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This systematic review synthesized current knowledge about the prevalence of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) among young people known to have offended and examined evidence of associations between ACEs, trauma symptoms, and offending behavior. A systematic search of English-language, peer-reviewed studies published from the year 2000 onwards was conducted. A final pool of 124 studies that reported quantitative data were included in the review. The Cambridge Quality Checklist for the assessment of studies on offending was used to assess methodological quality of included studies. Pooled data indicated that almost 87% of justice-involved young people across 13 countries experienced at least one traumatic event. The odds of experiencing at least one ACE were over 12 times greater for justice-involved young people compared with nonjustice-involved young people. Prevalence of individual ACEs ranged from 12.2% for childhood sexual abuse to 80.4% for parental separation among justice-involved young people. Those who reported both a higher number and multiple types of ACEs were more likely to be diagnosed with post-traumatic stress symptoms. However, when considering only high-quality studies, there was minimal evidence to suggest that a higher incidence of ACEs predicted trauma symptoms or that trauma symptoms mediated the association between ACEs and offending behavior. Further research is needed to elucidate factors that differentiate young people exposed to ACEs who go on to offend from those who do not. This research is essential to understanding whether ACEs and trauma are drivers of offending behavior and for informing prevention and intervention strategies.

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There have been few efforts to conceptually and empirically distinguish persistent and chronic offenders, despite the prominence of these concepts in the criminological literature. Research has not yet examined if different childhood risk factors are associated with offenders who have the longest criminal careers (persistent offenders), commit the most offences (chronic offenders), or both (persistent–chronic offenders). We address this gap using data from the Cambridge Study in Delinquent Development. Poverty, poor school attainment, and family stress had a pervasive impact on all forms of offending in correlational analyses. Longer criminal career durations were associated with fewer childhood risk factors than was the case for chronic offenders. Chronic offenders were significantly more likely than persistent offenders to experience many environmental risks in childhood. When controlling for all other risk factors, hyperactivity and parental separation uniquely predicted persistent offending, while high daring and large family size uniquely predicted chronic offending. Our analyses point to the need for responses based on a philosophy of “proportionate universalism,” where universal multisystemic crime prevention strategies that benefit all children incorporate program components that are known to influence the unique risk factors for both persistent and chronic offending.

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