Title: Linking data for integrated systems analysis: pathways for people with disabilities in the criminal justice system
1Linking data for integrated systems analysis
pathways for people with disabilities in the
criminal justice system
- Eileen Baldry, Leanne Dowse, Melissa Clarence
Phillip Snoyman - University of New South Wales
- Presented to More than the sum of its parts.
- Second National Symposium on Data Linkage
Research. - Adelaide SA. 20-21st Oct 2008
- Presented by Devon Indig, Head of Research,
Centre for Health Research in Criminal Justice,
Justice Health, NSW.
2Outline
- Study background and description
- Complexities in compiling the cohort
- Difficulties in combining cross-paradigm data
- Early findings
- Conclusions
3Background
- People with Mental Health Disorders and Cognitive
Disabilities (MHDCD) are over-represented in the
Criminal Justice System (CJS) - Post-release these people have high rates of
homelessness, unemployment, low levels of family
support and therefore more likely to return to
prison quickly. - Interventions hampered by lack of overall and
longitudinal system impacts - Study designed to integrate criminal justice and
human services data.
4Study Overview
- Title People with Mental Health Disorders and
Cognitive Disabilities in the Criminal Justice
System in NSW - Methods Maps the criminal justice and human
service trajectories of a cohort of people with
MHDCD who have been in prison - Combines extant administrative data from a range
of criminal justice, health and human service
agencies to create a linked dataset - Mixed secondary analysis combining inductive and
life-course style assembly of the participants
CJS involvement with quantitative statistical
techniques. - Funding Australian Research Council Linkage
grant
5Study Overview - Investigators
- Chief Investigators A/Professor Eileen Baldry
UNSW, Emeritus Professor Ian Webster UNSW, Dr
Leanne Dowse UNSW - Partner Investigators A/Prof Tony Butler,
National Drug Research Institute, Curtin
University of Technology Jim Simpson, Senior
Advocate, NSW Council on Intellectual Disability
and Simon Eyland, Director, Corporate Research,
Evaluation and Statistics, NSW Dept of Corrective
Services. - Project staff Melissa Clarence (Data Manager),
Brooke Dinning (Research Assistant), Phillip
Snoyman (PhD student), Catriona McComish
(Criminal Justice Advisor)
6Partner and Data Agencies
- Data on a cohort of individuals being drawn from
-
- Justice Health (NSW)
- NSW Department of Corrective Services
- NSW Council for Intellectual Disability
- NSW Police Force
- NSW Department of Housing
- NSW Department of Juvenile Justice
- NSW Department of Health
- NSW Department of Community Services
- NSW Dept of Disability, Ageing and Home Care
- Legal Aid NSW
7Expected Outcomes
- Create life-course criminal justice histories
highlighting points of agency interaction,
diversion or support challenging to move from
segmented data to continuum. - Identify gaps in policy, protocols and service
delivery and areas of improvement for CJS and
Human Service agencies. - Investigate worker beliefs about attitudes
towards people with MHDCD (PhD topic) - Women with MHDCD experience of CJS (PhD)
- Impact of policy and legislation (students)
8Ethical Challenges
- Required ethical approval from 9 ethics
committees lengthy process - Developed detailed data confidentiality, privacy
and informed consent principles - Occurred in a period of rapid change
Baldry, Dowse, Clarence and Snoyman UNSW,
Symposium on Data Linkage Research 20/10/08
8
9Complexities in Compiling the Cohort
- Established using Justice Health 2001 NSW Inmate
Health Survey (N1,566) and the NSW Dept of
Corrective Services (DCS) Disability Unit
database (N1,446) - From N3,012 to N2,731 unique individuals
- Demographic details from DCS
- No unique identifiers between Police and DCS
- Multiple aliases
- Absence of criminal histories
- No systemic process could be identified to
account for data absences
10Cohort Description
- Cohort N2,731 people who have been in custody
- 89 are male
- 25 are Aboriginal or Torres Straight Islanders
- 4 main groups
- N568 (21) with a mental health disorder,
(defined as having any anxiety, affective or
psychiatric problem in the past 12 months) - N680 (25) with an intellectual disability
- N783 (29) borderline intellectual disability
- N700 (25) control group/other diagnosis
11Complexities in cross-paradigm research (1)
- Challenges in combining criminological and social
- Matching Processes
- Large number of aliases
- Ethical approval
12Complexities in cross-paradigm research (2)
- Problems with Statistical Linkage Key
- Agency capacity
- Record duplication
13Complexities in cross-paradigm research (3)
- Agency Data Systems
- Defining data that is available and suitable
- Evolving nature of data systems
- Variation in nature of agency data systems
- Time limitations of agency databases
- Administrative level analysis only
14Early Findings (1)
- Those with MHDCD have a higher number of
offences, incarcerations community orders than
control group - Although females have lower offences than males,
they have a higher number of incarcerations
orders - Offences largely theft, traffic, acts intended to
cause injury, justice (ie breaches etc) public
order offences - Shorter more frequent custody orders ie
churning around CJS - than control
15Early Findings (2)
- Over 2/3 have a drug use disorder
- High levels of risk re housing social behaviour
- High level of victimisation in prison
- At least 2/3 have been in Public Housing
- Most known to social services at some point
16Conclusions
- Dataset assembling points of contact and services
enables an interactional understanding. - Develops contextual understanding of crimes
- Compare and contrast nature, timing and patterns
of offending and service provision - Comparison across impairments
- Guides a more in-depth analysis of smaller sample
- Points to importance of meta-interpretation
which goes beyond the simple binary of
quantitative and qualitative research.
17Contact Details
- For more information contact
- A/Professor Eileen Baldry (02) 9385 1878
- E.baldry_at_unsw.edu.au
- Dr Leanne Dowse (02) 9385 8090
- L.dowse_at_unsw.edu.au
Baldry, Dowse, Clarence and Snoyman UNSW,
Symposium on Data Linkage Research 20/10/08
17