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Polysubstance Use Among Minority Adolescent Males Incarcerated for Serious Offenses

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Abstract

Background

Adolescent juvenile offenders are at high risk for problems associated with drug use, including polysubstance use (i.e., use of a variety of drugs). The combination of juvenile offending and polysubstance use presents a significant public and child health concern.

Objective

This study explored polysubstance use among a sample of youth incarcerated for serious offenses. We examined several risk factors for substance use and delinquency (i.e., early and frequent substance use, prior history of arrests, school expulsion, Black ethnicity), as well as the association between aggression and polysubstance use.

Methods

Data were collected via questionnaires from 373 serious male juvenile offenders upon intake into a secure locked facility. Youth were on average 16 years old, and minority youth were overrepresented (28.1 % Black, 53.1 % Latino). Poisson regressions were used to assess the associations between the risk factors, aggression, and polysubstance use.

Results

Consistent with the literature, Black youth reported less polysubstance use and later age of drug use onset than White and Latino youth. Findings suggest that Latino juvenile offenders and those with an early and problematic pattern of substance use are at heightened risk for polysubstance use. Aggression was not significantly related to polysubstance use, over and above the risk factors.

Conclusions

Given that Latino youth experience low rates of treatment for substance use, the development of culturally-sensitive interventions for these youth is needed. Interventions should also be multifaceted to address the multitude of risk factors associated with polysubstance use among juvenile offenders.

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Acknowledgments

Preparation of this manuscript was supported by the following Grants: NICHD T32-HD052459, NIMH T32 MH19545-21 and HRSA MCH T71MC08054. The original study was supported by a grant to the last author from NIMH (K01MH01791-01A).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health, 6705 Rockledge Dr. Suite 8030, Bethesda, MD, 20892, USA

    Sarah Jensen Racz

  2. Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Shonali Saha, Maria Trent & Hoover Adger

  3. Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA

    Maria Trent, Catherine P. Bradshaw & Asha Goldweber

  4. University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA, USA

    Catherine P. Bradshaw

  5. University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA, USA

    Elizabeth Cauffman

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  1. Sarah Jensen Racz
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  2. Shonali Saha
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Correspondence to Sarah Jensen Racz.

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Racz, S.J., Saha, S., Trent, M. et al. Polysubstance Use Among Minority Adolescent Males Incarcerated for Serious Offenses. Child Youth Care Forum 45, 205–220 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10566-015-9334-x

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