Racial/ethnic differences in mental health and drug treatment among juvenile arrestees

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to test for racial/ethnic differences in drug and mental health treatment-related perceptions and experiences among a sample of 377 juvenile arrestees. Bivariate analyses revealed that white juvenile arrestees reported receiving more past drug treatment and mental health messages than black, Latino, and ‘other’ juvenile arrestees. They were also more likely to perceive a need for mental health treatment than Latinos and other racial/ethnic minority arrestees. No racial/ethnic differences were found for past mental health treatment or perceive need for drug treatment. Multivariate analyses revealed that Latinos were less likely than white youth to perceive a need for mental health treatment; and other racial/ethnic minority youth were less likely than white youth to have ever received drug treatment even after controlling for demographic variables and risk factors. Practice implications are discussed.

Keywords:

• Race/ethnicity
• juvenile offenders
• treatment

Notes

1. We used the same criteria that Kim and Fendrich (2002) used in their study of juvenile arrestees.

2. Chi-square analyses revealed that having received past mental health messages was significantly associated with ever receiving mental health, χ² = 150.683, p < 0.001, and ever receiving drug treatment χ² = 6.362, p < 0.05 variables. Thus, we chose to control for mental health messages in all regression analyses, so that we could include the same variables as controls across models.

3. Although we were unable to formally assess substance use problems, our results are consistent with the rates of substance use problems among juvenile offenders in other studies. For example, White, Lau, and Aalsma (2016) used the Massachusetts Youth Screening Instrument-Second Version (MAYSI-2) to formally assess alcohol/drug use among juvenile detainees and found that 27.5 percent and 12.7 percent scored within the caution and warning ranges, respectively. Similarly, Rawal et al. (2004) classified approximately 1/3 of their sample with a ‘drug abuse’ problem.