[DOWNLOAD] "Unraveling the Link Between Trauma and Male Delinquency: The Cumulative Versus Differential Risk Perspectives." by Social Work # Book PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Unraveling the Link Between Trauma and Male Delinquency: The Cumulative Versus Differential Risk Perspectives.
- Author : Social Work
- Release Date : January 01, 2006
- Genre: Social Science,Books,Nonfiction,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 237 KB
Description
Within the social work, mental health, and criminal justice fields, researchers generally agree that trauma places youths at risk of juvenile delinquency. Proponents of the developmental and cumulative risk theoretical models (Cichetti & Carlson, 1989; Rutter, 1985, 1987) disagree, however, about whether it is a specific risk factor or an accumulation of risk factors that produces an adverse outcome, such as delinquency. Developmental theory suggests that youths who have experienced a traumatic event of sufficient magnitude, such as child physical abuse, may experience long-term, negative consequences--psychological, social, and behavioral--that continue and sometimes worsen in adolescence and adulthood (Dodge, Bates, & Pettit, 1990; Lemmon, 1999; Perez, 2001; Widom, 1989a). Research has shown that 50 percent to 79 percent of male victims of child maltreatment, whose abuse occurred before age 12, later became involved in serious juvenile delinquency (Lemmon; Stouthamer-Loeber, Wei, Homish,& Loeber, 2002). In contrast, cumulative risk theory suggests that youths who experience an accumulation of negative or stressful life events, such as parental divorce or school suspension, increase their risk of engaging in juvenile delinquency (Agnew, 2002; Eitle & Turner, 2002; Garmezy & Masten, 1994; Hoffman & Cerbone, 1999; Ireland, Smith, & Thornberry, 2002). Although both differential and cumulative effects of trauma have been linked to youths' antisocial behavior, researchers generally have investigated these effects independently. Broadly defined, trauma in this regard refers to being a victim of violence, being a witness to violence, or experiencing stressful life events. Of the three types of trauma, research on child maltreatment and witnessing violence has mainly adopted a developmental approach, and research on stressful life events has adopted a cumulative risk approach. Child maltreatment, often defined as being a victim of physical abuse, sexual abuse, and neglect that occurs before age 12, is positively related to adolescent and adult criminality (Falshaw, Browne, & Hollin, 1996; Haapsalo & Pokela, 1999; Lemmon, 1999; Widom, 1989a; Zingraff, Leiter, & Myers, & Johnsen, 1993). First-generation studies on the child maltreatment-delinquency connection, conducted between 1950 and 1988, generally found that youths who were maltreated in childhood were at greater risk of engaging in illegal behavior, especially violent behavior (Widom, 1989a). A causal link, however, cannot be drawn from these early studies because of their methodological limitations, such as the use of cross-sectional retrospective designs, small sample sizes, a lack of comparison groups, differing definitions and data collection methods, and failure to control for confounding variables (Widom, 1989b).