These disorders are commonly associated with severe and repetitive criminal behavior that leads to incarceration. The new MIND Mobile Imaging system is the first of its kind that will be deployed to prison facilities to study these populations in large numbers.

The cost of crime in the US is now estimated to be 1.33 trillion dollars a year (Anderson, 1999). For New Mexico, our portion of the bill is over 8.87 billion a year - and growing. Something must be done to better understand the neural systems associated with substance abuse, psychopathic personality and other criminal behaviors. The data collected by the Mobile MRI will increase our understanding of how different treatments work to prevent relapses to methamphetamine, heroin and cocaine addiction and which treatments work best for different individuals. With this research we also hope to better understand the environmental, cognitive, and behavioral characteristics that are most likely to predict serious adult criminal behavior in adolescents, which could lead to development of treatment programs to help at-risk adolescents avoid future criminal behavior and its consequences. The MIND Mobile Imaging system is comprised of a Siemens’ Avanto Magnetic Resonance Imaging system (the most advanced 1.5T system in the Siemens product line) and a 72-channel high-resolution EEG/ERP Biosemi system. Outfitted by our IT Department with the latest computing and networking equipment the Mobile MRI was first deployed in April, 2007, where it was deployed to an adult male correctional facility.  In summer 2007 the system was deployed at a local juvenile detention center.  Future plans include using the system with adult incarcerated women in 2008.  Inmates who volunteer for this program may receive therapy at no additional cost to the State.

Understanding the mental processes behind illegal behavior is the first step in providing better therapy for inmates in order to reduce recidivism rates and decrease the cost of criminal behavior to society.