Thesis (M.Soc.Sc.)--University of Hong Kong, 2000. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 89-93) Also available in print.

Youth involved in the juvenile justice system have a well-documented need for mental, behavioral, and emotional health services, but they face barriers to accessing appropriate and timely care. Research indicates a high need among youth involved in both the juvenile justice and mental health systems—or youth with dual involvement—and few programs addressing their need exist. The social risk factors of juvenile justice involvement are well-defined and studies indicate that the intersectionality of historically oppressed identities put certain youth at high risk for dual involvement. In particular, racial/ethnic minorities and female youth with mental health needs appear to be at-risk populations for dual involvement; they also have substantial barriers to care. Moreover, the neurobiological characteristics of mental illness among youth have begun to be characterized. Studies of the functional and structural markers of mental illness show that youth with conduct disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and depression show neurological changes that have behavioral correlates predisposing young people with these diagnoses to juvenile justice involvement where they have limited healthcare resources. Evidence from these fields—social science and neuroscience—provide a justification for programs that work across systems to provide dually involved youth access to health, educational, and social services. In Massachusetts, the Juvenile Mental Health Advocacy Project (J-MHAP) operates a pilot program in the Middlesex and Essex County Juvenile Courts, with the primary goal of providing these youth access to the multidisciplinary care they require. Distal goals include preventing further movement into the criminal justice system, and saving costs across various agencies and interest groups. Operating through court-appointed Mental Health Advocates (MHAs), J-MHAP is a unique model that uses advocates within the court system to coordinate services and improve access. It is a model that could make strides toward reducing injustices within the legal and healthcare systems.

abstract: Juvenile offenders suffer from substance use disorders at higher rates than adolescents in the general public. Substance use disorders also predict an increased risk for re-offending. Therefore, it is important that these juveniles, in particular, receive the appropriate substance use disorder treatment. The present study used logistic regression to test whether race/ethnicity would moderate the match between substance use disorder diagnosis and the receipt of a substance use disorder related service in a sample of male, serious juvenile offenders. Results showed that among those with a substance use disorder diagnosis, there were no race/ethnicity differences in the receipt of the appropriate service. However, among those without a substance use disorder diagnosis, non-Hispanic Caucasians were more likely to receive substance use service than were Hispanics or African-Americans. Post-hoc analyses revealed that when using a broader definition of substance use problems, significant differences by race/ethnicity in the prediction of service receipt were only observed at low levels of substance use problems. These findings shed light on how race/ethnicity may play a role in the recommendation of substance use disorder services in the juvenile justice system. / Dissertation/Thesis / M.A. Psychology 2013

This thesis covers the topic of juvenile diversion with respect to keeping juveniles from progressing further into the justice system as well as keeping them out of prison. It deals with a number of areas. The first is diversion before an offence has been committed - prevention. Here a number of recommendations are made with respect to education of the child and the community in order to make prevention a priority when new diversion programmes are considered and introduced. The second area is that of diversion after the offence has taken place. This deals with diversion by the police at the moment of apprehension and recommends the introduction of cautions as a diversionary measure. The third aspect that is considered is diversion after the juvenile has been arrested and/or charged. The establishment of Reception and Assessment Centres and the setting up of Family Group Conferences are especially highlighted. The detention of the child until his/her trial is also investigated and it is concluded that this is an unnecessary measure except in extreme circumstances. The progression of the child's case to court is the fifth area considered. Here, recommendations are made as to the necessity for the proper training of court personnel and the need for the introduction of court imposed diversionary programmes before sentencing. With respect to diversion after the child has been found guilty, a number of suggestions are made as to the introduction of new sentencing options and new or improved institutions. Finally, recent reforms are discussed. The conclusion reached is that juveniles should not be imprisoned except in the most extreme cases, and that diversion programmes should be instituted as soon as possible as the basis of SouthAfrica's juvenile justice system. It is deemed essential that diversion begins with prevention and continues until sentencing is completed, and that all children are diverted unless this is not possible.

This thesis attempts to explain changes in juvenile court reasoning from ‘personal’ to ‘social’ goals of justice. The introduction of social reasoning into juvenile justice has resulted in legal reform practices which circumscribe the domain of decentralized community youth services, increase the dependency and surveillance of deviant youth, result in harsher measures of punishment, and generally widen the network of social control through the law. The shift from the treatment intervention focus of the Juvenile Delinquents Act to the deterrence and punishment focus of the Young Offenders Act is maintained by incarcerations and a ‘downward’ sliding tariff of dispositions. The new social control administration formally enters the previously informal social control networks of family, community, and peer relations. Social change options through the law are increasingly centralized in the courts (where youth are concerned) at the expense of the law's potential for mediating decentralized collective change. The new form of social reasoning by which law reform occurs is explicated in order to critique its application for the current legislation and to explore possible use of collective change processes through law. I describe ‘social’ reasoning as a form of interpretive syllogism with the goal of social good satisfied through individual justice, in contrast to ‘personal’ reasoning which involves the individual's best interests as a good in itself. Social reasoning, as currently applied in the YOA, utilizes neoclassical rationality and sociological theories that relate actions to a presumed balance of diverse and competing social interests. My own understanding of the impact of Court interpretations of the YOA are based on in-depth interviews with 10 Youth Court judges in the Vancouver area. I analyze the legislative construction and judicial implementation of the YOA as reflecting a political strategy linked to and grounded in the knowledge relations of experts. Strategies for discipline are consonant with the rationalized practices of social science knowledge, located both in science (the medical model) and in law (sociological jurisprudence). The research findings suggest that ‘social’ reasoning, which is narrowly centered on legal problems arising from the behaviour of juveniles, pursues forms of crime control directly related to the needs of capital. The YOA is thus viewed as a new discourse (based on power and knowledge relationships) that aims to widen state-social control. Given the relatively narrow jurisprudential horizons of both the legislators who framed the YOA and the judges who apply it, the potential of law for effecting social change is curtailed. I conclude my analysis by suggesting a culturally reflexive approach in which legal reasoning, by a process of reconstructing the interpretive syllogism of law to include commonsense practical reasoning, could become more conducive to community change. / Arts, Faculty of / Sociology, Department of / Graduate

We describe the mental health referral rate among youth in a correction facility, examine how sociodemographic and criminal history characteristics relate to referral, and explore how these variables and diagnostic class differ by referral source. Data were abstracted from case records. The referral rate was low (6%). Non-Latino youth, repeat offenders, and violent offenders were more likely to be referred compared to all detained youth. Referral source also varied by violent offense history and diagnosis type. Future studies examining access to mental health services should take into account a detained youth 's sociodemographic, criminal history, and clinical characteristics.

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