Juvenile Delinquency and Teenage Pregnancy

Abstract

The authors examined ecological risk factors associated with teen pregnancy with a sample of 1,190 court-involved female juvenile offenders between 11 and 18 years of age. Data were obtained from five Midwestern juvenile county courts using a recently developed youth risk assessment instrument called the global risk assessment device (GRAD). In line with past research on teen pregnancy, the authors found that young African American female offenders were three times more likely to have ever been pregnant than their European American counterparts. Factorial multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) procedures were conducted to identify the ecological risk domains that differentiated groups of female juvenile offenders in the sample of this study, based on their pregnancy history and racial background. The findings of this study suggest that female offenders who had experienced a pregnancy had significantly higher levels of health-related risks as compared to their counterparts who had never been pregnant. Furthermore, regardless of their pregnancy history, White female offenders reported significantly greater involvement in substance abuse behaviors as compared to Blacks. Taken together, these findings underscore the need to utilize comprehensive risk assessments when designing integrated intervention programs that are tailored to the unique needs of young female offenders who are at risk for early pregnancies.