Six years on: a prospective cohort study of male juvenile offenders in secure care

Abstract

Longitudinal studies are helpful in understanding developmental trajectories and recognising opportunities for early intervention. This paper describes the long-term needs and mental health of an initial sample of male juvenile offenders, now adults 6 years after their index admission to secure care. In this prospective cohort study of 97 male juvenile offenders admitted to secure, offenders were assessed initially on admission, 2 and 6 years later. Interviews were conducted with 54 offenders at the 6-year follow-up and included an assessment of psychosocial need, mental health and psychopathy. Outcome data on offending behaviour were collected on a total of 71 offenders. Persistent offenders have needs in multiple domains as they transition into adulthood. The majority of offenders were single and about a half were in neither employment nor training. Almost nine out of ten offenders had a substance misuse disorder and a similar number met the criteria for a diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder. Substance misuse in adolescence was strongly correlated with later substance misuse in adulthood, emphasising the importance of early intervention. A diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder and living with friends and family were both significantly associated with persistent offending behaviour. Many offenders continued to reoffend despite receiving offence-related interventions and custodial care. Interventions currently aimed at reducing recidivism in more severe offenders appear to be ineffective. Persistent offenders would benefit from a multi-modal approach based on individual needs, rather than receiving generic interventions.

A crucial role for basic emotion awareness in the development of emotion regulation?

“…The Chitsabesan et al paper [12], in this issue, indirectly supports the need for further research on emotion awareness and recognition. The authors investigate the long term psychosocial and mental health needs of a group of juvenile offender (age 12-17) followed for 6 years.…”

Residential interventions with justice involved youths.

“…Despite significant reductions in the use of out-ofhome placements, more than 100,000 juveniles continue to be placed in residential facilities as a result of contact with the juvenile justice system, and data reflect that minority youths continue to be disproportionately placed in such placements (Hockenberry, 2014). Regardless of race and gender, juvenile offenders in residential placements have extremely high rates of mental health disorders, are frequently exposed to victimization, and exhibit a pattern of general delinquency risk factors that collectively contribute to high recidivism rates after being discharged from residential placements (Chitsabesan et al, 2012;Espinosa et al, 2013;Sedlack & McPherson, 2010b;Teplin et al, 2002).…”

“…This will help refine our knowledge of key treatment mechanisms and under what conditions or with whom treatments are most effective. The moderators that we have reviewed here include presence and severity of mental health problems (Chitsabesan et al, 2012;Espinosa et al, 2013), negative peer density and peer contagion (Huefner & Ringle, 2012;Lee & Thompson, 2009), and staff and youth perceptions of program integrity and safety (Holmqvist et al, 2007;van der Laan & Eichelsheim, 2013). The trend toward downsizing residential programs means that generating evidence of treatment effectiveness will often require using multiple facilities to obtain a sufficiently large sample.…”

“…Recent data have suggested that rates of disorders increase as youths penetrate further into the juvenile justice system, with severity of disorders being associated with higher risk and lower protective factors as well as increased risk for continued offending behavior (Chitsabesan et al, 2012). As such, the presence and persistence of mental health disorders require careful assessment and management when youths are placed in residential treatment programs, because the data suggest that the presence of mental health problems is one factor that could moderate the overall effectiveness of general rehabilitation programs (Chitsabesan et al, 2012;Starnes, 2013).…”

Young men and young women in secure care: gender differences in the placement of those with mental health needs

“…Empirical material is available on UK Young People's mental health in all three components of the system but these data are only available by separate systemic components i.e. child welfare [9][10][11], secure hospital care [12][13][14] and the Youth Justice System (YJS) [15,16]; this single agency perspective is also evident in other jurisdictions [17]. Relevant UK based studies describe units in which there are more young men than young women and high levels of mental health difficulty, variably Fig.…”