Reintegrating young offenders into the community through discharge planning: a review of interventions and needs of youth in secure care Anne Wilson A,B and Phillip Tully A A School of Population Health and Clinical Practice, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA 5005, Australia. B Corresponding author. Email: anne.wilson@adelaide.edu.au Abstract. The health status of young offenders is often poorer than similar aged non-offenders. Addressing young offender needs is a key priority for their rehabilitation and reintegration into the community. The objectives were to identify programs and interventions that assist detained youth through focussed discharge planning by a systematic review of the literature. In addition, this review examined the identified health needs of young offenders in secure care. Our systematic review searched electronic databases using the keyword terms youth, secure care, health assessment and primary health care. Keyword browser terms were also entered as search strings, and only literature from 1997 onwards was retained. Twenty-two pieces of published literature were retained, and these documented the needs and service utilisation of young offenders. Mental health problems and trauma exposure were commonly identified in the literature, as was general physical health deficits and social and familial problems. Retrieved articles also made recommendations for health assessments and discharge planning, and some provided discharge planning models. Young offenders have diverse needs that can be ascertained from quality assessment measures. Effective discharge planning is important to attend to ongoing health issues and aid rehabilitation and reintegration into the community. By administering a comprehensive multidimensional screening measure upon admission to secure care, individualised care plans can be formulated with discharge planning measures. Recommendations for further study include the development and implementation of a needs assessment tool in youth secure-care facilities that complements the existing assessments and helps reintegrate young offenders to primary health care and community services. Additional keywords: health assessment. Introduction The health status of young offenders and detained adolescents is commonly identified as poorer in comparison with the general youth population. Extensive literature documents the growing concern for health issues regarding young offenders, including their risk-related behaviours, mental health, social and family problems and other physical health deficits. In Australia, the incarceration rates to juvenile correctional facilities are stable at 44 per 100 000 for males and 5 per 100 000 for females (Australian Institute of Criminology 2004). Addressing the needs of youth in secure care is a key priority for the successful rehabilitation and reintegration of young offenders into the community. Background and objectives The purpose of this systematic review of the literature was to identify programs and interventions that assist youth in secure care by connecting with primary health care and community services upon their release. In addition, this review examined the identified health needs of detained young offenders from both Australian and international perspectives. The terms that describe young offenders are used in a variety of ways in the international literature. For this review paper, youth is defined as a person of or above the age of 10 years but under the age of eighteen years (Young Offenders Act 1993 (SA)). However, when reviewing the literature we recognise the importance of the health needs of all young adults and particularly the health services identified as relevant to adolescents up to the age of 25 years. The descriptions and definitions of secure care facilities are no different in scope. For our research purposes the terms secure care, juvenile detention facility and custodial care includes any type of secure accommodation that caters for youth dealt with by a country’s criminal justice system (WHO 2003a). Method The first stage of this systematic review was to develop and clarify the review purpose based on the assumed needs of Ó La Trobe University 2009 10.1071/PY08063 1448-7527/09/020166 CSIRO PUBLISHING Research www.publish.csiro.au/journals/py Australian Journal of Primary Health, 2009, 15, 166–172