Double Jeopardy: Adolescent Offenders with Mental Disorders: Adolescent Development and Legal Policy

Nearly two-thirds of adolescent offenders currently held in juvenile justice facilities across the United States meet the criteria for one or more mental disorders—a fact that has many parents, healthcare providers, and legislatures wondering about our mental health systems for children. Have these systems failed so badly that we must arrest our children for crimes in order for them to receive help? 

In Double Jeopardy,leading researcher Thomas Grisso considers the newest data on the nature of mental disorders in youth—examining, for example, their relationship to delinquency, the values and limits of various treatment methods, and common, related patterns of adolescent offending—and then charts a course for practitioners working within today’s juvenile justice system.

Grisso carefully evaluates the threefold obligations of the juvenile justice system: as a custodian of children with health needs, a legal system promoting fairness in youth adjudication, and protector of public safety. Double Jeopardy provides a scientific and practical foundation for lawmakers, judges, attorneys, and mental health care professionals, as well as researchers in mental health and adolescent development.