Effect of Mindfulness based Interventions on Mental Health of Juvenile Delinquents

Description

Page: 543-547

Tamsha and Sandeep Singh (Department of Applied Psychology, Guru Jambheshwar University of Science & Technology, Hisar, Haryana)

In modern societies, the misbehavior issues like delinquency and crime are recorded in their high incidences. When a person as a delinquent shows an unlawful behavior that is called juvenile delinquent. Traditional patterns of social organization have broken down and are leading to juvenile delinquency. Today, delinquency among juveniles is one of the most important issues in crime. Moreover, juvenile delinquents suffer from a high rate of mental health disorders. Consequently, an individual may experience psychological, emotional, or social difficulties due to mental disorders. It has been previously mentioned that Juvenile justice involvement and mental health problems are closely related. Therefore, delinquency, violence, and involvement in the justice system are often studied as individual risk factors. Hence, juvenile delinquency is viewed as a very serious problem in all societies. These people are at a high risk of developing issues in the future that might worsen their mental state and make them more likely to engage in criminal activity. Juveniles need to receive appropriate treatments that concentrate on risk factors that can be modified (i.e., attitudes & behaviours). In general, mindfulness based interventions have improved behavior or reduced symptoms of emotional health in juveniles. Similarly, the practice of mindfulness can be helpful for juvenile delinquents with mental health problems. Notably, this review focuses on the effect of mindfulness based interventions on mental health of juvenile delinquents. Thus, this review supports the feasibility of mindfulness based interventions for juvenile delinquents (Himelstein, 2011; Himelstein et al., 2012a; Le & Proulx, 2015).