How Do Youth with Mental Health Disorders Fare in the Juvenile Justice System?
- Presenter:
Chair: Sherry Glied; Discussant: Sherry Glied Mon June 5, 2006 17:15-18:45 Room 332
Several studies have documented that youth with emotional and substance use disorders are overrepresented in the juvenile justice system. Whether youth with mental health problems receive harsher treatment in the juvenile justice system compared to similar youth without mental health problems has been the subject of public policy concern, but there have been few systematic, empirical tests of this claim. Using data from a nationally representative sample of adolescents, this study assesses whether youth who use substances or have emotional disorders are sanctioned more heavily than other youth by the juvenile justice system, controlling for the youths’ crime and criminal history. This study uses data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (AddHealth) and offers several distinct advantages over existing research: First, it relies on data from a large, national sample of youth increasing the generalizability of the findings. Second, youth in the sample are first interviewed in the community rather than in institutions increasing the interpretability of the results and allowing us to address the question of bias in the juvenile justice system. Finally, AddHealth data allow for the inclusion of important control variables, such as delinquency history, emotional and substance abuse disorders, as well as demographic, education, and community variables. We apply conceptual and empirical methods that have been used to analyze disparities in health care. The performance and suitability of propensity score and rank and replace methods are assessed in this context. We also demonstrate the importance of the correlation between poor mental health and educational outcomes. Preliminary results of this study find evidence of bias in the justice system, particularly against youth with substance abuse and ADHD disorders.
