Non-suicidal Self-Injury, Suicidal Behaviors, and Mental Health Symptoms among Sexual Minority Youth with Juvenile Justice System Involvement.

Sexual minority youth have long remained an understudied population within the juvenile justice system, despite emerging evidence suggesting that sexual minority youth are overrepresented. Recent literature indicates that system-involved sexual minority youth may have more behavioral health concerns than their heterosexual counterparts. Even so, more work is needed to elucidate the unique needs of sexual minority youth who become involved in the system, especially as it pertains to suicidal behaviors and non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI). The present study provided a descriptive evaluation of the prevalence of sexual minority youth making early system contact and their mental health concerns. Of the 218 justice-involved youth from a Northeastern family court in the sample, over a quarter identified as a sexual minority (n = 58). Our findings indicated that these youth evidenced significantly higher scores on a mental health screener compared to their heterosexual counterparts, evidencing greater symptomology on scales indicative of depression/anxiety, thought disturbance, etc. Further, sexual minority youth reported higher rates of lifetime, past year, and past month NSSI as well as lifetime and past year suicide attempts. These findings highlight the need to support the well-being of sexual minority youth in the juvenile justice system by screening for and addressing their mental health needs in this unique setting.

The association between caregiver psychiatric distress and perceived barriers to behavioral health treatment participation for youth in the juvenile legal system.

Youth in the juvenile legal system (JLS) evidence high rates of behavioral health concerns but struggle to access services. Given that caregivers are often tasked with helping their child to initiate and persist with services, it seems important to understand how their own well-being impacts their experiences of barriers to treatment participation for their child. The present study examined the link between caregiver (N = 196; 89% female) psychiatric concerns and experiences of treatment barriers among a sample of youth involved in the JLS. A cluster analysis revealed a cluster of caregivers with clinically significant levels of psychiatric distress and a cluster with low levels of psychiatric distress. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that belonging to the high-distress cluster was predictive of experiencing certain types of barriers to treatment participation. These findings have implications for interventions for addressing barriers to treatment participation for caregivers of legally involved youth.

Differing Perceptions of Criminal Justice and Views of Law Enforcement: A Cluster-Analytic Approach to Racial-Ethnic Identities.

Race and ethnicity within psycholegal research have often been treated as nominal variables which ignores their rich within-cultural diversity and can sometimes lead to sweeping pejorative conclusions (e.g., higher prevalence of arrests). The development of several salient measures of racial-ethnic attitudes-such as the CERIS-A and MEIM-has sparked a refocusing on dimensional perspectives of race and ethnicity. This refocus becomes especially important when examining views of law enforcement and criminal justice in light of unwarranted deaths of minoritized groups while in police custody. The current study recruited a juror-eligible, online community sample (i.e., MTurk) to study their views of justice and police. Using the seven subscales of the CERIS-A, four cluster groups were identified that spanned participants' race and ethnicity. Unique patterns emerged when comparing the four groups. For example, the cluster high on both multiculturalism and their own racial-ethnic identity had far more negative views of police conduct regarding its lawfulness and fairness. Further differences emerged for views of criminal justice including the death penalty. The research implications of these findings were discussed.