Longitudinal Patterns of Juvenile And Adult Offending in Youth in the Mental Health System

Introduction Studies have shown that, compared to other youth within their same social class, a higher proportion of youth with serious emotional disturbance (SED) are arrested during adolescence and young adulthood (e. Most of these studies have examined youth from mental health or special education services. Knowledge about criminal justice (CJ) involvement among these particular youth is fairly superficial, focusing primarily on arrest rates, charge types, and a limited range of risk factors. Few have directly employed comparison groups (Vander Stoep, et al, 1997; 2000). CJ involvement has generally been classified as a dichotomy (arrested/not), limiting our understanding of patterns of criminal behavior. Cross-sectional designs have been employed, limiting our knowledge of temporal sequence. Several longitudinal studies of youth in the general population have identified diverse patterns of CJ involvement across age (e. Trajectory methodology is new in criminology and characterizes subgroups of individuals with different developmental criminal trajectories (e. This method has several advantages. Different periods of greatest risk can be identified. Characteristics of individuals within each cluster can be profiled. Individual and contextual maturational changes associated with arrest patterns can be explored. Trajectory typologies can be related to criminology theory. The present longitudinal study explores trajectory patterns of CJ involvement among youth who utilize the child mental health system in Massachusetts. Methods The present study examined the clinical charts and automated CJ records of 131 individuals who received intensive public mental health services from one agency in the greater Boston area and had reached the age of 25 by 12/31/00. Subjects. All individuals with birth years from 1968-1973, and who were sequentially discharged between 1988-1994 from the agency's adolescent day, residential, and hospital treatment programs, served as subjects. Thirty-eight individuals had clinical charts that were not informative. These individuals came from one hospital unit and were likely to have had such a brief stay that their charts were not prepared prior to discharge. Analyses of subject characteristics are based on clinical charts of the remaining 93 subjects. Over half of the subjects (56%) were male, a third were of minority race, and 47% were from single-parent households. The most common diagnoses were affective (50%), disruptive behavior (28%), anxiety (24%), personality (24%), substance abuse and dependence (20%), and psychotic (12%) disorders. Individuals averaged 3.1 (± 3.2) psychiatric hospitalizations. CJ Database. The CJ database records the type and disposition of all charges that have been arraigned in all non-federal courts …