Comparison of mental health and legal factors in the disposition outcome of young offenders

The relative contribution of court-ordered mental health reports and legal factors in determining young offender dispositions was examined. Poor quali ty of home conditions and severity of substance abuse, as coded from mental health reports, significantly increased the odds of receiving custody over a term of probation once legal factors were controlled. Legal factors sign ificantly predicted probation length, whereas mental health factors only ma de a small contribution through externalizing behavior problems. The overal l concordance between clinicians' mental health recommendations and court d ispositions was 67.5%. Although these results suggest mental health reports influence disposition decision making, this influence is more limited than expected given that the purpose of these reports is to assist such decisio n making. The implications and limitations of these findings are discussed.