During the last decade, much reliance has been placed on the juvenile justice system for fulfilling the demands of juvenile offenders having mental health concerns. Due to this rising tendency, research has been conducted to explore the effectiveness of different interventions and treatment programs and approaches having different levels of success. At the same time, it is suggested by the present literature that as a result of internet-related problems involved for the youth in juvenile justice system having mental health issues, there is a need for a dynamic system of care that extends beyond mere treatment.
Introduction: the juvenile justice system is at present facing the task of providing mental health assessments and treatment services to the youth, particularly in view of plans on juvenile justice system for doing so. In this regard, Garascia (2005) has pointed out that originally the juvenile justice system was a preventive and rehabilitative approach, which emphasize on the needs and rights of the children as compared to give encouragement to them. Therefore, it needs to be mentioned that the ultimate goal of juvenile justice system, according to the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act, 1974 was to keep away the youth from formal, punitive processing that is a part of adult justice system. They result, in turn, was the use of community-based programs instead of the larger institutions. During 1980s and 90s, there was an interesting shift presence in the treatment of juvenile offenders by the justice system. Before 1980s, juveniles were considered as rehabilitative. But on account of a short-lived surge in violent delinquency, the main goal became the protection of the community. The result was that an approach was developed by the juvenile justice system according to which punishment/criminalization perspective was used over the rehabilitative/medicalization perspective. In the same way, the education system adopted zero-tolerance attitude, during the early 1990s, more than half of the States in US made revisions of which allowed that juvenile offenders can be easily prosecuted in adult courts. Similarly, more punitive laws were introduced for the purpose of dealing with adolescent crime.
Even if the youth committed violent and non-violent crimes at a lower rate, it is mentioned by Harms (2002) that the number of young persons who were processed through the juvenile justice system also surged significantly. For example, in 1960, nearly 1100 delinquency cases were possessed each day, while in 2009, nearly 4000 pregnancy cases were handled by the juvenile courts. Similarly in 2013 the number of delinquency cases processed daily was around 2900. According to an estimate by the National Juvenile Justice Council, the number of these cases went up by 30% between 1985 and 2009. At the same time there was a decrease of 9% between 1985 and 2013. More particularly the delinquency cases involving drug offenses, public order offenses and person offenses increased while there was a decrease in property offenses. Between 1985 and 2013 the number of delinquency cases in which detention was involved reached its peak in 2002. However, it decreased by 44% through 2013 and reached its lowest level since 1985. Therefore NJJC provides that despite the decrease in the number of delinquency cases in which detention was involved, the proportion of cases detained was hired in 2013 (at 21%) as compared to 1985 with 19%. Between 1985 and 2013, the chances that a delinquency case was going to be in formerly handled also decreased significantly. Even if there was an intermediary increase, 31% of all the delinquency cases resulted in adjudication or the waiver to criminal court. This was much similar to 1985 with 30% of all cases. In view of the situation, it can be said that some efforts were being made in the recent years for decreasing the number of youth cases that were being processed in the juvenile justice system. However, this can be achieved by processing cases more informally or transferring the cases to adult courts.
At the same time, it has been noted by Trupin and Boesky (1999) that as this shift has taken place, there are several juvenile justice systems, who remain unequipped for dealing with the actual needs that are present in case of the youth with mental health disorders. It has been living investigations that have been conducted by the US Department of Justice that the mental health services for youth that are typically offered by juvenile justice are generally inadequate or basic are unavailable at all. In the same way, in the report of Federal Advisory Committee on Juvenile Justice (2011), it has been mentioned as the barriers present in providing adequate services for this purpose include the lack of administrative capacity, insufficient resources, lack of training and appropriate staffing. As a result of the lack of research in this field, along with insufficient policy development, inadequate models of care and ineffective experience and training provided to the staff along with inadequate practice, the juvenile correction personnel have to face obstacles in their ability to provide adequate services to the young offenders with mental health problems.
In view of the research conducted in this regard, it can be stated that during the recent years, it has become clear that although incarceration and detainment on necessary in case of small number of juveniles, but generally they have more detrimental effects which include recidivism and continued offending. In the same way, from the point of view of economical and long-term benefit, the alternatives based on community were considered to be more successful in case of rehabilitating the youth. Even in case of the young persons who have committed violent and serious crimes. For this purpose, it is required that an integrated system of care should intervene in the juvenile cases in a collaborative manner for the purpose of fulfilling the interrelated requirements of each individual youth. Apart from diagnosis, the youth who are present in the juvenile justice system need different levels of care. Therefore, rehabilitation needs an effective process of screening and evaluation, along with various treatment options. The models of treatment have proved to be more efficient when they include families and youth, trained professionals, and when these programs are based on community and deal with the problem behaviors and lay stress as a systemic unit. At the same time, it has also been revealed by the research that the mental health requirements of delinquent youth, should be the joint responsibility of the community. This requires the redefining of the role that displayed by the juvenile justice system. This role needs to be narrow, concentrated and it should be aberration with wider community for fulfilling the needs of offending youths who have mental health problems. In some states, the use of Juvenile Crisis Intervention Teams can be considered as an initial step taken in this regard for diverging and referring the young offenders to the resources that are present in the community. At the same time, the initial role of juvenile justice system ought to be the identification of mental health needs and diverging the young persons to community.
Therefore,
it needs to be mentioned in the end that as against focusing the resources on
the creation of new interventions within the system, it has been indicated by
the recent research that steps like redefining the role of juvenile Justice,
mental health education and child protection system as a systemic and
collaborated care unit can prove to be vigilant in rehabilitating the youth
offenders, particularly those with mental health problems.
References
Garascia J.A. (2005) The price we are willing to pay for punitive justice in the juvenile justice system: Mentally ill delinquents and their disproportionate share of the burden. Indiana Law J.;80:489–515
Harms P. (2002) Detention in delinquency cases, 1989–1998. Off. Juv. Justice Delinquency Prev. J. Fact. Sheet;1:1–2
Trupin E., Boesky L. (1999) Working Together for Change: Co-Occurring Mental Health and Substance Use Disorders Among Youth Involved in the Juvenile Justice System: Cross Training, Juvenile Justice, Mental Health, Substance Abuse. The National GAINS Center; Delmar, NY, USA
Federal Advisory Committee on Juvenile Justice. (2006) Federal Advisory Committee on Juvenile Justice Annual Report 2006. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention; Washington, DC, USA
Grisso T., Barnum R. (2000) Massachusetts Youth Screening Instrument, Second Version: User Manual and Technical Report. University of Massachusetts Medical School; Worcester, MA, USA
Gottsman D., Schwarz S. (2011) Juvenile Justice in the U.S.: Facts for Policymakers. National Center for Children in Poverty; New York, NY, USA
Colins L., Vermeiren R., Vreughenhil C., VandenBrink W., Doreleijers T., Broekaert E. (2010) Psychiatric disorders in detained male adolescents: A systematic literature review. Can. J. Psychiatry; 55:255–263
