Over one third of youths get arrested before 23: Study

By Dr. Ananya Mandal, MDDec 20 2011

A new study published  in the journal Pediatrics has shown that by age 23, up to 41 percent of American adolescents and young adults have been arrested at least once for something other than a minor traffic violation.

The study does not mention the percentage of violent crimes versus how many were rounded up for more minor infractions, such as disturbing the peace. But the study's authors say such a high percentage of arrests may point to a host of potential health and behavioral problems that put young people at risk for criminal activity.

“An arrest usually happens in context. There are usually other things going on in a kid's life,” said study author Robert Brame, professor of criminal justice and criminology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.

For the study Brame and his team analyzed responses to a national survey of more than 7,000 young people between 1997 and 2008. They found that between 25 and 41 percent of the respondents reported one arrest by the age of 23; 16 to 27 percent of the respondents reported being arrested by age 18. Not all of the young people remained in the study for all 11 years, accounting for the uncertainty reflected in the wide ranges of the study's findings. But even at the lowest ends of these ranges, the study's findings were higher than projections of youth arrests made in 1965, the last time scientists studied this topic. The study did not look at racial or regional differences, but other research has found higher arrest rates for black men and for youths living in poor urban areas.

“Those are alarmingly high numbers,” said Dr. Eugene Beresin, a child psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital and professor at Harvard Medical School. “There are social, economic, educational and family risks associated with arrests. And we all have to be worried about that.” Experts feel an arrest may be linked to other problems like drug addiction, physical or emotional abuse and poverty.

Beresin said a high number of arrests could also indicate a high rate of untreated psychiatric disorders, another factor that has been linked to criminal activity. According to the Coalition for Juvenile Justice, a nonprofit group, between 50 to 75 percent of incarcerated young people have diagnosable mental health problems.

Study's authors suggest that pediatricians are best placed to observe and confront potential problems with their young patients, with ability to counsel children and their parents and direct them to services that can help. “Pediatricians should be aware that these arrests are a high prevalence occurrence,” Brame said. “A report of an arrest could be a gateway to a broader conversation about what's going on.”

Pediatricians might be able to recognize those warning signs more clearly than parents, and can point kids toward resources to help keep them out of trouble, such as counseling services, Brame said. “We urge that parents who are concerned about their kids' well-being, that they get those kids in to see a pediatrician on a regular basis so the pediatrician can do the things they're trained to do.”

However, due to physician shortages in primary care, many pediatricians are overwhelmed by patient loads or undertrained to confront problems such as psychiatric disorders. In 2010, the American Academy of Pediatrics called for better training for all pediatricians in helping their young patients with mental health issues. Even if a pediatrician tries to help a patient with a criminal record, Beresin notes that the services that are meant to help troubled youth are limited, and budget belt-tightening in many states is making them even scarcer. “It's like Ghostbusters, who are you going to call? There are very few people to call.” Beresin said. “We're really asleep at the wheel right now when it comes to these problems with our young people.”

Criminologist Alfred Blumstein says the increase in arrests for young people in the latest study is unsurprising given several decades of tough crime policies. “I was astonished 44 years ago. Most people were,” says Blumstein, a professor of operations research at the Heinz College at Carnegie Mellon University who served with Christensen on President Lyndon Johnson's crime task force. Now, Blumstein says, youth may be arrested for drugs and domestic violence, which were unlikely offenses to attract police attention in the 1960s. “There's a lot more arresting going on now,” he says.

Localities handled many minor offenses more informally 40 years ago than they do now, criminologist Megan Kurlychek says. “Society is a lot less tolerant of these teenage behaviors,” she says. The high rate of arrest among youth is troubling because the records will follow them as adults and make it harder for them to get student loans, jobs and housing, says Kurlychek, an associate professor at University at Albany-SUNY who studies juvenile delinquency. “Arrests have worse consequences than ever for these juveniles,” she says. Arrest records “follow you forever. The average teenager who steals an iPod or is arrested for possession of marijuana — why do we make that define their lives?”