Unmet mental health and criminogenic needs among justice-involved young people: a role for clinicians in the community

Offending behaviour and mental ill-health among young people: Reducing recidivism requires integration with youth mental health care

“…Youth forensic mental health approaches must also integrate an understanding of masculinities [ 24 ], given the disproportionate representation of young men in justice-involved populations. Young men are at a markedly higher likelihood of justice system involvement (3.7 times more likely to be arrested; 3.9 times more likely to be sentenced) relative to female peers [ 25 ].…”

“…Socio-culturally tailored interventions offer a vehicle for engaging this population in mental health care. To achieve this, however, mental health clinicians will likely need to modify their approaches to treatment [ 24 ] (i.e. being more accepting of client defensiveness or mistrust, being open to working with symptom complexity, and acceptance of a gradual the pace of change).…”

“…While custodial models of specialist care integrating multidisciplinary youth mental health expertise are now emerging – e.g. the Orygen Forensic Youth Mental Health program in Melbourne, Australia [ 24 ] – such programs are resource-intensive, skewed toward custodial (rather than community-based) settings, and are not yet scalable beyond high-income countries. To support the universal need for specialist forensic youth mental health programs, lower-income countries can embark on education/training programs for police and prison staff regarding youth mental health (e.g.…”

“…Justice-involved youth should have equity of access to evidence-based mental health intervention [ 1 , 31 ], which is an essential aspect of recidivism reduction and supporting the transition to adulthood and a life of contribution and meaning. Specialist forensic youth mental health services offer a major advantage in providing care coordination and continuity for young people as they move through the justice system [ 24 ]. This spans routine mental health screening at first contact through to post-release linkage and inter-agency planning.…”