Report finds children with mental health diagnoses often incarcerated instead of getting treatment

A new report from Congress has raised the alarm about children with mental health conditions being held in juvenile detention, rather than getting treatment.

“Prolonged Incarceration of Children Due to Mental Health Care Shortages,” released Thursday by the staff of Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff and Republican Rep. Jen Kiggans, is based on a survey sent to administrators of public juvenile detention facilities around the country. About half of those who responded to the survey reported they had, at some point, kept children incarcerated when they could have been released into offsite mental health care.

“This should shock America’s conscience,” Ossoff says. “Children with special needs, locked up for extended time instead of getting the mental health care that they need.”

According to the survey, 75 juvenile detention centers in 25 states reported holding youths for days or even months until space became available at a long-term psychiatric residential treatment facility.

One North Dakota respondent wrote, “There [is] no secure and safe public placement option for mentally ill youth who have violent outbursts in North Dakota, and so they come to corrections.”

“I am delighted that they commissioned this investigation, however this is nothing new,” says Linda Teplin, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Northwestern University Medical School. Teplin has studied youth and detention for three decades.

“We’ve known for years that the prevalence of psychiatric disorder in juvenile facilities is extremely high – far higher than in the general population. And we know that few kids get services, whether in detention or, particularly, when they go back to their communities,” Teplin says.

She says it’s important to understand the factors that lead to kids being held in detention rather than getting treatment.

“Being in a detention center can only worsen your psychiatric problems,” she says.

“The crisis in juvenile mental health and juvenile incarceration is decades old and we have failed to fix it,” Sen. Ossoff says. “The way we fix it is by bringing Republicans and Democrats together to begin the process of legislation.”

The survey was prepared by congressional staffers, with input from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. It was sent to 355 juvenile detention centers, and participation was voluntary. One hundred fifty-seven responded, 75 of which reported keeping children incarcerated for lack of mental health care.