Adversity in childhood and later involvement in serious violent crime

• In Event: Social Explanations to Violent Crimes

Abstract

Background: Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are strongly associated with an increased risk of being involved in violent crime in adolescence and adulthood. However, a lack of longitudinal, linked data has impeded research into causality, with studies often relying on retrospective reports of ACEs or use of an aggregate ACE sum score that does not allow type, timing or duration of ACEs to be considered.

Methods: The sample are 5070 participants (born early 1990s) from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children who allowed linkage to Avon and Somerset (A&S) local police data, lived in A&S from age 16-24 years, and had exposure and confounder data. The outcome is having a police record for a serious violence (SV) offence from age 16-24 years (no, yes). ACEs were parent-reported from birth to age 11 years and include measures of parental physical and emotional abuse. Logistic regression models were used to examine associations between the timing and duration of different ACEs and SV, adjusted for child sex and ethnicity, and family socioeconomic position.

Results: 6% of the participants had experienced physical abuse, 17% emotional abuse, and 121 individuals (2.4%) had at least one SV record. In adjusted models, there was evidence of an association between physical (OR 1.90, 95% 1.08-3.35) but not emotional (0.96, 0.60-1.54) abuse and risk of SV. Results suggest that those who experienced physical abuse in both early (<4 years) and later (4-11 years) childhood, or later childhood only, might have been at greater risk of SV than those who experienced it only during early childhood, although numbers were small and confidence intervals were consequently wide.

Conclusion: Results to date suggest that associations with SV differ between ACE types, and that timing may be important. In our presentation, we will also present findings for other ACEs.

Authors

• Alison Teyhan, University of Bristol

• Rosie Cornish, University of Bristol

• Kate Tilling, University of Bristol

• John Macleod, University of Bristol

• Iain Brennan, University of Hull