Social media use and juvenile incarceration: Perspectives from mental health professionals and staff of juvenile correctional facilities

ABSTRACT

Social media has become pervasive in the lives of modern adolescents. Although social media may provide individuals with many positive opportunities for communication and learning, social media sites also may provide an outlet for youth conduct problems, such as bullying, harassment, and intentional hostility and aggression toward others. In recent years, more and more research has shown that overuse of social media can lead to negative mental health outcomes( Khine et al., 2020;Andreassen, 2015;Lin et al., 2016). Research also suggests that more childhood conduct disorder symptoms are significantly associated with greater daily social media use during emerging adulthood (Galica, 2017). Yet, the relationship between social media use and adolescent delinquent behavior has remained clear. At the same time, according to a 2016 nationwide study, U.S. law enforcement arrested around 1.3 million adolescents each year (Puzzanchera, 2014). To this end, countless juvenile detention counselors, probation officers, unit counselors and other staff have treated and rehabilitated youths who were criminal offenders in an effort to prevent future crimes. This study aimed to better understand how these professionals considered and potentially addressed social media use in their everyday work with adolescents within the juvenile justice system. This researcher developed a brief survey which explored correctional staff's perspectives on the impact of social media use on the adolescents with whom they worked;and ways in which they could intervene. Data was collected from February 2021 to October 2021, which was longer than expected as it occurred amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The study sample consisted of 28 juvenile correctional facilities staff members (ages 18 or older), primarily mental health counselors, who were currently working with or previously worked with juveniles within the criminal justice system. Participants were acquired through multiple outreach attempts via phone and email to various juvenile correctional facilities throughout California. A majority of participants agreed that social media played a pertinent role in juvenile delinquency where it acted as a facilitator or platform for criminal behavior, and many disclosed a willingness to intervene or had previously attempted to intervene around social media use in some capacity. This included (a) directly communicating with adolescents, (b) communicating with their parents/caregivers about social media use, (c) recommending social media restrictions as a condition of probation, or (d) simply monitoring or limiting social media use in their general recommendations. This study offered a modest preliminary effort to explore and highlight the need to better understand the connection between social media use and juvenile criminal behavior as well as to develop and enhance ways to intervene with respect to this connection. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)