Race and Ethnic Disparities in Juvenile Justice

Purpose of the Study

The study examined racial and ethnic differences in the use of mental health and substance abuse services among youths placed in the juvenile justice system (Lee et al., 2017). The literature review has provided information to support the need for the study, and they have included other studies that have focused and demonstrated the need for additional research on the topic. All the studies included are relevant to the current study, and they lay a good foundation for the present study. Using the literature review, the authors have demonstrated the need for further research and pointed out the faced problem. The dependent variable was a measure of whether the respondents had utilized mental health or substance abuse services in the 12 months before their arrest. The independent variable was the race/ethnicity of the respondents. All the variables were clearly defined with an explanation of how they were used in the study. The study made use of a cross-sectional design. The study subjects comprised 181 youths aged between 13-19 years who are residents of two juvenile facilities (Lee et al., 2017). One facility was for boys, the other for girls making the study participants representative of the population. However, the population under study was Western Pennsylvania, which was a limitation the authors mentioned. Therefore, the study results cannot be generalizable to the population.

The authors used interviews and self-report mental health screening questions from the Massachusetts Youth Screening Inventory-second version (MAYSI-2). The interviews have been adequately explained, and the MAYSI-2 is a well-known tool de eloped by Grisso and Barnmum (Lee et al., 2017), meaning they can be understood by other researchers and recreated if need be. The analysis used in the study was chi-square and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). One way ANOVA allowed the researchers to compare scores for different races and determine significant differences. The authors have presented most of their findings using tables, making the results clearer to the reader. The study results were consistent with other studies analyzing racial and ethnic disparities where it was established that white youths were likely to receive treatment before incarceration. There is existing racial bias causing youth of color to experience more justice system involvement than white youths. The data support the researchers\' conclusions and have recommended policy and practice changes. The study\'s limitations are well articulated, and future researchers should ensure they do not follow the same limitations when trying to replicate the study. Future research should focus on the intersection of mental health systems and juvenile justice better to understand racial/ethnic disparities in the systems (Lee et al., 2017).

Reflection