What Brain Science Tells Us about Kids in the Juvenile Justice System and Adolescent Substance Abuse Treatment

Whoa. My brain is full.
I just finished watching, "Brain Science as a Means of Understanding Delinquency and Substance Abuse in Youth," a video you can watch online or download to your computer. It records two faculty lectures given at the University of Washington in 2006. The video's about 75 minutes long, but I assure you, it's worth watching. 

First up is Theodore Beauchaine, Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Washington. He talks about neuro-biological predictors that help identify kids likely to be delinquent as they grow older. Because early intervention programs like The Incredible Years are much more effective at preventing kids from becoming delinquent than later interventions, he argues that the United States should invest heavily in such programs.
In the first 16 minutes of his talk, Professor Beauchaine gives a cogent overview of how delinquency develops throughout childhood and adolescence, the human costs of mass incarceration, and the research showing that group interventions with teens actually make delinquency worse.
But what really interested me was his contention (supported by research) that what we experience as teen impulsivity and delinquency is the result of an inheritable brain malfunction that effectively rewards afflicted kids for misbehavior, including delinquent acts and substance abuse.
Furthermore, this condition is exacerbated if the child grows up in an environment that is "high-stress" (think public housing in particular) either pre- or post-natally.
Next up is Susan Tapert, Associate Professor, Dept. of Psychiatry, University of California, San Diego, who was very interested in the degree to which drug use and abuse in adolescence actually harms the brain and the implications that may have for treatment.
What she learned surprised me: while using drugs in adolescence definitely affects brain performance, it's not true to say that abusers have "fried" their brains. Furthermore, this metaphor can be a disincentive for kids in recovery, since it deprives them of hope that they can overcome what they've done to their brains ...
That seemed like an important thing to keep in mind for professionals addressing adolescent substance abuse. What do you make of these insights? 
Related Post:

• Here's a post that discusses what society, rather than science, tells us about teens in the juvenile justice system and how it impacts those teens.