论文标题
强制性心理健康治疗在刑事司法系统中的作用
The Role of Mandated Mental Health Treatment in the Criminal Justice System
论文作者
论文摘要
在刑事司法系统中，心理健康障碍尤为普遍，可能是累犯的一个因素。本文使用北卡罗来纳州法院的案件，评估了授权心理健康治疗作为缓刑期限的如何影响个人返回刑事司法系统的可能性。我在法官任务中使用随机变化来比较那些要求每周的心理健康咨询的人与那些没有的人进行比较。主要发现是被指派寻求心理健康治疗的结果将三年累犯的可能性降低了约12个百分点，即36％。随着时间的流逝，这种效果持续存在，并且在缓刑中的各种人群之间相似。此外，我表明，心理健康治疗在多次治疗框架中明显从药物成瘾干预措施中起作用。我提供的证据表明，精神卫生治疗的长期效率在更具经济保障的缓刑师中最强，这与这种环境一致，在这种情况下，罪犯避开了强制性治疗费用。最后，保守的计算导致5：1的收益与成本比率，这表明治疗引起的未来犯罪减少将足以抵消治疗成本。
Mental health disorders are particularly prevalent among those in the criminal justice system and may be a contributing factor in recidivism. Using North Carolina court cases from 1994 to 2009, this paper evaluates how mandated mental health treatment as a term of probation impacts the likelihood that individuals return to the criminal justice system. I use random variation in judge assignment to compare those who were required to seek weekly mental health counseling to those who were not. The main findings are that being assigned to seek mental health treatment decreases the likelihood of three-year recidivism by about 12 percentage points, or 36 percent. This effect persists over time, and is similar among various types of individuals on probation. In addition, I show that mental health treatment operates distinctly from drug addiction interventions in a multiple-treatment framework. I provide evidence that mental health treatment's longer-term effectiveness is strongest among more financially-advantaged probationers, consistent with this setting, in which the cost of mandated treatment is shouldered by offenders. Finally, conservative calculations result in a 5:1 benefit-to-cost ratio which suggests that the treatment-induced decrease in future crime would be more than sufficient to offset the costs of treatment.
