Original articleComplex Health Needs in the Youth Justice System: A Survey of Community-Based and Custodial Offenders
Section snippets
Participants
Between May 27, 2002, and October, 1, 2003, we interviewed sentenced young offenders in Victoria, with roughly even division of participants with a CBO and a custodial order. Those eligible to participate had received a court sentence, not continuous from a previous sentence, between May 21, 2002, and August, 31, 2003. Those admitted to custody on remand (pretrial detention) or in the community awaiting preparation of pre-sentence reports were ineligible but may have subsequently been sentenced
Results
The sample consisted of 515 participants aged 13–21 years, with 47.0% (n = 242) serving a CBO and 53.0% (n = 273) serving a custodial order at the time of interview. Based on Victorian Juvenile Justice data, we sampled 35% of all eligible Victorian young offenders during the study period, with a higher recruitment fraction in the custodial sample (68%) than in the CBO sample (23%). In the CBO group, participants were significantly more likely than non-participants to be female (21% versus 14%; p
Discussion
In a large sample of young offenders we identified a high prevalence of social disadvantage, substance dependence, and clinically significant symptoms of depressive and psychotic disorders. Many reported having a family member with a history of substance-related problems, mental illness, or incarceration. Experiences of sexual victimization and sexual risk behavior were common. Our findings add to a growing body of literature documenting high-level and complex health-related needs among young
Acknowledgments
The authors thank the study participants for sharing their stories, and the Juvenile Justice Branch of the Department of Human Services Victoria for assistance with data collection. An earlier version of this article was presented at the Sixth Academic and Health Policy Conference on Correctional Health, Chicago, Illinois, March 21–22, 2013.
References (25)
- et al.
Mental disorders among adolescents in juvenile detention and correctional facilities: A systematic review and metaregression analysis of 25 surveys
J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry
(2008) - et al.
The health status of youth in juvenile detention facilities
J Adolesc Health
(2006) - et al.
Perceived barriers to mental health services among youths in detention
J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry
(2008) - et al.
Medical status of adolescents at time of admission to a juvenile detention center
J Adolesc Health
(1998) - et al.
Functional impairment in youth three years after detention
J Adolesc Health
(2009) - et al.
Joint consideration of distal and proximal predictors of premature mortality among serious juvenile offenders
J Adolesc Health
(2013) - et al.
Predicting female depression across puberty: A two-nation longitudinal study
J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry
(2008) - et al.
Predicting future depression in adolescents using the Short Mood and Feelings Questionnaire: A two-nation study
J Affect Disord
(2011) Juvenile justice in Australia 2010-11
(2012)Cross-national comparison of youth justice
(2008)
Major mental disorders, substance use disorders, comorbidity, and HIV-AIDS risk behaviors in juvenile detainees
Psychiatric Services
2009 NSW Young People in Custody Health Survey: Full report
Cited by (42)
The effectiveness of cognitive bias modification in reducing substance use in detained juveniles: An RCT
2024, Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental PsychiatryCaring for Children in the Juvenile Justice System: A Trauma and Surgical Subspecialty-Focused Approach
2022, Journal of Surgical ResearchCitation Excerpt :The baseline health needs of youth in custody are similar to their peers in the community, but there are conditions with much higher prevalence in children in the justice system that make these patients a vulnerable population with unique medical and social needs. Issues known to be more prevalent in incarcerated youth include chronic medical conditions that particularly affect ethnic minorities and low socioeconomic communities (asthma, type 2 diabetes, and sickle cell disease), issues of sexual health (sexually transmitted infections, teenage pregnancy, and parenthood), behavioral and psychological disorders (mood disorders, substance abuse, suicidality, and post-traumatic stress disorder), and physical traumatic injuries.2,4-7 Many of these discrepancies may be related to exposure to adverse childhood experiences (ACEs).8
Depression in Justice-involved Youth
2019, Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Clinics of North AmericaCitation Excerpt :Additional studies have also shown that a mental health diagnosis increased the likelihood of juvenile justice involvement, especially in the absence of an effective caregiver,12 and that a lifetime diagnosis of depression is predictive of future juvenile justice involvement.13 The rate of diagnoses seems to increase with increasing involvement in the juvenile justice system.14 Youth processed in adult courts have higher prevalence of psychiatric disorders than incarcerated adults.15
Age-Specific Global Prevalence of Hepatitis B, Hepatitis C, HIV, and Tuberculosis Among Incarcerated People: A Systematic Review
2018, Journal of Adolescent HealthLanguage diversity, language disorder, and fetal alcohol spectrum disorder among youth sentenced to detention in Western Australia
2018, International Journal of Law and PsychiatryCitation Excerpt :Regardless of FASD diagnosis however, most of the young people in our study who were identified with language disorder were vulnerable across multiple language skills. Our findings likely reflect that language development is sensitive to developmental and environmental circumstances, and young people who become involved in youth justice are at increased risk of these and of having language disorder (Anderson et al., 2016; Commonwealth of Australia, 2017; Kinner et al., 2014). Further research exploring prenatal alcohol exposure, adverse environmental risks and language disorder is needed (Price et al., 2017), and is important in better understanding the effects of historical and sociocultural factors that may have led to drinking in pregnancy, such as the effects of colonisation and the separation of children from families experienced by first nations peoples (Commonwealth of Australia, 1997; Rogers, McLachlan, & Roesch, 2013).
Adolescents in therapeutic residential care: treatment needs and characteristics
2023, European Journal of Social Work
Conflicts of Interest: None of the authors has any potential, perceived, or real conflict of interest to declare. None of the authors received an honorarium, grant, or other form of payment to produce the manuscript. The study sponsors had no role in study design; collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; or writing and submitting the manuscript for publication.