High mental illness rates, little help for youth in detention
By Janice Neumann (Reuters Health) – Many youth caught up in the juvenile justice system are hospitalized for mental illness because they aren’t getting psychiatric help before they’re arrested or while they’re in detention centers, a study in California suggests. From 1997 to 2011, researchers found, 63 percent of detained youth who were hospitalized had a primary diagnosis of mental health disorder, compared to 20 percent of their counterparts in the community. The detained youth were also hospitalized a day or two longer than their peers outside the justice system.