Advancing the Psychology of Diversion

Jails and prisons remain far and away the largest institutional providers of mental health treatment in this country. But the screenings generally used when people are detained pretrial are not designed to detect what are often complex clinical needs.

The lack of individualized treatment recommendations can leave individuals struggling in alterative-to-incarceration programs, or shut out from those opportunities altogether.

What the evidence suggests will help people better adhere to treatment mandates are more thorough psychological assessments, including testing to detect and measure a particular trait or disorder.

Better informed treatment recommendations will help more people exit the revolving door of unmet clinical needs, arrest, and incarceration.

Psychological assessment is less costly—likely by orders of magnitude—than incarceration.