[Minors in a French custody center: Sociodemographic characteristics, global health and vulnerability factors]

Minor offenders are at risk for medico-psycho-social vulnerability, that impacts global health, schooling, professional future, and socio-familial environment; moreover, minors who are victims of violence and neglect are at greater risk of becoming offenders and minor offenders are at greater risk of suffering violence. Few data are currently available regarding global health and vulnerability factors for minors (i.e. those aged under 18) who have been placed in police custody. This study aimed to describe the judicial and social characteristics of these minors, their medical and psychological health status, with the hypothesis that most minors placed in police custody can be considered as abused or neglected, by presenting factors of vulnerability. We carried out a prospective study, including consecutive minors aged of 13 to 18 years old, who had been detained in custody at the Central Police Station of Nantes (France), from October 2012 to May 2013. The sociodemographic characteristics, scores for global health and the data collected from the welfare and judiciary services were analyzed, to identify abused or neglected minors. Ninety-nine teenagers were included: 78 males and 11 females (mean age±standard deviation: 16.5 years±1.01), who had been placed in custody for robbery, with a remarkable proportion of recidivist minors. Our study has highlighted several worrying characteristics of minors in police custody reflecting their vulnerability, as living conditions (no schooling, no fixed address) and irregular or absent medical follow-up; however their scores for global health were not different from the general population. While 49 minors (49.5 %) had already been identified by the welfare services, our study find that 35 added minors of this population should nonetheless be considered as being abused and/or neglected, based on a very high rate of minors already followed by child protection services and/or already penalized. Systematic health screening in custody could help to detect abused and/or neglected minors, in order to provide them access to appropriate medical and social cares. They could be referring to psychiatric or rehabilitation cares, and to the relevant welfare and judiciary services in order to assess if a specific protection measure is needed.