Reproductive health needs of recently incarcerated youth during community reentry: a systematic review

Abstract

BackgroundYouth involved in the juvenile justice system have high reproductive health needs and, on exiting detention, face the challenging transition of reentry. We conducted a systematic literature review to describe what is known about youths’ reproductive health needs during community reentry after incarceration.MethodsWe searched PubMed, CINAHL, Cochrane Library, and Google Scholar for articles containing key words with the concepts ‘child or adolescent’, ‘incarcerated’ and 'reentry'. In the search, we defined the concept of ‘reentry’ as within 1 month prior to release (to include interventions involving pre-release planning) and up to 18 months after release from incarceration.ResultsOur search yielded 2187 articles. After applying all exclusion criteria, 14 articles on reproductive health remained for extraction. The articles provided data on the following aspects of youths’ reproductive health: frequency of condom use (eight articles), sexual risk behaviours other than lack of condom use (seven articles), and prevalence of sexually transmitted infections (three articles).ConclusionsThe literature on the reproductive health needs of youth undergoing reentry is extremely limited. Current intervention studies yield mixed but promising results and more intervention studies that address both pre-release reentry planning and the post-incarceration period are needed. Given incarcerated youths’ well-documented reproductive health disparities compared with non-incarcerated adolescents, the identified gaps represent important opportunities for future research and programmatic emphasis.

Identification of young people at risk of sexual ill health : implementing a new tool in youth clinics

“…Although the transgendered group was small, their marked vulnerability in Study II confirm previous studies of transgendered people being particularly at risk [129]. Other disproportionally burdened groups that require extra attention are very young visitors and/or visitors with experience of living in a foster family or institution, because they represent vulnerable and disproportionally burdened groups [96,97].…”

“…The interrelationship, and often similar risk factors, of the different manifestations of sexual ill health implies that some groups of youth are disproportionally burdened. Examples of groups identified in the literature as particularly disadvantaged are lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) youth [89][90][91][92], ethnic minorities [92,93], women [2,24,26,29], young people without higher education [94] and young people in out-ofhome care [95][96][97].…”

Bringing juvenile justice and public health systems together to meet the sexual and reproductive health needs of justice-involved youth.

“…Supplemental materials: https://doi.org/10.1037/ort0000604.supp aaa Y outh involved in the juvenile justice (JJ) system in the United States (U.S.) exhibit elevated sexual and reproductive health (SRH) needs compared to those who do not have system contact (Barnert et al, 2020). Rates of sexually transmitted infection (STI) among justice-involved youth range anywhere from 3% to 45% depending on the study, facility, type of STI, and youth gender, race, and ethnicity (Belenko et al, 2008;Dembo, et al, 2009aDembo, et al, , 2009bDembo, et al, , 2010Elkington et al, 2010;Teplin et al, 2003).…”

Disparities in access to appointments for contraceptive services among Black, Hispanic, White, and recently incarcerated women in Alabama, Louisiana, and Mississippi

“…As women establish or continue romantic relationships, care for their children, work toward economic security, and recover mentally and physically from incarceration, it is critical that they should be able to control whether and when to bear a child. However, many incarcerated women have neglected reproductive health needs, and these needs often persist after release 1–4 …”

“…However, many incarcerated women have neglected reproductive health needs, and these needs often persist after release. [1][2][3][4] The formerly incarcerated are not a protected class in the United States, meaning that providers are legally allowed to discriminate against that group. A survey of people with criminal records in New York found that 42% reported experiencing discrimination based on their incarceration history in some facet of their life.…”