Association Between Mental Health Treatment and Reoffending Among Justice-Involved Youths

Unaddressed mental health needs of justice-involved youths increase the risk for reoffending and impede effective community integration. This study had three main objectives: to calculate the prevalence of mental disorders, to estimate the cumulative incidence of reoffending, and to examine patterns of nonmandated outpatient mental health treatment and its association with reoffending among justice-involved youths.

Offending records from January 1, 1994, to March 31, 2022, were linked with mental health records from January 1, 2001, to March 31, 2022, for justice-involved youths supervised in both custodial (N=790) and community (N=766) settings in New South Wales, Australia. The association between mental health service contact and reoffending was assessed by using Cox proportional hazards regression.

Mental health issues were prevalent among 32% of girls and 29% of boys. Among custody-supervised youths, 49% reoffended within 12 months of release. Custody-supervised youths with mental health issues had a median time of 1 month until contact with mental health services after their release. Among community-supervised youths, 41% reoffended within 12 months of study entry. The median time until contact with mental health services for community-supervised youths with mental health issues was 6 months. Contact with mental health services was associated with lower hazards of reoffending among boys in custody (adjusted hazard ratio [aHR]=0.60, p=0.001) and under community supervision (aHR=0.43, p=0.045).

Clinical engagement with mental health services can address criminogenic mental health problems among justice-involved youths and reduce criminal behavior.