Associations Between Adverse Childhood Experiences and Trauma Among Young People Who Offend: A Systematic Literature Review

Abstract

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.

Adverse Childhood Experiences and Forensic Typologies: Getting Specific about Trauma among Institutionalized Youth

“…Adverse childhood experiences are an emerging research paradigm in criminology and criminal justice [ 7 , 11 , 12 , 27 , 28 ], but research findings often have a mechanistic dose–response connotation and generally lack specificity. This is unfortunate, as although there is universal acknowledgement that childhood abuse and neglect are destructive and contribute to antisocial development and psychiatric morbidity, granular research findings can inform interventions to treat and supervise adolescents involved with the justice system.…”

“…For example, divorce or parental separation is among the most common forms of adversity, with about 80% of justice system involved youth experiencing it. In contrast, about 12% of justice system involved youth were sexually abused [ 27 ]. In this regard, parental separation is normative, whereas sexual abuse is pathological in statistical terms, and in terms of the broader psychological and behavioral morbidity it sets into motion [ 34 , 35 , 36 , 37 , 38 ], sexual abuse is incomparable as a form of adversity.…”

“…Against the backdrop of broad associations between assorted trauma exposure, delinquency, and subsequent juvenile justice system contact [ 7 , 27 , 28 ], there is emerging evidence that adverse childhood experiences also increase liability for more forensic-oriented typologies of offending [ 9 , 22 , 25 , 26 , 29 ]. However, aside from sexual offending, where there is ample research documenting that childhood sexual abuse contributes to subsequent sexual aggression, much less is known about the translation of trauma events into conduct where the youth poses a danger threat to themselves, others, sets fires, or engages in substance use [ 27 ]. Given these research gaps, the current study sought to add specificity to the adverse childhood experiences literature by examining their cumulative and individual associations with five forensic typologies with and without adjustments for important delinquent career and demographic covariates.…”

Profiles in Criminal Psychopathology: A Multiple Case Report Study of the p Factor

“…Although the p Factor spurred research surrounding the conceptualization and measurement of global psychopathology, its salience to criminology is limited and there are several research gaps. For instance, although the p Factor is highly heritable (To illustrate, the authors [ 9 ] analyzed twin data from the Twins Early Development Study and reported that 50% to 60% of variance in the p Factor is attributable to genetic factors and between 49% to 78% of the shared variance in continuity of psychopathology across childhood and adolescence was also owed to genetic factors), the environment also plays a critical role in its development, thus a focus on the rearing environments of criminal offenders, where disparate forms of abuse and neglect are commonplace [ 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 ] is needed. The original p Factor study eschewed low prevalence phenomena that although rare in the general population, are much more prevalent among the correctional population.…”

Adverse childhood experiences and trauma among young people in the youth justice system

“…However, there is limited empirical evidence to demonstrate causal associations between ACEs, trauma and offending. In fact, a recent systematic review by Malvaso et al (2021) concluded that, although up to 90 percent of justice-involved young people will report exposure to traumatic events, the pooled mean score across 40 studies that specifically assessed post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) shows that, on average, these young people will fall short of the diagnostic cut-off for mild PTSD. It is apparent that not every young person who experiences adversity will be 'traumatised' and that not all of those who experience trauma symptomatology will go on to offend.…”