Characterizing trajectories of anxiety, depression, and criminal offending in male adolescents over the 5 years following their first arrest.

Amanda E Baker,Paul J Frick,Namita Tanya Padgaonkar,Elizabeth Cauffman,Adriana Galván,Laurence Steinberg

doi:10.1017/s0954579421001723

Abstract

Youth in the juvenile justice system evince high rates of mental health symptoms, including anxiety and depression. How these symptom profiles change after first contact with the justice system and - importantly - how they are related to re-offending remains unclear. Here, we use latent growth curve modeling to characterize univariate and multivariate growth of anxiety, depression, and re-offending in 1216 male adolescents over 5 years following their first arrest. Overall, the group showed significant linear and quadratic growth in internalizing symptoms and offending behaviors over time such that levels decreased initially after first arrest followed by a small but significant upturn occurring a few years later. Crucially, multivariate growth models revealed strong positive relationships between the rates of growth in internalizing symptoms and offending behaviors such that improvements in mental health related to greater decreases in offending, and vice versa. These results highlight the reciprocal nature of internalizing and externalizing problems in adolescence, underscoring the importance of considering mental health alongside offending in the juvenile justice system.

Highlights

IntroductionYouth in the juvenile justice system experience higher rates of internalizing symptoms such as anxiety and depression than their non-system-involved peers (Atkins et al, 1999; Teplin et al, 2002; Vermeiren, 2003; Cauffman, 2004; Wasserman et al, 2010; Schubert et al, 2011; Dierkhising et al, 2013; Lemos & Faísca, 2015)
Because little is known about trajectories of internalizing symptoms in this population, we investigated the role of depression and anxiety symptoms separately
Anx = anxiety; Dep = depression; Off = offending. ***p < .001. Mental health problems such as anxiety and depression are common in the juvenile justice system (Dierkhising et al, 2013), tend to increase at each stage of system processing (Wasserman et al, 2010), and have been linked to continued offending into adulthood (Reising et al, 2019)

Summary

Introduction

Youth in the juvenile justice system experience higher rates of internalizing symptoms such as anxiety and depression than their non-system-involved peers (Atkins et al, 1999; Teplin et al, 2002; Vermeiren, 2003; Cauffman, 2004; Wasserman et al, 2010; Schubert et al, 2011; Dierkhising et al, 2013; Lemos & Faísca, 2015). While justice-involved youth report higher rates of all mental health symptoms (Wasserman et al, 2010), rates of anxiety and depression in this population are especially concerning: nearly half of justice-involved youth screened from a national database meet clinical criteria for internalizing problems (Dierkhising et al, 2013), and roughly half of justice-involved males who experience mental health disorders while incarcerated continue to have these impairments once released (Teplin et al, 2012). When considering the unique compounding vulnerabilities that justice-involved youth may face – including the experience of being labeled as “delinquent” (McLeod et al, 2012) and incarceration (Barnert et al, 2016) – the risk for atypical emotional development in these youth is further increased (Dmitrieva et al, 2012)

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Conclusion