GENDER, MENTAL ILLNESS, AND CRIME

Melissa Thompson, Principal Investigator
mthomp@pdx.edu
503-725-3614

Sponsor: National Institute of Justice: Data Resources Program

 

There is a growing set of concerns and practices regarding gender differences in crime and delinquency, especially the role of gender in the relationships between mental illness (particularly depression), substance abuse, and criminal conduct. These concerns and practices are based largely on anecdotal evidence and have not been subject to rigorous testing; the proposed research seeks to address this limitation. The results have direct implications for future criminal justice practices and will speak to the necessity of models with a gendered focus.

This project will demonstrate the gendered relationship between mental illness, substance use, and crime. This study will identify (1) the gendered effects of depression and substance abuse on self-reported criminal behavior; (2) the gendered effect of mental health/substance abuse treatment on crime; and (3) the gendered effect of interactions with the criminal justice system on current depression and substance abuse.

Subjects are from a nationally representative sample of 67,760 respondents to the 2004 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), given to members of the non-institutionalized U.S. civilian population aged 12 or older. Logistic regression models estimating the odds of crime and mental illness will be conducted for male and female respondents; z-tests will then be used to formally test for gender differences. Statistical analyses will focus on explaining behavior in the most recent 12 months, focusing attention to current factors in the respondents’ lives that explain their crime and mental illness. The models will include a measure of deviant behavior from the previous years to control for unobserved individual heterogeneity. The findings coming from this project will therefore provide strong evidence regarding the role of gender in affecting crime and mental illness.

These findings promise to be of particular interest to criminal justice and mental health policymakers to enhance crime prevention efforts, improve mental health interventions, and design justice practices that reduce recidivism and promote pro-social behavior.