Child Abuse and Delinquency - Are There Connections Between Childhood Violence and Later Deviant Behavior?

• NCJ Number: 100373
• Author(s): M D Pagelow
• Date Published: 1982
• Length: 27 pages
• Sponsoring Agency: National Institute of Justice (NIJ); US Dept of Justice NIJ Pub
• Publication Format: Document
• Publication Type: Survey
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: Paper prepared for presentation at the Session on Family Violence at the Tenth World Congress of the International Sociological Association in Mexico City, Mexico, 1982.

Annotation

This study examines the methodology and major findings of research reports to determine the strength of evidence for the popular belief that childhood maltreatment spawns deviant behavior by the victim.

Abstract

The review of recent research (1970-82) encompassed publications by government and nongovernment agencies as well as professional journals. Many reports are merely descriptive, and much of the research suffers from serious methodological problems. Longitudinal studies are absent; a few are large-scale retrospective investigations. There are no reliable base rates for child maltreatment, so it cannot be known how many children are maltreated but go undetected. Despite this absence of strong empirical evidence that would relate child abuse to subsequent delinquency in the victim, it has been assumed as a fact in many interventions, which may be more damaging than nonintervention. The resultant labeling and stigmatization of the victims and their parents combined with the negative expectations of professionals appears to produce a self-fulfilling prophesy of delinquency in the child. Critics of current methods of intervention and social control disagree on recommendations for change. 49 references. (Author abstract modified)