The purpose of this study was to assess the substance use services provided to juvenile offenders in juvenile justice affiliated facilities. The current status of substance use services was evaluated by using the Precaution Adoption Process Model. Perceived barriers and benefits to providing substance use services to juvenile offenders were evaluated by using the Health Belief Model. This study also examined the non-substance use services provided to juvenile offenders.
A sample of 540 facility directors of juvenile justice affiliated facilities was randomly selected from a population of 897 facility directors. These 540 directors were broken into the three groups by the gender of clients they served: 218 coed facilities, 217 male-only facilities, and 105 female-only facilities. A 31-item survey was sent to the directors using a three-wave mailing process and by email. The directors returned 287 completed surveys for a response rate of 53.1% (287/540).
The majority of juvenile justice affiliated facilities (79.4%) were in the maintenance stage of the Precaution Adoption Model in regards to providing substance use services to juvenile justice affiliated facilities. More male-only facilities (88.8%) reported providing substance use services than either female-only (79.7%) or coed facilities (66.7%). More than one-half (52.3%) of juvenile justice affiliated facilities were not accredited. A small number (3.6%) of facilities offered pharmacological services to their juvenile offenders. Only 37.7% of facilities that had substance use services offered family counseling as a program component. Cognitive behavior therapy (86.4%) and motivational enhancement (54.8%) were the treatment approaches reportedly used most often. A significant number of facilities invested no time in covering violence prevention (29.6%) and the impact of recovery from violence and trauma (29.1 %) in their substance use curricula. The most cited perceived benefit to providing services was overall school performance (85.4%). The most cited perceived barrier to providing substance use services was lack of qualified staff (42.9%).
The results indicate that significant differences in services exist by the gender of client served in juvenile justice affiliated facilities. These differences need to be reconciled to ensure that all juvenile offenders are provided with equitable and effective treatment.