Associations Between Traumatic Experiences and Mental Health Risk Profiles in Youth with Justice System Involvement

Research has shown that focusing on patterns across concurrent mental health problems may increase accuracy and treatment efficacy, potentially reducing further justice system involvement. This is critical given that over one-third of girls and two-thirds of boys exhibit significant mental health problems fifteen years after release from detention. The purpose of this study was to identify mental health risk profiles of justice-involved youth. Secondarily, the differentiating impact of trauma and race on those groups was examined. Latent profile analysis was used to identify mental health risk profiles among boys ( n = 3550) and girls ( n = 1212) involved in the juvenile justice system. Multinomial logistic regression was used to assess the impact of trauma exposure and race on class membership. A 4-class model was determined to have the best fit for both boys and girls. Logistic regression showed that levels of trauma significantly differed across classes. In addition, some racial differences were noted for both boy and girl classification profiles. Results of this study demonstrate that there are patterns of underlying mental health concerns among youth in the juvenile justice system. Moreover, these patterns are associated with traumatic experiences, further demonstrating trauma exposure may be a gateway to other psychosocial challenges.