Effective AIDS education will require research on adolescent attitudes towards AIDS and their understanding of the nature of the disease, its transmission, and appropriate precautionary behavior. The current literature suggests that half of all teenagers in the U.S. are sexually active but that they rarely take preventive measures against sexually transmitted diseases. Incarcerated juveniles appear to face a high risk of AIDS as a result of their birth circumstances, anatomy, and preconfinement activity. The questionnaire discussed in this article was administered to the entire custodial population of the Alabama Division for Youth Services during the summer of 1988. It addressed three knowledge issues -- AIDS is preventable, it is not spread through casual contact, and it is spread through IV needle sharing and sexual contact -- and three concern issues -- personal worry about contracting AIDS, worry about significant others contracting AIDS, and worry about AIDS as a social problem. The results indicate that while juvenile offenders are relatively knowledgeable about AIDS and concerns about the risks of infection, they do not believe that AIDS is a real social problem. Females, younger offenders, minorities, and less educated juveniles were less knowledgeable about the disease. 3 tables, 1 figure, 1 note, 39 references.