Adverse Childhood Experiences, Commitment Offense, and Race/Ethnicity: Are the Effects Crime-, Race-, and Ethnicity-Specific?
Adverse childhood experiences are associated with an array of health, psychiatric, and behavioral problems including antisocial behavior. Criminologists have recently utilized adverse childhood experiences as an organizing research framework and shown that adverse childhood experiences are associated with delinquency, violence, and more chronic/severe criminal careers. However, much less is known about adverse childhood experiences vis-à-vis specific forms of crime and whether the effects vary across race and ethnicity. Using a sample of 2520 male confined juvenile delinquents, the current study used epidemiological tables of odds (both unadjusted and adjusted for onset, total adjudications, and total out of home placements) to evaluate the significance of the number of adverse childhood experiences on commitment for homicide, sexual assault, and serious persons/property offending. The effects of adverse childhood experiences vary considerably across racial and ethnic groups and across offense types. Adverse childhood experiences are strongly and positively associated with sexual offending, but negatively associated with homicide and serious person/property offending. Differential effects of adverse childhood experiences were also seen among African Americans, Hispanics, and whites. Suggestions for future research to clarify the mechanisms by which adverse childhood experiences manifest in specific forms of criminal behavior are offered.
Department of Sociology, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011, USA. delisi@iastate.edu.
Matt
M
DeLisi
Department of Sociology, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011, USA. jd0g93@iastate.edu.
Justin
J
Alcala
Department of Sociology, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011, USA. kusow@iastate.edu.
Abdi
A
Kusow
Department of Sociology, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011, USA. hochstet@iastate.edu.
Andy
A
Hochstetler
Department of Sociology, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011, USA. mheirigs@iastate.edu.
Mark H
MH
Heirigs
Department of Public Affairs, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs, CO 80918, USA. jcaudill@uccs.edu.
Jonathan W
JW
Caudill
Department of Criminal Justice, University of North Texas, 1155 Union Cir, Denton, TX 76203, USA. chad.trulson@unt.edu.
Chad R
CR
Trulson
G4S Youth Services, LLC, Tampa, FL 33634, USA. michael.baglivio@us.g4s.com.
Michael T
MT
Baglivio
D000293:Adolescent; D054523:Adult Survivors of Child Abuse / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D001741:Black or African American / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D000987:Antisocial Personality Disorder / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology*; D002648:Child; D002649:Child Abuse / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D003415:Crime / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D057237:Criminals / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005581:Foster Home Care / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006306:Health Surveys; D006630:Hispanic or Latino / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D006801:Humans; D007604:Juvenile Delinquency / Q000523:psychology* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D008297:Male; D011329:Prisoners / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012307:Risk Factors; D012742:Sex Offenses / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D019966:Substance-Related Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000523:psychology; D014481:United States; D014754:Violence; D044465:White People / Q000523:psychology / Q000706:statistics & numerical data
adverse childhood experiences; crime; delinquency; ethnicity; juvenile justice; race