this finding is spurious, reflecting the influence of pre-existing offender characteristics more than a promising principle of practice. In this study of 109 parolees without mental illness, the authors found that (a) firm, fair, and caring relationships protect against rearrest, and (b) do so even after accounting for offenders' pre-existing personality traits and risk for recidivism. These findings are consistent with the theoretical notion that good dual role relationships are an essential element of core correctional practice, even (or particularly) for difficult or high risk offenders.

Juvenile justice agencies often use the presence of a Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) diagnosis as a criterion for offenders' eligibility for mental health treatment. However, relying on diagnoses to sort offenders into discrete categories ignores subclinical disorders-impairment that falls below the threshold of DSM criteria. The current study used structured clinical interviews with 489 juvenile offenders to examine aggression, presence of a prior suicide attempt, and substance use disorders among juvenile offenders with subclinical depression compared with juvenile offenders with major depression or no mood disorder. Analyses demonstrated that juvenile offenders with subclinical depression reported significantly more aggression, abuse of substances, and the presence of a prior suicide attempt compared to juvenile offenders with no mood disorder, but did not differ significantly on aggression and substance abuse compared with juvenile offenders with major depression. These results have implications for correctional agencies' policies through which offenders are offered mental health treatment, and provide a first step in identifying early signs of problematic behavior before it worsens. Specifically, the results support the notion that depressive disorders should be viewed along a continuum when determining how to allocate services.

Among U.S. offenders, both ethnic minorities and persons with mental illness are overrepresented. In communities, ethnic minorities are less likely than European Americans to receive mental health treatment, despite having similar need. Many barriers to treatment (e.g., financial and transportation) are removed in prisons; therefore, we sought to understand whether and how ethnicity relates to identification of mental illness (a proxy for treatment receipt) among prisoners. Due to the growth of the Latino population, we focused on Latino offenders. We examined records from two states with high proportions of Latino offenders to determine whether the likelihood of being identified with a mental illness differed by ethnicity. Offenders who had a mental disorder were disproportionately likely to be European American or African American and less likely to be Latino. We offer suggestions for future research on ethnic disparities in correctional mental health to promote best practices with vulnerable offenders.

Springer Science+Business Media New York 2014 modern methodologies. The inquiry develops a conceptual framework, applies it, and shows how results are solid grounds for changing behavior. The conceptual framework has the dual advantage of creating a typology of culture based on a set of values appropriate to the American context and simultaneously amenable to using alternative values as might exist in other legal systems. Hence, the entry concludes with suggestions for future research, including work in other countries. M 2970 Managerial Court Culture Judges Nudge Attorneys to an Expeditious Culture A fourth inquiry by B. Ostrom and Hanson (1999) provides empirical evidence pertinent to a critical