Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands.
Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2010 May;19(5):431-40. doi: 10.1007/s00787-009-0073-0. Epub 2009 Nov 22.
Psychiatric disorders are highly prevalent among incarcerated youth. However, whereas ethnic minority youths are overrepresented in the juvenile justice system, limited research is available on their mental health. In this study, differences in mental health problems between incarcerated adolescents of native Dutch and Moroccan origin, were examined. Child Behavior Checklist and Youth Self-Report scores were compared between incarcerated adolescents of native Dutch and Moroccan origin. Their scores were also compared to those of native Dutch and Moroccan immigrant youths in the general, non-incarcerated population. Native Dutch incarcerated adolescents showed higher levels of various mental health problems than incarcerated adolescents with a Moroccan background. Compared to the general population, incarcerated youths showed higher levels of mental health problems, but this deviation was much larger for native Dutch than for Moroccan immigrant youths. These ethnic differences in mental health problems could not be explained by ethnic differences in socio-economic background and social desirable answering tendencies. Incarcerated youths of Moroccan origin show less psychopathology than incarcerated native Dutch youths, which might be explained by disparities in sentencing procedures.
精神障碍在被监禁的青少年中高度普遍。然而，少数民族青少年在少年司法系统中比例过高，他们的心理健康问题相关的研究却有限。在这项研究中，检查了具有荷兰和摩洛哥原籍的被监禁青少年之间心理健康问题的差异。比较了具有荷兰和摩洛哥原籍的被监禁青少年的儿童行为检查表和青少年自我报告评分。他们的评分还与一般非监禁人群中的荷兰和摩洛哥移民青少年的评分进行了比较。具有荷兰原籍的被监禁青少年表现出各种心理健康问题的水平高于具有摩洛哥背景的被监禁青少年。与一般人群相比，被监禁的青少年表现出更高水平的心理健康问题，但这种偏差对于荷兰青少年比摩洛哥移民青少年要大得多。这些心理健康问题方面的种族差异不能用社会经济背景和社会期望的回答倾向方面的种族差异来解释。具有摩洛哥原籍的被监禁青少年表现出的精神病理学症状比被监禁的荷兰青少年少，这可能是由于量刑程序的差异所致。
