Juveniles

• Author: Antoinette Kavanaugh
• Pages: 125-141

125

Chapter

Juveniles

Antoinette Kavanaugh

8

If you are representing a youth, you are not simply representing a small adult.

As this chapter by Dr. Antoinette Kavanaugh explains, the adolescent brain

is still developing, and relative to adults in the criminal justice system, youth

have a higher rate of mental disabilities. The chapter further explains how

these factors impact representation and can shape litigation strategies such

as suppression, competency, and mitigation.

• • •

As a normal developmental process, adolescence is a time of remarkable

change and growth. The brain goes through changes that contribute to

adolescents thinking and acting differently than their adult counterparts.

Unfortunately, not all changes associated with adolescence are positive.

Factors that make youth a vulnerable population from a developmental

perspective include mental illness, cognitive abilities, and psychosocial

maturity. Often these factors present differently in the juvenile justice sys-

tem population than they do in youth who are not in the justice system.

Mental Illness and Substance Abuse in the

General Population

From a mental health perspective, a youth has a serious emotional distur-

bance (SED) when he or she has a mental health disorder that results in

functional impairment in different domains of the adolescent’s life (e.g.,

school, family, or community).

126 • Representing People with Mental Disabilities

One in ten adolescents ages twelve to fourteen and almost half of kids

ages seventeen and eighteen, consume alcohol regularly. Ethnic and gender

differences also contribute to teenage drinking patterns. Males consume

alcohol at higher rates than females and white and Hispanic adolescents

consume alcohol at higher rates than African-American adolescents or

teens from other ethnic groups. As is the case with alcohol, there is a lin-

ear age trend regarding the use of illicit drugs. Nearly 40 percent of youth

ages thirteen and fourteen use drugs and the rate doubles for those ages

seventeen and eighteen. Again, males were more likely to use illicit drugs

and the gender disparity was greatest among older adolescents.

That said, not all adolescents who use drugs or alcohol will meet the

criteria for a substance use disorder (SUD). Results from a 2014 national

survey of drug and alcohol use sponsored by the Substance Abuse and

Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) found that 5 percent

of youth between ages twelve and seventeen had an SUD in the past year.

Put another way, one in twenty of those youths abused or were dependent

on some type of illicit substance.1

From a clinician’s perspective, kids use substances and although not all

use rises to the level of a disorder, substance abuse disorders are a mental

health problem. A criminal defense lawyer should know that many kids

in the criminal justice system will have that diagnosis. In other words, a

lawyer should be aware not only about serious mental disorders, but also

to the entire constellation of mental health and psychosocial issues con-

fronting adolescent clients.

Service Utilization

Many adolescents with mental health needs do not receive treatment. For

adolescents, mental health service utilization varies by type and number

of disorders. Those with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, conduct

disorder, or oppositional-defiant disorder are more likely to receive services

than those with an anxiety or substance use disorder. Adolescents depend

on the adults in their life in a myriad of ways to seek and access treatment

(e.g., transportation, financially, and insurance coverage). Perhaps the rea-

son the percentage of those who utilize services is greater when there is

more than one disorder present is that adolescents with more than one

disorder have greater functional impairments, which makes it harder for

1 SAMHSA 2014.