Juvenile Detention Detainees

The juvenile justice system faces a significant challenge in identifying and responding to the psychiatric disorders of detained youth because research has shown that it is difficult to define the best means to use and enhance the scarce mental health resources (Kessler & Kraus, 2007). According to Cocozza and Skowyra (2000) “Children’s and adolescents’ mental health needs have historically been addressed inadequately in policy, practice, and research and have only the number of youth with mental illness and their level of unmet needs recognized” (p 4). Furthermore, that the juvenile justice system has gone from treatment and rehabilitation to retribution and punishment, that the prevalence is

Placing a juvenile in a detention center early in the court process increases the risk that youths will be found to be delinquent and damage their prospects for future success. A majority of the youths that are placed in these facilities pose little or no threat to the public and essentially do not need to be there. This portion of the juvenile court process is detrimental to the future and mental aspects of a youth’s life. We desperately need to change the way that we handle the juvenile court system because we are only reinforcing the delinquent behavior that these youths have been exposed to. We need to focus on the rehabilitation and prevention efforts for these youths not the punishment aspect and until then (insert a better ending).

Despite the fact that my parents have worked in the criminal justice system for many years, I have never given much thought to the treatment of prisoners. As we learned from the readings, the current state of the United States criminal justice system is imperfect to the point of cruelty to those involved in it. This is truer for individuals with a mental illness. Due to a lack of psychiatric facilities throughout Alabama and overcrowding of those that do exist, many criminal offenders with mental illnesses are sent to prisons instead. State prisons are currently overcrowded, leading to substandard conditions such in almost every aspect.

Jails and prisons are not set up to meet the treatment and accountability needs of the mentally ill (“Mental Health Court”, n.d.). “Inmates with mental illnesses are more likely than other to be held in solitary confinement, and many are raped, commit suicide, or hurt themselves” (Swanson, 2014). Making mental health courts mandatory would better address these needs by offering treatment,

Everyday correctional officials work to deal with mental health inmates. Often hotly debated, many search for ways to work with this growing population. Glaze and Bonczar (2009) estimate around 2.3 million people are incarcerated within the US and of those, 20 percent suffer from some form of mental disorder. Even with such a high number, the rate of mental illnesses within the prison system is on the climb. Many of these inmates will remain incarcerated and receive little to no treatment for their mental issues. This essay, will look at the practices associated when dealing with mental illness and discuss the strategies on dealing with this growing issue.

The number of people with mental illness in the criminal justice system is one of the most pressing problems facing law enforcement and corrections today (Cuellar, McReynolds, & Wasserman, 2006). The Surgeon General’s Report on Mental Health estimated that about 20% of children and adolescents in the general population have mental disorders with some degree of at least mild functional impairment (USPH, 1999). Subsequent research has found much higher rates of serious mental health problems among youth in the juvenile justice system. Among youth who have been arrested, one study found that 31% of youth had received services from the mental health system (Rosenblatt, Rosenblatt, & Biggs, 2000). Two studies of youth in juvenile detention found that between 60% and 68% met the diagnostic criteria for a mental health disorder (Teplin, Abram, McClelland, Dulcan, & Mericle, 2002; Wasserman, Ko, & McReynolds, 2004). Once youth with emotional disturbances enter the justice system, repeated arrests are common through the remainder of childhood and into adulthood. Recidivism rates for individuals with a serious mental illness are nearly double those in the general population (Baillargeon, Binswanger, Penn, Williams, & Murray, 2009; Constantine, Petrila, Andel, Givens, Becker et al., 2010). In an analysis of juvenile trajectories, youth with emotional disturbances in their late adolescent years were more likely to fall into the high arrest trajectory class and much

The shutdown of state mental hospitals and lack of available financial and institutional resources force mentally ill people to the United States Judicial System for mental health. Every year thousands of people are arrested for various crimes and they are sent to jail. Sixteen percent of these people have some type of mental health problem (Public Broadcasting System , 2001). When we consider that the United States has the largest incarcerated population in the world at 2.2 million, this number is staggering (Anasseril E. Daniel, 2007). This is about 1% of the entire population of the United States. There are many reasons as to why the situation has taken such a bad turn and when the history of the treatment of mental illness is examined one can see how the situation developed into the inhumane disaster it is today.

Juvenile justice settings, especially in Texas, were not designed as sites for comprehensive psychological and psychiatric treatment of adolescents’ mental disorders. On national, state, and local levels there has been a major increase in the interest of mental health needs within the juvenile justice system. Evidence-based research and data has become more available with societies interest into this matter. A continuous struggle with Texas policymakers and officials is identifying and properly treating mentally ill juveniles and keeping them out of the justice system. Acknowledging established data and comparing it to current Texas mandates helps seek recommendations for improvement within all levels and jurisdictions of the Texas juvenile justice system.

According to a 2006 Bureau of Justice Statistics report found that over half of the inmates in both prisons and in jails had a problem concerning their mental health (James & Glaze, 2006). The estimates in this report were separated by federal prisons, which contained 45 percent of inmates suffering from mental illness, 56 percent in state prisons, and

To properly evaluate the effectiveness, outcomes, and cost of the Therapeutic Detention Center for Juveniles program it will be necessary to conduct a mixed methods research approach that includes both qualitative and quantitative analysis. Fifty percent of juveniles who have been ordered by the court to this program will be randomly selected to be enrolled into a 5-year study. Juveniles diagnosed with a mental illness based off DSM-5 criteria who have been court ordered to the Therapeutic Detention Center will be eligible for the study. Consent should be obtained by both the juvenile and their parent/guardian for enrollment.

Social support is important so that the youth will be able to accept the incarceration better and not cause any danger to others or to himself or herself. Acceptance has a cushioning effect of the predicament of what it means to be incarcerated means for that person, whereas denial can lead to the exact opposite, such as the person will cause chaos inside and outside his or her cell and not only to themselves but for every other person present. The only coping variable related to violent behavior was active coping, which was associated with lower rates of violent offending among youth with any violent incidents.(Shulman, 2011) It is very important that the adolescents know how to cope with the fact that they are going to spend their time in a cell rather their comfortable

Juvenile Detention Centers were created with the intention of rehabilitation. However, over time rehabilitation has been forgotten. Education is part of rehabilitation. In

The Lookout Mountain Youth Correctional Facility is run by the Colorado Department of Human Services, Division of Youth Corrections and serves male juvenile offenders in a secure treatment program. Their mission is “to be a model of excellence providing treatment for youth in a safe, secure and healthy environment.” They are firm believers that all people have dignity and worth and they “strive to create opportunities for positive growth and change.” 70-75% of youth placed in the facility suffer from mental health issues outside of a simple disorder causing misbehavior. These disorders range from post-traumatic stress disorder, mood disorders, and attention deficit and hyperactivity disorders. In addition to mental health disorders, many

The significance of this study was to examine if adolescents in a juvenile detention center in St. Louis City could self-adjust, cope or adapt with their levels of stress. There is a great deal of literature available supporting the notion of utilizing affective tactics in combating stress levels among various age groups. However, there is very little information provided on at-risk adolescents in a juvenile detention center confronted with dangerous levels of stress. The importance of understanding how these detained adolescents between the ages of 11-17, approach dealing with their stress is not just beneficial to them and the institution responsible for providing adequate care. It further provides a unique view into the mindset of detained

What we could do to prevent or decreased crimes in juveniles is to build enough business so that everyone who lives in the Urban area could obtain a job and become stable. A way in which we could build enough business in the Urban Area is by informing the Governor to use people’s taxes money to build the businesses instead of giving it to the people that do not work. Juvenile detention facility is a prison where they put underage teenagers that have committed a crime. The idea of a juvenile detention facility is to prevent juvenile delinquents from committing a crime again. Is juvenile detention facility effective?. Juvenile detention facility is not effective because it puts juvenile at risk, and negatively influences them psychologically and academically. So how does juvenile ends up in detention facility?. How does the detention facility affects juveniles when they come back to society, how does it affects them into getting a job in the future and why it is important for people to know that juvenile detention facility is not