Research from multiple disciplines has reported that exposure to childhood traumatic events, often referred to as adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), increases an individual’s chances of experiencing a wide variety of negative consequences such as chronic disease, unemployment, and involvement in serious, violent, and chronic offending. The current study assesses how protective factors from social bonds may moderate the relationship between ACEs and future offending in a sample of high-risk adjudicated youth. While results showed that increased ACE exposure led to a higher likelihood of rearrest and more social bonds lowered the likelihood of rearrest, in contrast to expectations, the analyses revealed that stronger social bonds did not reduce the deleterious effects of exposure to more types of ACEs on recidivism. A discussion of these findings is offered, along with study limitations and future directions.
Prior research has demonstrated a relationship between adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and recidivism among justice-involved youth. It has also been found that drug and alcohol use, mental health, and their co-occurrence increase recidivism. As there is evidence that ACEs increase the likelihood of both drug and alcohol use and mental health problems, it is surprising that prior research has yet to examine whether these factors mediate the ACE-recidivism relationship. Using data from a large sample of adjudicated juveniles in Florida, the current study examines the mediating effects of drug and alcohol use, mental health problems, and their co-occurrence on the ACEsrecidivism relationship. For the entire sample, the results found that current drug use, current mental health problems, and their co-occurrence served as partial mediators of the ACEs-recidivism relationship. Further, important gender and racial differences in these mediating effects were revealed. Implications for these findings within justice-involved youth are discussed.
Research has demonstrated a relationship between adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and a variety of juvenile offending outcomes. No study to date, however, has examined the relationship between ACEs and juvenile residential placement. The current study utilized a large sample of 4,733 adjudicated juveniles in Florida in order to examine the relationship between ACEs and residential placement across gender and race/ethnicity. For the entire study sample, ACEs significantly increased the odds of residential placement by age 17. For males, ACEs significantly increased the odds of residential placement for Black and Hispanic males but had a null effect on White males. For females, ACEs were predictive of residential placement for Black females but not for White or Hispanic females. Consistent predictors of residential placement across demographic groups included the presence of antisocial peers, substance abuse issues, and anger problems. Keywords residential placement, juvenile corrections, adverse childhood experiences, trauma Prior research has consistently found evidence of a relationship between adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and various juvenile offending outcomes (Baglivio et al.,
Prior research has established that having a low future orientation is associated with offending. Additionally, it has been found that being exposed to adverse childhood events such as physical abuse may lower one's future orientation and increase one's offending likelihood. One gap in this line of research concerns the potential mediating role of future orientation on the relationship between trauma and offending. The current study fills this gap in the literature using a sample of adjudicated delinquents from a large southern state. The results from the study partially support the hypotheses; while future orientation lowers the likelihood of offending and trauma exposure increases offending likelihood, future orientation does not appear to mediate the relationship between trauma exposure and crime. Limitations and future research directions are discussed.
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