Assessing the Effects of Childhood Exposure to Violence, Residential Instability, and Parental Incarceration on Adolescent Outcomes

• In Event: Research from Emerging Scholars in Developmental and Life-Course Criminology II

Abstract

Exposure to violence in childhood has been linked to internalizing and externalizing problems throughout the life course. However, exposure to violence rarely occurs in isolation from other disadvantages. It remains unclear how the impacts of exposure to violence vary according to whether other adversities are also experienced during childhood. Accordingly, the purpose of the current study is to determine whether the effects of exposure to violence has additive, amplifying, or inoculating effects on adolescent internalizing and externalizing outcomes when it co-occurs with two childhood adversities: parental incarceration and residential instability. To carry out this study, five waves of data from the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study are used, and a series of regression models are specified to assess the relationships between childhood exposure to violence, residential instability, and parental incarceration (up to age 9) on internalizing and externalizing problems at age 15. Findings and their implications for studying the impacts of violence on youth development will be discussed.

Authors

• Alyssa Talaugon, Florida State University

• Jillian Turanovic, Florida State University