Institutional Offense Patterns in Adolescent Offenders

Abstract

The current study compared the antisocial and mental health functioning of incarcerated adolescents with histories of serious and persistent institutional misconduct to those with histories of minor forms of institutional misconduct. Institutional offense histories of 192 incarcerated adolescent offenders (84.5% male) were reviewed and their mental health was assessed using the Youth Self-Report (YSR) to determine whether mental health factors were more prevalent in serious/persistent institutional offenders. Youths with a history of serious/prolific institutional offending were younger at first arrest, had more convictions, spent more time incarcerated, and scored higher on YSR aggression and delinquency subscales than those with low/moderate institutional offending. Although antisociality is likely a major contributor to serious and persistent forms of institutional misconduct, these youths, especially the females, had significantly higher YSR anxiety/depression symptoms than the low/moderate institutional offending group. Although traditional criminogenic factors may be more salient to the risk of institutional misconduct, mental health should remain an important area of case management given its comorbidity with higher levels of misconduct and its potential impact on youths' responsivity to interventions focusing on criminogenic needs.