Serious Mental Illness, Criminal Risk, Parole Supervision, and Recidivism: Testing of Conditional Effects

Adults with serious mental illness (SMI) who are released from prison tend to recidivate more quickly and at higher rates than similarly situated adults who do not have SMI. The current study examined whether this relationship with recidivism is mediated by criminal risk level and whether parole supervision can ameliorate the effects of SMI on recidivism. Findings indicate that SMI did exhibit a significant indirect effect with recidivism when considering its relationship with actuarially assessed risk. However, this indirect effect was not conditioned by whether the individual was released to parole; specifically release status did not moderate the relationship between risk and recidivism. The direct effects of SMI on recidivism were found to be conditioned upon release status. Specifically, we found no relationship between SMI and recidivism for parolees and a negative relationship between SMI and recidivism among nonparolees. Findings indicate a need for paroling authorities to find more effective ways of reducing criminal risk, which can decrease subsequent recidivism, among the individuals they supervise.