In 1995, as the Training Director of the Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Columbia University, I brought a group of psychiatric residents to a local juvenile detention center. What we found was a far cry from the mandate of the Juvenile Court, according to the Illinois Juvenile Court Act of 1899 that stated that the court was “to act as kind parents seeking to educate and rehabilitate rather than to punish.” We found that the inmates were principally African-American or Hispanic inner city kids (white youngsters hired lawyers who kept them out of jail, at least until adjudication). These young people were either high school dropouts or far behind their expected level of academic achievement. Two thirds of the adolescents carried at least one psychiatric diagnosis. Rehabilitation and education was definitely not a part of the 1995 picture.

Four years later I was elected to the Presidency of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. My first official act was to appoint a task force, headed by Dr. William Arroyo, to study the serious problems inherent in the juvenile justice system and to make recommendations for reform. The monograph resulting from the efforts of a group of dedicated members served as the model for this long-awaited book.

The mission of the committee that emerged from the task force states that the juvenile justice system “will become responsive to children and adolescents with mental disorders who are in the juvenile or adult justice system.