Race, Juvenile Justice, and Mental Health: New Dimensions in Measuring Pervasive Bias

• NCJ Number: 226655
• Journal: Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology Volume: 89 Issue: 2 Dated: Winter 1999 Pages: 615-670
• Author(s): W. John Thomas; Dorothy E. Stubbe; Geraldine Pearson
• Date Published: 1999
• Length: 56 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This study compared court-referred only adolescents in the mental health system with those in the criminal justice system and compared clinically-referred patients with court-referred patients in the juvenile mental health system.

Abstract

Findings indicate that the racial profiles of the court-referred and clinically-referred juveniles in the mental health system were statistically indistinguishable. A comparison with 1990 Connecticut census data revealed that racial minorities were overrepresented in both the State-operated facilities of the mental health and the juvenile justice systems. The populations did, however, exhibit different psychiatric profiles. The clinically-referred were more likely to exhibit psychotic disorders while the court-referred were more likely to exhibit overt conduct disorders. The findings have broad implications for any discourse regarding juvenile criminal justice and mental health systems. Some aspects of the findings indicate that the mental health system was more likely than the criminal justice system to be populated with adolescents suffering “severe” or “acute mental illness” providing some solace to the critiques. The racial findings suggest that both modern day juvenile court judges and mental health clinicians may not be effectively listening to or attending to the needs of the adolescents which they serve. After a presentation of findings from two studies which compared court-referred adolescents in the mental health system and those in the criminal justice system and compared clinically-referred patients with court-referred patients in the juvenile mental health system, this article placed the findings in historical and jurisprudential context, provided an exposition of the existing body of knowledge on the subject, outlined the study’s methods, findings, and a detailed comparison of the psychiatric profiles of the clinically-referred and court-referred patients in the mental health system, and concluded with a discussion of the implications of the findings. 13 tables