| Persons with mental disorder and co-occurring mental health and substance abuse disorders are overrepresented in the criminal justice system (CJS). Most of these offenders are supervised in the community on probation. Once involved in the criminal justice system, these offenders are more likely to commit (or have reported) technical violations (breaking the rules of probation) than their non-disordered counterparts, deepening their involvement in the CJS. These technical violations are primarily discovered and processed by probation officers, and these officers generally have discretion in choosing their responses to these violations, ranging from ignoring the offense to seeking revocation of the probation term, where the offender is incarcerated. There is evidence that probation officers have lower thresholds for violations committed by probationers with mental disorder and substance abuse disorders, and are more likely to seek revocation for these offenders than for non-disordered probationers. Because persons with mental disorder and substance abuse are highly stigmatized, it is likely that officers' stigmatizing attitudes towards these offenders influence their decisions for these offenders.;The study conducted as part of this dissertation used a between-subjects experimental design where 234 probation officers rated their stigmatizing attitudes, risk assessments, and case management decisions towards a vignette portraying a probationer with a mental disorder, substance abuse disorder, both, or neither. Three key findings emerged. First, probationers' mental disorder and substance abuse characteristics affect officers' perceptions such that PMDs and PCDs are deemed high-risk cases, and officers seek to supervise them accordingly. Second, officers hold highly stigmatizing attitudes towards probationers with any disorder, and are particularly likely to blame probationers with substance abuse for their condition. Third, officers' stigmatizing attitudes influence their risk assessments and case management decisions such that the more negative attitudes an officers holds, the more likely he is to perceive probationers as high-risk. |
