The Affordable Care Act includes language that requires states to provide Medicaid coverage to youth who were in foster care in their state before aging out of the child welfare system. However, most states have interpreted the law differently for youth who move to their state after aging out, determining that automatic Medicaid coverage is an…

Background: Each homicide leaves behind several friends and family members, or homicide survivors. However, limited information is available on the impact of homicide on adolescent survivors. The purpose of the current study was to identify the prevalence of homicide survivorship and to determine mental health outcomes within a sample of US…

This study uses the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescents (Add Health) data, a nationally representative sample of adolescents, to disentangle the relationship between child maltreatment and violent delinquency. Also examined are potential moderating effects of gender, socioeconomic status (SES), and religiosity on the association between…

This study tests a model of reciprocal influences between absenteeism and youth psychopathology using 3 longitudinal datasets (Ns = 20,745, 2,311, and 671). Participants in 1st through 12th grades were interviewed annually or biannually. Measures of psychopathology include self-, parent-, and teacher-report questionnaires. Structural cross-lagged…

Objective: Callous-unemotional (CU) traits in children and adolescents are increasingly recognized as a distinctive dimension of prognostic importance in clinical samples. Nevertheless, comparatively little is known about the longitudinal effects of these personality traits on the mental health of young people from the general population. Using a…

Rising juvenile crime rates during the 1970s and 1980s spurred state legislatures across the country to exclude or transfer a significant share of offenders under the age of eighteen to the jurisdiction of the criminal court, essentially redrawing the boundary between the juvenile and adult justice systems. Jeffrey Fagan examines the legal…

Early-onset schizophrenia appears to be clinically more severe than the adult-onset form of the disease. In a previous study, we showed that anatomically related grey and white matter abnormalities found in adolescents patients were larger and more widespread than what had been reported in the literature on adult schizophrenia. Particularly, we…

Current psychiatric nosology depicts posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as a discrete diagnostic category. However, only one study has examined the latent structure of PTSD, and this study suggested that PTSD may be more accurately conceptualized as an extreme reaction to traumatic life events rather than a discrete clinical syndrome. To build…

This hearing focused on the cause of juvenile crime and the need for juvenile justice reform. On the first day, an opening statement by Senator Joseph R. Biden examined the seriousness of the problem. Two panels contributed prepared statements. The first panel included Jim Hutchinson, Mayor, Dover, DE; Alan Ellingsworth, Colonel, Delaware State…

While the major urban centers around the country were flooded by millions of protesters demanding immigrant rights in March 2006, the San Francisco Bay Area remained relatively quiet. A coalition of organizers, including Centro Legal de la Raza, Deporten A La Migra, and the Bay Area Immigrant Rights Coalition mobilized a one-week hunger strike,…

Background: Research on adolescent mental health suggests that prevalence rates for depressed mood are not uniformly distributed across all populations. This study examined demographic difference in depressed mood among a nationally representative sample of high school adolescents. Methods: The 2003 National Youth Risk Behavior Survey was utilized…

The purpose of this guidebook is to give Minnesota legislators an overview of all laws affecting young people in order to have a reference aid on current state policies toward youth. State statutes and cases that provide rights, responsibilities, and protections for young people under age 18 are described. Part 1 of this guide, "The…

This hearing focused on a bill to amend the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974 to identify violent and hard core juvenile offenders and treat them as adults. Opening statements by four U.S. senators (the Honorable Fred Thompson, Herbert Kohl, Joseph R. Biden, Jr., and Orrin G. Hatch) present various perspectives on the role of…

This hearing discussed proposed legislation authorizing funds for programs of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act. Opening statements by senators Fred Thompson, Joseph R. Biden, Herbert Kohl, Orrin G. Hatch, Charles E. Grassley, and Alan K. Simpson introduced the issue. Presentations involved two panels. The first consisted of…

This resource guide describes one state's statutes and cases so as to profile those rights, responsibilities, and protections for young people which are different from those applicable to adults. The purpose of this guidebook is to give legislators an overview of all laws affecting young people in order to have a reference aid on current state…