Substance Use Pathways Among Female Adolescent Offenders

Abstract

This study tested a general strain theory (GST) model across two times with an ethnically diverse sample of 184 female adolescent offenders. We tested whether exposure to violence was associated with girls’ emotions and substance use. We found that (a) hostility mediated the relationship between experiencing violence and alcohol use at Time 1; (b) hostility mediated the relationship between witnessing violence and alcohol use at Time 1; and (c) depressive symptoms mediated the relationship between experiencing violence and marijuana use at Time 2. These mediated effects were minimal in magnitude given that that the bivariate relationships between violence exposure and substance use were small or nonsignificant. Exposure to violence was associated with negative emotions across both models.

Keywords

general strain theory pathways theory female adolescent offenders substance use exposure to violence

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