Objectives: To document psychiatric disorders and the risks among youths in a Borstal in Nigeria in order to direct the focus of policy makers to their mental health needs. Design: 2-staged cross-sectional study. Place and duration: This study was conducted in a borstal institution in Ilorin, Nigeria in October, 2008. Subjects and Methods: All the inmates were recruited and administered with socio-demographic and GHQ-12 questionnaires; and a MINI KID interview. Data was analyzed with SPSS for Windows, version 11, using 2-tailed tests at a 5% level of significance. Results: Of the 53 inmates, 58.5% stayed >24weeks, 35.8% were in middle position within family, the parents were responsible for inmates’ admission in 81.1%, and 64.2% had their parents living together. While 62.3% had psychiatric problems in the past months, 50.9% had MINI lifetime diagnoses, and 45.3% had ‘current’ diagnoses. When diagnoses were collapsed, 98.1% had ‘any psychiatric disorder’, 67.9% had ‘any distruptive behaviour disorder’ (DBD), 58.5% had ‘any substance use disorder’, and 54.7% had ‘any mood disorder’. The mean psychiatric diagnosis in the cohort was 4.26±2.5. Significant associations were observed between Christianity and ‘any DBD’ [(x2= 6.34,df=1,p=0.01),(r=- 0.35,OR=1.8,CI=1.0-2.9, p=0.01)]; parents who were living together and ‘any mood disorder’ [(x2=6.4, df=1, p=0.01), (r=-0.35,OR=2.1, CI=1.1-4.3, p=0.01)], and ‘any current disorder’ [(x2=4.3, df=1, p=0.04), (r=-0.28, OR=2.1,CI=0.9-4.7, p=0.04)]; and between ages >18years and ‘any psychiatric disorder’ [(x2=9.8,df=3, p=0.02),(r=0.33, p=0.02)]. Conclusions: Findings were indicative of the prevalence of mental disorders, and the need to refocus attention on this cohort.