The overrepresentation of individuals with mental illness in the criminal/legal system is well documented. While professional associations urge diversion towards treatment, little is known about the practices these institutions use to identify this population. One understudied space in the criminal/legal continuum is jails. This exploratory study compares two types of mental health identification at jail booking to assess jail‐ and community‐based service outcomes by identification type (N = 2956): (a) staff observation and (b) a standardized screening instrument. Individuals identified through staff observation were significantly more likely to receive jail‐ and community‐based services, even though current symptomology and substance misuse were both significantly higher for individuals identified only by the screening instrument. These findings point to the importance of jails in providing stabilizing services during incarceration, but further, show the impact that identification practices have on individuals as they transition to the community. Community context showed varied rates of jail staff observations of mental illness, showing greater risks for individuals in rural communities. Implications include a need for system‐level changes by instituting evidence‐based identification practices in jails, and improving professional collaboration practices between mental health and criminal/legal practitioners as individuals enter and exit jails.

中文翻译：

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监狱的心理健康鉴定实践：“沉默”人群未满足的需求

刑事/法律系统中精神疾病患者的比例过高是有据可查的。虽然专业协会敦促将注意力转向治疗，但对这些机构用于识别该人群的做法知之甚少。刑事/法律连续体中一个未被充分研究的领域是监狱。这项探索性研究比较了监狱预约时两种类型的心理健康识别，以通过识别类型评估监狱和社区服务成果 ( N = 2956)：(a) 工作人员观察和 (b) 标准化筛选工具。通过工作人员观察确定的个人更有可能接受监狱和社区服务，尽管目前的症状和药物滥用对于仅通过筛查工具确定的个人来说都明显更高。这些发现指出了监狱在监禁期间提供稳定服务的重要性，但进一步表明了身份识别实践对个人过渡到社区的影响。社区环境显示监狱工作人员对精神疾病的观察率各不相同，这表明农村社区的个人面临更大的风险。影响包括需要通过在监狱中建立基于证据的识别实践来进行系统级别的改变，