Civil Commitment and Arrests An Investigation of the Criminalization Thesis

Abstract

This study examined one part of the criminalization thesis, which holds that the dangerousness standard of reform civil commitment law has led to the frequent arrest of mentally ill persons. It followed a large statewide sample of civil commitment candidates for 6 months through arrest records to observe their number and type of arrests. It found that: ex-candidates were seldom arrested; over half of arrests were accounted for by a few with multiple arrests; the nonviolent and those released were no more likely to be arrested than the violent and those committed; and charges were more often for the less serious offenses, but not predominantly for nuisance offenses [corrected].

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