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The Wisconsin Department of Health and Family Services Mendota Juvenile Treatment Center (MJTC) is a unique residential facility that specializes in providing mental health treatment to extremely “hard cases” within the juvenile justice system. The program was established by the Wisconsin State Legislature in 1995 specifically to meet the needs of youths who were too disturbed, unruly, or “treatment refractory” to be housed in the State’s traditional correctional centers. The Center seeks to control and rehabilitate such youths by combining the security consciousness of a traditional correctional institution with the strong mental health focus of a private psychiatric facility.
The overarching goal of the program is to replace the antagonistic responses and feelings created by traditional correctional institutions with more conventional bonds and roles, which can encourage positive social development. The treatment is based on the notion that defiant behavior can become cyclic when the defiant response to a sanction is itself sanctioned, resulting in more defiance and increasing sanctions. With each reiteration the young offender is further disenfranchised from conventional goals and values, and is increasingly “compressed” into a defiant behavior pattern. The MJTC uses a decompression model that attempts to erode the antagonistic bond with conventional roles and expectations and with authority figures and other potential sanctioning agents.
The Center’s emphasis on mental health treatment is evident in its setting. Unlike most secure, State-funded correctional facilities, MJTC is housed on the grounds of a State mental health center. The staff is composed of experienced mental health professionals (including a fulltime psychologist, fulltime psychiatric social worker, and a fulltime psychiatric nurse manager) rather than security guards or corrections officers. In addition, residents in the program are housed in single bedrooms within small inpatient units (with about 15 youths per unit). Within this private, clinical setting, youths undergo intensive individualized therapy designed to treat their underlying emotional problems and to “break the cycle of defiance” triggered by normal institutional settings. Whenever youths in treatment act out or become unruly, they receive additional therapy as well as enhanced security.
Caldwell and Van Rybroek employed a quasi-experimental design to assess the effectiveness of MJTC’s treatment program. Their study compared the recidivism rates of two groups of serious and violent offenders confined to Wisconsin correctional facilities. The treatment group consisted of 101 youths who received treatment at MJTC after being referred by one of the State’s conventional correctional institutions; the comparison group consisted of 147 youths with equally serious offenses who were referred to MJTC for assessment purposes but received no treatment. The entire sample was 52 percent African-American, 38 percent white, 9 percent Hispanic, and 2 percent Asian- (or Middle Eastern) American male juveniles. The average age at release was 17 years 1 month. The only significant demographic difference identified between the groups was the proportion of African-American subjects in the samples. The evaluators then used court and corrections department records to track each participant’s pattern of reoffending. All participants were tracked for at least 2 years after treatment, with the average follow-up time being 4½ years. A propensity score analysis was used to reduce the effects of nonrandom assignment.
Youths in the treatment group were significantly less likely to recidivate within 2 years of release than youths in the comparison group. (The treatment group’s overall 2-year recidivism rate was 52 percent versus 73 percent for the comparison group.) While misdemeanor rates do not appear to have been significantly affected by the treatment, MJTC youths were only about half as likely to commit new violent and serious offenses. They also spent less time incarcerated and had a longer average “survival time” before reoffending. The authors attribute these results to the fact that the MJTC program “significantly increased the level of participation in rehabilitation services for the vast majority of youth transferred there.” Overall, the authors conclude, their findings “provide a challenge to the notion that this population is untreatable” or beyond rehabilitation.
Caldwell, M.F., and Greg J. Van Rybroek. (In Press.) “Reducing Violence in Serious Juvenile Offenders Using Intensive Treatment.” International Journal of Psychiatry and Law.
Caldwell, M.F.; M. Vitacco; Greg J. Van Rybroek. 2005. “Are Violent Delinquents Worth Treating: A Cost–Benefit Analysis.” Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency XX:1–20.
Greg Van Rybroek, Ph.D.
Mendota Mental Health Institute
301 Troy Drive
Madison, WI 53704
Phone: (608) 301-1042
Fax: (608) 301-1207
E-mail: vanrygj@dhfs.state.wi.us
Web site: http://www.wi-doc.com/MJTC.htm
Greg Van Rybroek, Ph.D.
Mendota Mental Health Institute
301 Troy Drive
Madison, WI 53704
Phone: (608) 301-1042
Fax: (608) 301-1207
E-mail: vanrygj@dhfs.state.wi.us
Web site: http://www.wi-doc.com/MJTC.htm
