Ethnicity, Disruptiveness, and Emotional Disorder among Prison Inmates

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Abstract
In this exploration of mental health and disciplinary problems in prisons, we compare social history, criminal history and psychiatric diagnoses across ethnic groups and across mental health service-delivery categories on a release cohort of over 10,000 inmates, with particular attention to differences between low-rate and high-rate infractors. The data indicate that age-related variables are the most helpful in explaining variations in infraction rates across ethnic groups. However, diagnostic profiles also differ with ethnicity, and this suggests that some variations in disruptiveness can be related to differences in prevalence of pathology. In particular, the disproportionate incidence of paranoid-schizophrenia diagnoses among disturbed black inmates suggests that among some of the inmates subcultural and psychological predispositions may converge to produce prison-adjustment problems.

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