“Teen birthrates continued their 15-year decline in 2005 as adolescents increasingly got into the habit of using condoms during sexual intercourse,” writes Marc Kaufman in The Washington Post.
The story includes another bit of good news:
About 47 percent of high school students — 4.6 million teens — reported having had sexual intercourse in 2005, down from 54 percent in 1991.
And a bit of bad news:
While teen sexual behavior appeared to be less risky, more young people were arrested for serious violent crime in 2005 than in each of the previous three years. The arrest rate of 17 crimes per 1,000 juveniles, however, remained significantly below the peak rate of 52 per 1,000 in 1993.