Treating mentally ill kids is tough enough to begin with. Put them in the juvenile justice system and it only gets tougher. About two-thirds of U.S. juvenile offenders have at least one mental illness, notes the New York Times this morning. It’s been known for years that many in the prison population — both adults and children — have mental illnesses , and the number is likely to rise among juvenile offenders, according to the NYT, as limited community mental health resources constrict even further with budget cuts. The challenges of providing mental health care in the prison system paints a pessimistic picture for youth offenders: For one, diagnosis of the illness is challenging if offenders’ families can’t

be found and their school records don’t come with them to the facility. Juvenile offenders increasingly come into the system being treated with multiple, potent psychiatric medications, yet there’s a shortage of child and adolescent psychiatrists. And once in the facility, many are prescribed even more medication and sometimes for off-label purposes like to help them sleep. “If you just give a kid a pill, the prison administration doesn’t have to do anything differently,” Joseph Parks, medical director for the Missouri Department of Mental Health, told the NYT. “The staff doesn’t have to do anything differently. The guards don’t have to get more training.” Image: iStockphoto

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Justice System Struggles with Mentally Ill Kids