Dating Aggression among Court-Involved Adolescents: Prevalence, Offense Type, and Gender.

Adolescents involved in the juvenile justice system face a variety of risk factors that are associated with more frequent and severe experiences of aggression within romantic relationships as compared to community samples. The current study examines the nature and characteristics of adolescent dating violence (ADV) among first-time offense court-involved non-incarcerated (CINI) adolescents. A sample of 199 male and female CINI adolescents (58% male; M age = 15.05) who had a first-time, open status (e.g., truancy, curfew violation) and/or delinquent petition (e.g., assault, breaking, and entering). Overall, CINI adolescents reported prevalence rates of ADV consistent with community samples of adolescents. Females reported higher perpetration than did males in the sample of physical abuse and social networking abuse, as well as higher victimization of social networking abuse. Only one difference was found by offense type. CINI females report an increased risk for dating violence, though the cause of these gender differences is unclear. Findings also highlight that risk for ADV does not differ by offense type, suggesting that prevention efforts targeting ADV at the earliest possible intervention point, regardless of first-time offense type or severity, may be especially impactful.