Two NIJ-Funded Mental Health Screening Instruments Now Available Online
With
new data documenting high rates of symptoms of mental illnesses among jail inmates, screening for possible mental illnesses upon booking is critical. The
National Institute of Justice (NIJ) has recently funded two groups to develop screening instruments for jails. Both instruments have psychometric properties, with low rates of false positives and negatives, that allow for the detection of individuals who warrant additional assessment for mental illnesses.
An updated and revised version of the "Correctional Mental Health Screen," developed by researchers at the University of Connecticut with funding from the NIJ, is now available online.
The "Brief Jail Mental Health Screen," developed by
Policy Research Associates can be used as a screening instrument for both men and women.
Determining which screening instrument to use in a particular jail requires a review of overall jail screening and assessment processes. The reports on the two instruments above provide suggestions for their administration.
To learn more about issues around screening, assessment, and intake procedures generally, please see the following policy statements from the
Consensus Project Report and the
Report of the Re-Entry Policy Council respectively:
