Comparing arrest rates of mental patients and criminal offenders.

The authors compared the arrest rates of former mental patients with those of criminal offenders released in the same jurisdiction. The data for all ex-patients and all offenders released in Albany County, New York, in 1968 and 1975 support the contention that it is the relationship between prior and subsequent arrests that explains the increasing crime rate of ex-patients and the three to six times higher rate of arrest of released offenders. Since the three-quarters of former patients with no arrest records were arrested about as often as the general population and substantially less often than offenders, care is warranted in drawing inferences from overall mental patient arrest rates.