Continued Detention Involvement and Adolescent Marijuana Use Trajectories

Abstract

Justice-involved youth have high rates of marijuana use. Less is known about what may drive these rates, particularly when justice-involved youth return to the community. One factor that has been implicated is continued detention involvement. Yet, it is unknown how this factor may influence marijuana use trajectories. Using longitudinal growth curve modeling, the researchers evaluated the association between continued detention involvement and marijuana use trajectories in two large, ethnically diverse samples of community-based, justice-involved youth. Across both samples, marijuana use decreased over time for youth with continued detention involvement but did not change for youth without continued detention involvement. These findings underscore the importance of attending to the influence of detention involvement in community-based, justice-involved adolescents' marijuana use trajectories. This study also highlights the importance of coordinating prevention/intervention programming for justice-involved youth once they are in the community.

Which matters most? Demographic, neuropsychological, personality, and situational factors in long-term marijuana and alcohol trajectories for justice-involved male youth.

“…Congruent with prior work (Feldstein Ewing, Schmiege, et al, 2014), we also found that youth who spent more time in a facility or other supervised setting showed less marijuana and heavy alcohol use. While supervised settings do not always ensure treatment or rehabilitation, the findings here suggest the value of continuing to examine the connection between time off of the street and in protective settings for this population and decreasing rates of use.…”

“…To that end, studies have supported the relevance of demographic factors in high-risk youths’ progression of alcohol and marijuana use over time (e.g., race/ethnicity; socioeconomic status; family factors; time in monitored settings) (e.g., Feldstein Ewing, Schmiege, & Bryan, 2014; Haberstick et al, 2014; Prado et al, 2012). Whereas others have shown the contribution of personality-level factors in youth substance use rates over time (e.g., externalizing disorders, impulsivity) (e.g., Abram et al, 2015; Mauricio et al, 2009; Prince van Leeuwen, Creemers, Verhulst, Ormel, & Huizink, 2011).…”

“…To that end, studies have supported the relevance of demographic factors in high-risk youths' progression of alcohol and marijuana use over time (e.g., race/ethnicity, socioeconomic status, family factors, time in monitored settings) (e.g., Feldstein Ewing, Schmiege, & Bryan, 2014;Haberstick et al, 2014;Prado et al, 2012), whereas others have shown the contribution of personalitylevel factors in youth substance use rates over time (e.g., externalizing disorders, impulsivity) (e.g., Abram et al, 2015;Mauricio et al, 2009;Prince van Leeuwen, Creemers, Verhulst, Ormel, & Huizink, 2011). Additional studies have indicated the role of situational factors in youths' continuity of alcohol and marijuana use (e.g., neighborhood problems, peer behavior, parent/guardian supervision) (e.g., de Looze, Janssen, Elgar, Craig, & Pickett, 2015;Fallu, Briere, & Janosz, 2014;Mauricio et al, 2009).…”