Jail Screening Assessment Tool (JSAT)

The Jail Screening Assessment Tool (JSAT) is a screening tool developed for the purpose of identifying mentally disordered offenders in jails and prisons. The JSAT is administered by a mental health professional during a brief interview. Initial studies support the JSAT's validity and use as an effective screening device to identify inmates' mental health needs.

Incontrovertible evidence now exists to show that the prevalence of mental disorder among those in the criminal justice system (prisoners, offenders on community orders, and accused on remand) is significantly greater than is found in the general population. Despite the prevalence of mentally disordered people in the criminal justice system, and the potential consequences of failing to adequately address the related issues, relatively few services exist either in prisons or in the community to help identify these people and prevent them from entering or remaining in the criminal justice system.

A number of contributing factors have been identified that help explain the high numbers of people with mental illnesses in the criminal justice system. Considerable concern has been raised about the capacity of community-based mental health services to address the needs of mentally ill offenders. Community-based mental health services work best for those who have reasonable connections and support within the community. While the presence of mentally ill people in the criminal justice system presents challenges and raises concerns, the fact is that the justice system provides an opportunity to identify and deliver treatment to people who are otherwise likely to remain outside the reach of services. As such, it has been suggested that mental health services in the judicial system present an opportunity for identifying those with mental illnesses and making services available to them that would otherwise be nonexistent.

Estimating the prevalence of mental disorder in the criminal justice system is a somewhat inexact practice as the population is inconsistently defined and markedly heterogeneous. Differences may exist on the basis of age, gender, diagnosis, or culture. The prevalence of mental disorder in the criminal justice system indicates that identifying such disorders is of paramount importance. Nonetheless, given the volume of prisoners admitted to jails and prisons on a daily basis, it is not possible to conduct a comprehensive mental health assessment with every person who enters the institution. Thus, screening is vital to identify those who do require a comprehensive evaluation. The aims of screening are to identify mentally disordered offenders and provide the necessary treatment, prevent violent and disruptive incidents in institutions, allocate resources for those with the greatest or most immediate need, and reduce the cycle of admissions to the criminal justice system. To ensure that those requiring mental health treatment are seen by mental health professionals in jails and prisons, screening processes should aim to minimize the number of “false negatives” (failing to identify an actually mentally disordered person), even at the expense of making “false positives” (those identified as possibly being mentally disordered who are not).

The JSAT was developed and refined over a 10-year period that included screening assessments on [Page 388]almost 50,000 prisoners. According to the authors of the JSAT, there are several aims involved in screening for mental disorders in the criminal justice system: identifying mentally disordered inmates for the purpose of treatment, preventing violent behavior, allocating limited resources for the inmates most in need of services, and reducing the demands on the criminal justice, health, and social welfare systems.

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