NCJ Number
142755
Date Published
1992
Length
8 pages
Annotation
In 1981, the New York State Department of Correctional Services (DOCS) began to administer the Michigan Alcohol Screening Test (MAST) to new commitments to State facilities, rather than relying on the self-reports of offenders, as the basis for statistics on alcohol abuse among inmates.
Abstract
As part of an ongoing series of surveys, this report reviewed all male and female new commitments received in 1991 to determine the percentage of inmates whose MAST scores indicated a serious alcohol abuse problem. The results showed that 28.9 percent of the 23,084 new commitments in 1991 scores MAST scores of 9 or higher, indicating alcoholism. While 44.3 percent of commitments from upstate New York communities had high MAST scores, only 25 percent of New York City commitments had similar scores. The percentage of alcoholics was nearly identical between male and female commitments. However, 53 percent of the males were nonalcoholic compared to 35 percent of the females, while 18 percent of the males were "possibly alcoholic," compared to 36.5 percent of the females. Between 1987 and 1991, there was no consistent trend in the percentage of commitments with high MAST scores; the percentage of scores indicating alcohol abuse problems ranged from 24.1 percent to 28.9 percent. 2 tables, 1 figure, and 8 notes