Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2018 Jul;45(4):623-634.
doi: 10.1007/s10488-018-0848-z.

Interventions at the Transition from Prison to the Community for Prisoners with Mental Illness: A Systematic Review

G Hopkin  1   2 , S Evans-Lacko  3   4 , A Forrester  5 , J Shaw  5 , G Thornicroft  3
Affiliations

Interventions at the Transition from Prison to the Community for Prisoners with Mental Illness: A Systematic Review

G Hopkin et al. Adm Policy Ment Health. 2018 Jul.

Abstract

Prisoners have high rates of mental illness and the transition from prison to the community is a problematic time for the provision of mental health services and a range of negative outcomes have been identified in this period. A systematic review was conducted to identify interventions for prisoners with diagnosed mental health conditions that targeted this transition period. Fourteen papers from 13 research studies were included. The interventions identified in this review were targeted at different stages of release from prison and their content differed, ranging from Medicaid enrolment schemes to assertive community treatment. It was found that insurance coverage, and contact with mental health and other services can be improved by interventions in this period but the impact on reoffending and reincarceration is complex and interventions may lead to increased return to prison. There is a developing evidence base that suggests targeting this period can improve contact with community mental health and other health services but further high quality evidence with comparable outcomes is needed to provide more definitive conclusions. The impact of programmes on return to prison should be evaluated further to establish the effect of interventions on clinical outcomes and to clarify the role of interventions on reincarceration.

Keywords: Community mental health; Mental health; Prison; Systematic review; Transition.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of interest

Gareth Hopkin, Jenny Shaw, Andrew Forrester and Graham Thornicroft were involved in an NIHR Health Service and Delivery Research programme funded project that evaluated the Critical Time Intervention in English prisons (ISRCTN98067793). The funder had no involvement in this systematic review. SEL declares no conflict of interests.

Ethical Approval

This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any of the authors.

Informed Consent

This article does not contain any studies with human participants.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
PRISMA flowchart (Moher et al. 2009)
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Baillargeon J, Penn JV, Knight K, Harzke AJ, Baillargeon G, Becker EA. Risk of reincarceration among prisoners with co-occurring severe mental illness and substance use disorders. Administration and Policy in Mental Health and Mental Health Services Research. 2010;37(4):367–374. doi: 10.1007/s10488-009-0252-9. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Begun AL, Early TJ, Hodge A. Mental health and substance abuse service engagement by men and women during community reentry following incarceration. Administration and Policy in Mental Health and Mental Health Services Research. 2015;43(2):207–218. doi: 10.1007/s10488-015-0632-2. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Binswanger IA, Nowels C, Corsi KF, Long J, Booth RE, Kutner J, Steiner JF. From the prison door right to the sidewalk, everything went downhill,” a qualitative study of the health experiences of recently released inmates. International Journal of Law and Psychiatry. 2011;34(4):249–255. doi: 10.1016/j.ijlp.2011.07.002. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Brown CA, Hickey JS, Buck DS. Shaping the jail inreach project: Program evaluation as a quality improvement measure to inform programmatic decision making and improve outcomes. Journal of Health Care for the Poor & Underserved. 2013;24(2):435–443. doi: 10.1353/hpu.2013.0063. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Buck DS, Brown CA, Hickey JS. The jail inreach project: Linking homeless inmates who have mental illness with community health services. Psychiatric Services. 2011;62(2):120–122. doi: 10.1176/ps.62.2.pss6202_0120. - DOI - PubMed

Publication types