Adolescent Mental Health Gender Differences in Arrest Onset & Risk

of males and females at each age between 14 and 24 years (few were arrested before age 14), to determine whether there were developmental trends and gender differences. Results The highest risk of imminent arrest (i.e. arrest within the next year) was among those who have had a recent arrest. Once arrested, and depending on age, between 26-39 % of females and 31-50 % of males will be arrested again in the following year. Further, if that was not their first arrest, their risk of arrest the following year was between 29-50 % in females and 41-58 % in males (see Figure 1). The males ’ rates of imminent re-arrest are higher than that of the females ’ at ages 14-18 years, but are similar after age 18. The criminal justice literature suggests that minority race/ethnicity and involvement in specific kinds of illegal behaviors (such as drug misuse) increase risk of persistence in criminal behaviors. Therefore, CMHSR researchers examined whether consideration of these factors contributed to our ability to identify groups at high risk for imminent Research conducted at CMHSR indicates that most males and almost half of females who received intensive public mental health services as an adolescent have an arrest by age 25, with a majority of them having been arrested multiple times.1 However, at any given age, the likelihood of first arrest is low (2-16 % with a first arrest). Low risk generally precludes the application of primary prevention interventions, which would be applied to the whole population of adolescent public mental health system users, unless they are inexpensive and can be applied safely. Furthermore, primary prevention approaches would then include those adolescents who may pose no real risk of subsequent arrest. However, if there was sufficient information to easily identify adolescents at high risk and if there were approaches to help prevent or reduce offending, application of those approaches to the small number of well-targeted individuals would be highly beneficial