Adverse childhood experiences, commitment offense, and race/ethnicity: Are the effects crime-, race-, and ethnicity-specific?

Matt Delisi, Justin Alcala, Abdi Kusow, Andy Hochstetler, Mark H. Heirigs, Jonathan W. Caudill, Chad R. Trulson, Michael T. Baglivio

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

87 Scopus citations

Abstract

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.

Original languageEnglish
Article number331
JournalInternational Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
Volume14
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Mar 22 2017

Keywords

  • Adverse childhood experiences
  • Crime
  • Delinquency
  • Ethnicity
  • Juvenile justice
  • Race

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