Integrated Behavioral Healthcare and the Reduction of the Number of Arrests

Integrated Behavioral Healthcare (IBH) provides a basis for a person's general and behavioral well-being. It can be used to explain tendencies such as drug abuse in people. In recent years, when integrated health was merged with primary care, there was a significant reduction in anxiety and depression (Balasubramanian, 2017). Additionally, patients received better care, reversing the adverse conditions they experienced prior (Balasubramanian, 2017). Many offenders have a history of mental health issues and substance abuse. Since there has been poor matching of the conditions they experience and their treatment options, it's pertinent to identify the best treatment methods, to improve the operations of correctional facilities to produce better citizens after they're released from their term. Additionally, offenders and ex-convicts under community supervision risk contracting chronic and communicable diseases (Sulistyowati, 2020). As such, IBH is an essential treatment method that improves the correctional factor of prisons by treating the underlying conditions of its inmates and ex-offenders, protecting them from chronic diseases.

The research gap in current literature that prompts further study is the influence of IBH on recidivism rates. Therefore, the main hypothesis is that there’s a significant correlation between the number of offenders who underwent IBH treatment and the number of recidivism cases in Florida. Additionally, this study seeks to establish the factors associated with the effectiveness of IBH among those who receive the treatment, including demographic and treatment-related factors. IBH has become an essential treatment method since it combines social sciences and primary healthcare to diagnose and treat mental health issues. Healthcare providers can combine various disciplines with the treatment method to develop a better treatment program for optimal results. Using the proposed theory, it is expected that IBH has reversed conditions of mental health and substance abuse in offenders and therefore has a significant influence on the chances of offense reoccurrence. Using a case-control study method, the study’s target population includes offenders who have been arrested at least once and have at least one diagnosed mental illness. The cases have undergone IBH treatment while the controls haven’t been treated during their terms. The independent variables, which include the number of sessions attended, the license type of healthcare providers, and the frequency of consultation, will be pertinent in determining the number of arrests of offenders chosen for the study. The number of sessions attended influences the vigor of treatment a patient undergoes and can explain the level of care they receive. The doctor's license type explains the quality of treatment given to offenders, therefore the effectiveness of IBH, while the frequency of consultation allows the researcher to determine the minimum number of sessions that reverse the adverse conditions of inmates, influencing their rates of recidivism.

According to Albert Bandura, people can observe, imitate, and model the behavior of those around them. It is an important theory in explaining the positive and negative changes in individuals, such as the acuity of drug abuse tendencies and the correction of the same. Social behaviors allow human beings to develop coherent thoughts and communicate effectively. The ability to relate with others has been emphasized by philosophers such as Aristotle, stating that a person who cannot coexist with others in society is either a god or an evil (Barto, 2022). Albert used the principles of attention, retention, reproduction, and motivation to explain his theory. Attention allows the observer to know the details in the process, acquiring the required skills and is better facilitated in group learning (Barto, 2022). Retention, the ability to retain information, determines the amount of knowledge received, which learners can practice in the reproduction stage (Barto, 2022). Finally, motivation defines the intrinsic or extrinsic factors that are consequences of actions taken, influencing the behavior of learners (Barto, 2022).

References

Balasubramanian, B. A., Cohen, D. J., Jetelina, K. K., Dickinson, L. M., Davis, M., Gunn, R., ... & Green, L. A. (2017). Outcomes of integrated behavioral health with primary care. The Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine, 30(2), 130-139. https://doi.org/10.3122/jabfm.2017.02.160234.

Barto, A. (2022). Social Learning Theory: Principles and Applications - Roundtable Learning. Retrieved 24 August 2022, from https://roundtablelearning.com/social-learning-theory-principles-and-applications/.

Sulistyowati, W. K. (2020). Releasing the Criminals: Polemics on The Provision of Assimilation Prisoners in The Covid-19 Pandemic Case. The Indonesian Journal of International Clinical Legal Education, 2(3), 315-330. https://doi.org/10.15294/ijicle.v2i3.38416.