Psychiatric Disorder in a Juvenile Assessment Center

Abstract

Juvenile assessment centers (JACs) were developed to address service fragmentation and promote the sharing of information among agencies providing services to youth involved with the juvenile justice system. To date, there are no reports that describe the diagnostic profiles of the youth served by such centers. The authors hypothesize that the rates of psychiatric disorder among youth at JAC intake would be lower than rates reported for youth in secure care, that girls would show higher rates of some disorders, and that those with substance disorders would show higher rates of other, co-occurring disorders. Disorder was measured on the Voice Diagnostic Interview Schedule for Children in 1,012 randomly selected youth (248 girls). Rates of disorder for JAC youth are lower than those reported for incarcerated samples and more comparable to other general intake samples; JAC youth's diagnostic profiles remain elevated compared to youth in the general population, and girls report higher rates of disorder in three of four diagnostic clusters examined. Clinical and policy implications are discussed.

The Consequences of Juvenile Detention Reform for Mental Health and Sexually Transmitted Infection Screening Among Detained Youth

“…First, the rate of mental health problems in youth arrested may be as high as in Table 2 Mental health screening, positive mental health screening rates, STI screening, and positive STI screening rates pre-and postimplementation of detention diversion for juveniles detained Ն 5 days (N ϭ 883 youth before diversion, N ϭ 746 youth after diversion) detained youth, a finding supported by previous research. Investigators explored the mental health diagnoses of arrested youth at probation intake [23,24] and found that 45% of male and 50% of female arrestees in Texas [25], and 27% and 39%, respectively, in Florida, met criteria for a mental illness diagnosis [24]. Hence, our finding supports previous research evidence that, although at rates still lower than among detained youth, arrested youth have significant psychopathology.…”

Prevalence of psychiatric disorders among juvenile offenders in Malaysian prisons and association with socio-demographic and personal factors

“…Associations have been found between adolescent substance use and abuse with antisocial behaviour, rebelliousness, aggressiveness, crime, delinquency, truancy and school performance (Federman et al, 1997). Many studies have found high substance use among juvenile offenders (Vaughn et al, 2007;McReynolds et al, 2008;Hussey et al, 2007). We found that most of the detainees abused or were dependent to illicit drugs rather than alcohol.…”

“…A great concern in Malaysia is that most cases of drug abuse involve young people in their productive years (Rusdi et al, 2008). Apart from SUD and CD, most co-morbid disorders in this study were not statistically significant although associations between concomitant substance use and other psychiatric disorders have been well documented (Deykin et al, 1992;Greenbaum et al, 1996;McReynolds et al, 2008).…”

Juvenile Probation Officers’ Mental Health Decision Making

“…Most justice youths are not incarcerated, but are managed in their communities (Snyder and Sickmund 2006). Service needs in this larger group of youth undergoing intake into the juvenile justice system, based on rates of disorder, are markedly lower than for incarcerated youths but still higher than for those in the general community (McReynolds et al 2008;Wasserman et al 2005;Wasserman and McReynolds 2006).…”