Overview of European forensic youth care: towards an integrative mission for prevention and intervention strategies for juvenile offenders

Abstract

All over Europe youth delinquency is decreasing; our understanding of the factors related to juvenile delinquency and the characteristics of effective forensic youth care has increased substantially. However, effective prevention and intervention strategies are not always employed due to financial, demographical and socio-political challenges countries face, while the burden of mental health in juvenile justice populations is high. With this commentary, we highlight the importance of international collaboration to set out a direction to improve forensic youth care, to bundle our strengths and overcome our challenges. It is a continuation of the course that was set out by Doreleijers and Fegert (Child Adolesc Psychiatry Ment Health 5:20, 2011), in their editorial they highlighted the importance of collaboration and presented an overview of the state of the art on forensic youth care in eight European countries (and Russia). With this manuscript, we present an overview of statistics in juvenile justice of all European countries and present an integrated mission statement for forensic youth care, which was formulated in a keynote debate at the 6th biennial congress of the European Association for Forensic Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychology and other involved professions (EFCAP).

Ethische Herausforderungen in der forensischen Kinder- und Jugendpsychiatrie. Eine qualitative Beobachtungsstudie und ein Instrument zur Früherkennung und Frühintervention

“…Die Versorgung von jugendlichen Straftätern mit psychischer Beeinträchtigung zu verbessern, ist ein zentrales Anliegen der forensischen Kinder-und Jugendpsychiatrie (FKJP) (Souverein et al 2019). Die Universitären Psychiatrischen Kliniken Basel (UPK) eröffneten zu diesem Zweck 2011 den Bereich Jugendforensik, der Abteilung und Ambulanz umfasst.…”

Locked up or locked out: Time to reverse the social neglect of young people with forensic mental health issues

“…Many countries have made strides in this direction. The European Association for Forensic Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Psychology and other involved professions, EFCAP‐EU, was founded in 1997, with a clear mandate to develop international linkages, education and research; to pollenate existing youth mental health and justice services with forensic expertise; and to improve facilities (Souverein et al, ). In the intervening years, many EFCAP‐EU countries have seen a sustained decrease in youth offending, closures of empty custodial sites, a movement towards integrated multi‐agency services for young offenders with mental health issues and a shift towards adolescent jurisdictions imposing civil rather than penal dispositions.…”

Effectiveness of an Individual Cognitive-Behavioral Intervention for Serious, Young Male Violent Offenders: Randomized Controlled Study With Twenty-Four-Month Follow-Up

“…For instance, through attention and encouragement from peers when exhibiting oppositional or aggressive behaviors toward staff. Such negative influences or contagion effects suggest a need for individualized interventions to complement the more common group-based interventions in juvenile forensic institutions ( 12 , 14 ).…”