Hiv risk and prevention among adjudicated adolescents

Abstract

Justice-involved youth face numerous challenges and engage in riskier behaviors compared to their nondetained counterparts. Juvenile arrests have been on the decline. In 2011, juvenile arrests decreased eleven percent from 2010. There are racialand gender-based disparities in juvenile arrests. African Americans and women are over-represented in the juvenile justice system. In the past decade while the overall crime rate has declined, the incarceration rate for girls, relative to boys, grew at a much faster rate for all categories of crimes. Adolescents in juvenile detention facilities have a higher prevalence of substance use, preexisting mental health disorders, STI/HIV, and unplanned pregnancy. There is a lack of evidence-based, behavioral interventions for incarcerated African American girls. Future research must develop and test interventions addressing co-occurrence of risk behaviors and multiple levels of intervention, beyond individual level intervention alone, among adjudicated adolescents need to be developed and tested for efficacy.