Complex Trauma and Aggression in Secure Juvenile Justice Settings

Abstract

Youth in secure juvenile justice settings (e.g., detention, incarceration) often have histories of complex trauma: exposure to traumatic stressors including polyvictimization, life-threatening accidents or disasters, and interpersonal losses. Complex trauma adversely affects early childhood biopsychosocial development and attachment bonding, placing the youth at risk for a range of serious problems (e.g., depression, anxiety, oppositional defiance, risk taking, substance abuse) that may lead to reactive aggression. Complex trauma is associated with an extremely problematic combination of persistently diminished adaptive arousal reactions, episodic maladaptive hyperarousal, impaired information processing and impulse control, selfcritical and aggression-endorsing cognitive schemas, and peer relationships that model and reinforce disinhibited reactions, maladaptive ways of thinking, and aggressive, antisocial, and delinquent behaviors. This constellation of problems poses significant challenges for management, rehabilitation, and treatment of youth in secure justice settings. Epidemiological and clinical evidence of the prevalence, impact on development and functioning, comorbidity, and adverse outcomes in adolescence of exposure to complex trauma are reviewed. Implications for milieu management, screening, assessment, and treatment of youth who have complex trauma histories and problems with aggression in secure juvenile justice settings are discussed, with directions for future research and program development.

You Learn What You Live: Prevalence of Childhood Adversity in the Lives of Juveniles Arrested for Sexual Offenses

“…Disempowerment can create a distorted sense of entitlement, and violence can become instrumental in grasping a sense of power and control. Finally, the chaotic household dynamics characterized by family violence may offer few opportunities to observe and experience healthy emotional attachments, paving the way for affective and behavioral dysregulation (Ford, Chapman, Connor, & Cruise, 2012).…”

Perceptions of Recidivism Among Incarcerated Youth: The Relationship Between Exposure to Childhood Trauma, Mental Health Status, and the Protective Effect of Mental Health Services in Juvenile Justice Settings

“…Specifically, 35% of detained youth indicated at least one experience of physical assault (Ford, Hawke, & Chapman, 2010). More recent research supports and expands upon the prevalence data to suggest juvenile justice youth have histories of poly-victimization and complex trauma (Ford et al, 2012;Ford, Grasso, Hawke, & Chapman, 2013).…”

“…histories that are 2 to 3 times higher than youth in the general population (Coleman, 2005;Coleman & Stewart, 2010;Ford, Chapman, Connor, & Cruise, 2012). Two independent studies revealed analogous rates of elevated trauma among detained youth relative to general population youth; approximately 90% of the detained youth reported a history with at least one traumatic event (Abram et al, 2004).…”

Unit manager perspectives of a trauma-specific programme across Scotland’s secure estate

“…In turn, there is a lack of screening and assessment of trauma in secure accommodation (Ford, Chapman, Connor, & Cruise, 2012;Barron & Mitchell, 2017a), little development of trauma-sensitive environments (Hodgdon, Kinniburgh, Gabowitz, Blaustein, & Spinazzola, 2013) and few trauma-specific programmes tailored to the secure accommodation context , all of which are all part of a trauma-informed approach . Over recent years, however, there has been a gradual shift in focus in the US, and Scotland from behavioural interventions to criminogenic understandings and other approaches that seek to address the causes of delinquency to trauma-informed understandings (Marrow, Knudsen, Olafson, & Bucher, 2012;.…”