Mentally ill homeless clients were randomly assigned to three service conditions upon leaving jail: intensive case management provided by an assertive community treatment team, intensive case management provided by individual case managers, and referral to a community mental health center. The researchers used discriminant function and chi square analyses on the data pertinent to whether clients' service needs were met. Findings show that 32 percent of the 105 clients interviewed at 6 months were reincarcerated during the 6-month study period. Return to jail was related to receipt of fewer services than clients reported they needed, notably to receipt of fewer services designed to develop independent living skills. Service condition was not significantly related to return to jail. The study concludes that case management, a flexible community-based service that does not lend itself to prescribed procedures, may easily deteriorate into the provision of monitoring rather than rehabilitative services for forensic clients, and thus may facilitate reincarceration. 3 tables and 21 references