Adolescent offender psychological characteristics and community feeling: Implications for criminal justice resource allocation practices

Juvenile Justice Systems have limited financial and personnel resources to manage and identify individuals needing psychological assistance. A Midwestern US Juvenile Justice Center's resource allocation process utilizes data from the Massachusetts Youth Screening Instrument -- Second Version (MAYSI-2) and judicial agent recommendation to distinguish those most in need of psychological services. Judges order these individuals for mental health assessment to assist with decision-making and help the juvenile and their family. This study utilized multiple linear regression techniques to combine measures of psychological difficulties (MAYSI-2 and Millon Adolescent Clinical Inventory (MACI)) and a measure of Community Feeling (CF) from the Sulliman Scale of Social Interest (SSSI) with measures for crime severity and offending chronicity. Resulting scales were the basis to assess this Juvenile Justice System's resource allocation process. MANOVA and follow-up ANOVA analyses and post hoc tests indicated as psychological difficulties increased and CF decreased then crime severity and offending chronicity increased. Males of other races than African American or white had the worst psychological difficulties and lowest CF while female whites had the worst psychological difficulties and lowest CF. The resource allocation process utilized appears to be useful in categorizing individual offenders into appropriate resource intensity groups when considering psychological difficulties and CF with crime severity and offending chronicity. Screening all individuals for mental health problems and level of community feeling, particularly males of other races than African American or white, may help judicial officials identify individuals earlier who may benefit from psychological, familial, or criminological interventions.;Keywords: juvenile offenders, juvenile mental illness, juvenile justice, criminal justice resource allocation, crime seriousness.