Adverse childhood experiences and victim-offender homophily

• In Event: Victimization of Children and Adolescents

Abstract

Recent Finnish research shows that adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are associated with higher risk of both violent offending and victimization in later life, and these associations have remained fairly constant across birth cohorts. It is less clear, however, if and how the violence experienced and perpetrated by these youth differs from other violence, and whether youths with several ACEs are likely to victimized by youth with similar disadvantages. Using register-linkage data on ACEs of multiple birth cohorts and case-level data on police-recorded violent crime incidents including both victim and offender identifiers, we examine victim-offender homophily and other features of violent crimes that are particularly likely among youth with ACEs. Unlike prior research indicating strong homophily among adult offenders and victims, our first results suggest that victim-offender homophily is surprisingly weak at least in terms of ACEs and that youth with multiple ACEs are particularly likely to end up as victims of older offenders.

Authors

• Mikko Aaltonen, Faculty of Law, University of Eastern Finland

• Noora Ellonen, Research director

• Pekka Martikainen, Population Research Unit, University of Helsinki, Finland