Mandatory Mental Health Screening for Justice-Involved Youth: A National Priority

The prevalence of mental health disorders is higher among justice-involved youth than youth in the general population. Despite mental health being a pressing contemporary issue in the juvenile justice system, fewer than half of the states in the United States mandate the use of a mental health screening for youth in the juvenile justice system. The need to utilize a mental health screening tool in all 50 states should be a national priority. The Massachusetts Youth Screening Instrument-Version 2 (MAYSI-2) is the recommended screening tool that should be adopted nationally. Currently, 21 of the 24 states that mandate the use of a screening tool utilize MAYSI-2. Furthermore, it is recognized as having the most empirical evidence as an instrument at the juvenile justice system’s entry and transitional points.

Therapeutic Recommendations in the Youth Justice System Cohort Diagnosed with Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder

Patches Paediatrics is a specialised private multidisciplinary service in Western Australia (WA), offering a range of developmental diagnostic assessments such as foetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD). Many FASD assessments occur in children and youth who are engaged with the justice system in WA and the Northern Territory (NT). There are currently no studies outlining the types of clinical recommendations and management strategies made or implemented by clinicians for this clinical population within Australia. This study outlines therapeutic recommendations made as part of the youth justice FASD diagnostic process within Patches Paediatrics to ultimately refine recommendations to inform therapeutic strategies. This was a retrospective cross-sectional descriptive study of those aged 10 years to 17 years 11 months (N = 64) who were diagnosed with FASD within Patches Paediatrics; and referred from the youth justice system in WA and the NT between January 2017 and February 2019. Information on FASD recommendations was gathered by reviewing participants’ source documents, such as FASD diagnostic reports. ‘FASD recommendations’ categories were divided into subdomains: medical, mental health, developmental, lifestyle, future goals and others. In the various categories of recommendations, the most prominent were referral for National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) funding (75%) followed by education support (67.2%), occupational therapy (56.3%), and drug and alcohol services (45.3%). Significant correlations between impaired neurocognitive domains and recommendations were also observed. Similarly, there were significant correlations between comorbidities and recommendations. Our study highlighted gaps in recommendations for those with comorbid attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), rural communities and access to NDIS, therapeutic rehabilitation programmes as well as community work programmes. Other gaps included making adequate recommendations for speech/language therapy, education support, life skills advice and staff/clinician education. This study was the first to describe therapeutic recommendations for the youth cohort assessed by Patches Paediatrics in WA and the NT. It also showed significant correlations between the neurocognitive/comorbidity profile and clinical recommendations. This highlights areas within the recommendations that can be individualised as well as ways to improve community integration. A discussion of limitations and suggestions for future research is also provided.

Social, Cultural and Systemic Barriers to Child Justice Reform: Lessons from Vietnam

The implementation of child justice reforms often lingers or fails because it has not been systematically planned, properly communicated or adequately resourced. There are also many social, cultural and systemic barriers to child justice reforms, but these barriers are often poorly understood and meekly addressed. Progress in implementing rights-based comprehensive child justice systems has been slow, and there is a growing interest in understanding why, in many countries, child justice reforms have made relatively little progress over the past 30 years. This article reviews the experience of child justice reforms in Vietnam and discusses the broader question of policy transfer, specifically the translation of international children’s rights standards and norms into national child justice laws and policies.

Exploring Children’s Understanding of the Legal Rights of Suspects in England and Wales

While studies have explored adult suspects’ understanding of their legal rights, seldom are the experiences of children and young people taken into account. In this article, we discuss findings arising out of research interviews conducted with 61 children and young people; many of whom have experience of being suspects. From listening to their points-of-view, we find that children and young people fundamentally lack understanding of the rights of suspects, and especially the inalienable nature of those rights. We argue this is not surprising when children are being dealt with in an adult-centred punitive system of justice, which is contrary to international human rights standards.

‘Young People Just Resolve It in Their Own Group’: Young People’s Perspectives on Responses to Non-Consensual Intimate Image Distribution

While responses to non-consensual intimate image distribution (NCIID) often highlight criminal law remedies, little is known about how young people are choosing to respond to this act and whether they perceive legal intervention as a useful tool. Drawing from interviews with 10 teenagers and survey responses from 81 adult supporters, we provide insight into how young people perceive the supports available to them for responding to NCIID. We find young people may avoid seeking support from both the criminal justice system and adults in general due to fears of adult overreaction, victim blaming and shaming, and self/peer criminalization.

Gendered Justice: Inequalities in the Minimum Age of Criminal Responsibility in Iran

Using the minimum age of criminal responsibility (MACR) in Iran as an illustration, this article explores the continued resistance against girls’ rights in some Islamic countries. The gendered construction of childhood in Iran has resulted in a differential MACR, which for boys is notably higher than that recommended by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, yet for girls is unacceptably low. While breaches of girls’ rights in other areas are defended on the grounds of paternalistic concerns, it is argued that the MACR is a religious-politico decision that, in Iran, upholds the rights of boys but denies the rights of girls, propagating their wider subjugation.

Constructions of Deviance by Japanese and German Youth: A Criminological Comparison as a ‘Bottom-Up’ Project

In criminological country comparisons, countries are often assumed to be relatively homogeneous units ( ‘methodological nationalism’). Within individual countries, there seems to be a more or less uniform understanding of crime. In contrast to this supposition, we assume the possibility that interpretations of deviance or crime can also diverge to a great extent within countries. Based on an explorative comparative study with young people in Japan and Germany, we show that there are both similarities and differences: The youths we interviewed in the two countries share some views on norms and norm violations (for instance, relating to school norms which they, at the same time, question, and acknowledge), while in others they differ (e.g. concerning the assessment of the severity of deviant behavior). Criminological country comparisons, we conclude, should pay more attention to controversies on the definition of deviance and crime and to heterogeneity within countries.

Advancing Urban Peace: Preventing Gun Violence and Healing Traumatized Youth

This descriptive article highlights the inner-practices of a trauma-informed, healing-centered, urban gun violence reduction program called Advance Peace. We find that the Advance Peace model uses a unique curriculum called the Peacemaker Fellowship, that offers intensive mentorship, caring, and ‘street love’ to youth at the center of gun violence. The Advance Peace approach is one public safety model that may help young people of color heal from the traumas that contribute to gun violence while also reducing gun crime in urban neighborhoods.