Substance use and suicidal thoughts and behaviors in a pretrial diversion program: What are the roles of aggression, substance use-related problems, and depression?

Suicide is a public health issue in the U.S. criminal legal system, including pretrial diversion programs. Consistent with ideation-to-action frameworks, substance use may co-occur with conflict, reactive aggression, depression, and suicide-related outcomes. However, integrated models of these factors and suicidal behaviors remain untested in pretrial diversion samples. Using Associational Variable Analysis in a pretrial diversion sample ( N = 225), we examined indirect associations of alcohol and drug use with lifetime suicide ideation and suicide attempt history through reactive aggression,