# Forging New Paths: Building Interventions to Treat Criminogenic Needs in Community Based Mental Health Settings

> **NIH NIH R34** · UNIV OF NORTH CAROLINA CHAPEL HILL · 2024 · $235,903

## Abstract

ABSTRACT
The failure of traditional mental health services to significantly reduce the disproportionate involvement of
people with serious mental illnesses (SMI) in the criminal justice system highlights a basic but overlooked fact:
mental illness is not a primary driver of criminal justice involvement. Research has consistently shown that
people with mental illness face the same risk factors for justice involvement (i.e., “criminogenic” risk factors) as
those without mental illnesses. Research has also found that justice-involved people with SMI have high levels
of criminogenic risk factors and that these risk factors mediate their risk of recidivism. Yet, most interventions
for justice-involved people with SMI do not target criminogenic risk factors as a goal of treatment. This gap
between research and service provision represents untapped potential to reduce rates of justice involvement
among people with SMI, by expanding their continuum of services to include interventions that directly target
criminogenic risk factors. Our recent NIMH-funded randomized controlled trial (1R34MH111855-01; PI: Wilson)
demonstrated that when adapted for use with people with SMI, criminogenic-focused interventions can
successfully engage key treatment targets and outcomes associated with criminogenic risk factors among
prisoners with SMI. Given that up to 50% of people with SMI receiving treatment in the community-based
mental health system have had some criminal justice system involvement, developing criminogenic-focused
interventions for delivery in community mental health settings has great potential to optimize their potential
impact, both in terms of the numbers of people with SMI who can benefit and in terms of potential reductions in
future criminal justice involvement. This R34 proposal brings together a team of nationally recognized experts
to engage a deployment-focused approach to the development and preliminary testing of a new, scalable, and
sustainable group-based, criminogenic-focused cognitive-behavioral therapy intervention developed
specifically for use among people with SMI in community-based mental health settings. This proposed study
includes three aims. The first aim will engage user-centered design methodologies to optimize the
development of the new intervention. The second aim will conduct a small pilot randomized controlled trial to
test the preliminary effectiveness of the new intervention. This pilot trial will engage an experimental
therapeutics approach to examine how the new intervention engages the intended treatment targets and
outcomes. The third aim will use qualitative research methods with key stakeholders to identify implementation
strategies that both maximize and expediate the scalability and sustainability of the new intervention in
community based mental health settings.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10890017
- **Project number:** 5R34MH130555-03
- **Recipient organization:** UNIV OF NORTH CAROLINA CHAPEL HILL
- **Principal Investigator:** AMY Blank Wilson
- **Activity code:** R34 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $235,903
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2022-09-01 → 2026-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10890017

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10890017, Forging New Paths: Building Interventions to Treat Criminogenic Needs in Community Based Mental Health Settings (5R34MH130555-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-26 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10890017. Licensed CC0.

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