Clinical assessment and the detention, disposition, and treatment of emotionally disturbed delinquent youths

This study examines the relationship bbetween the traditional psychodiagnostic assessment-and-treatment recommendation process and the subsequent disposition, detention, and treatment of “emotionally disturbed” delinquent youths.Results revealed that a specially funded crisis unit was significantly faster than the regular clinic in completing the diagnostic-recommendation process. However, for youngsters in both groups, the mean time between the completed recommendation and final case disposition by the court was over fifty days! Compared with the regular clinic, the crisis unit made significantly more treatment recommendations favoring institutionalization and fewer recommendations for community-based treatment strategies. Contrary to the predicted outcome, however, fewer crisis unit recommendations were approved by the court. The trend was for the court to reject recommendations for institutionalization and to support requests for community-based approaches. Furthermore, and again opposite to the outcome predicted, crisis unit clients spent significantly more days in secure detention.Results of a follow-up study on the actual treatment of crisis unit clients revealed that only nineteen percent could be documented as having received part or all of recommended treatment plans. Furthermore, there was no evidence of improved client adjustment as a result of treatment efforts. It is concluded that a tremendous need exists for effective service accountability models and heuristic management strategies within our juvenile court-corrections systems lest we continue to do $5,000 worth of diagnosis for every $5.00 worth of successful treatment.