Tertiary Prevention for Incarcerated Youth: Effects of Facility-Level Services on Likelihood for Recidivism

Background and Purpose: Mental and emotional health problems are more prevalent among detained youth relative to the general population. There are concerns that manifestations of mental health symptoms within facilities can lengthen stays, exacerbate victimization experiences in the facility, lead to suicide attempts, or even pose greater danger to others residing in the facility. Furthermore, there is limited understanding of how youth mental health or emotional problems are detected and treated. Mental and emotional health services are not regularly provided within youth incarceration settings, but they may be important processes for successful community re-integration and long-term success. Nevertheless, there is a paucity of research on the promise of facility-level services; this paper seeks to study service impact on youths’ perceived likelihood for recidivism.

Methods: This paper draws from the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) sponsored research on data collected in the Survey of Youth in Residential Placement (SYRP). The SYRP is a self-report survey among pre- and post-adjudicated youth (N=7,073) aged 10-20 in juvenile facilities. The SYRP drew a nationally representative sample directly from the Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement and the Juvenile Residential Facility Census through a probability proportional-to-size sample design.

Among various other constructs, information was gathered on demographics and backgrounds, facility experiences and environment, maltreatment histories, services received in the facility, and perceived likelihood for recidivism. Independent variables included composite scales of individual items such as facility climate, use of staff control, staff characteristics, and early maltreatment (physical, emotional, and sexual abuse). Other independent variables included dummy coded ethnicity (African American and Hispanic), whether youth received counseling in facility for emotional problems and whether youth received mental health counseling in the facility. Two scaled (0= Definitely will not to 3= Definitely will) dependent variables included: likelihood for future arrest and likelihood for future incarceration. Weights and design effects were included in the analyses to compensate for dependence among observations and disproportionate sampling, and two multiple regression models were run using Stata.

Results: Results revealed that 49.5% and 71.9% of youth did not receive emotional or mental health services, respectively. The arrest model explained 11% of the variance, and incarceration model explained 12% of the variance. Results revealed that youth who received facility-based emotional (b=-2.39, p<.001) and mental health services (b=-2.01, p<.001) were less likely to indicate future arrest and future incarceration (b=-2.19, p<.001 and b=-2.07, p<.001, respectively). Further, ethnicity, facility climate, staff control, staff characteristics, and early maltreatment were statistically significant, but had weaker effects.

Conclusions and Implications: Even with more recent de-incarceration initiatives and movement towards community-based care, detention and incarceration will remain an option in making dispositional determinations. As a disproportionate number of youth in juvenile justice facilities have undetected mental and emotional health problems, this study supports the use of comprehensive screenings of adjudicated and incarcerated youth. Further, facility-level services must be applied to all youth with indicated mental or emotional health concerns.

Back to: Examining Treatment Needs of Youth Involved in the Juvenile Court: Implications for Effective Trauma-Informed Practice

<< Previous Abstract | Next Abstract