Cycle of Violence Revisited Six Years Later

• NCJ Number: 153272
• Author(s): C S Widom
• Date Published: 1995
• Length: 0 pages
• Sponsoring Agency: National Institute of Justice (NIJ); US Dept of Justice NIJ Pub
• Sale Source: National Institute of Justice/NCJRS
• Publication Type: Survey
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: 55 minutes, VHS, color. Video also available in open captioned.

Annotation

This presentation summarizes the methods and findings of research begun in 1986 to determine whether a victim of child abuse or neglect will become a violent offender as an adult.

Abstract

The research was funded by the National Institute of Justice and other Federal agencies and was designed to overcome the methodological limitations of earlier research. The sample of 1,575 individuals included court-substantiated cases of child physical abuse, child sexual abuse, and child neglect brought to a midwestern adult criminal court and juvenile court, plus a control group of children matched for age, sex, race, and family social class. The children were age 11 and under when brought into the study. The first phase of research followed the children through 1987-88, when some had not yet passed through ages 20-25, the peak years for violent offending. The next phase followed the participants through mid-1994. Information was collected by means of a review of local, State, and Federal criminal histories; a search of the national death index; and detailed interviews. Results revealed that significantly more abused or neglected children than controls had been arrested for any crime or for a violent crime both by 1988 and by 1994. The percentages increased substantially between the two study periods; 49 percent of the abused or neglected children had been arrested for some crime by 1994. Both physical abuse and neglect were related to significantly increased risk of later arrest for crime. However, the racial differences in the findings suggested that other factors affected the chance of arrest. Other outcomes that differed for different subgroups included attempted suicides, alcohol problems, antisocial personality, and involvement in prostitution. However, teen pregnancy was not associated with prior abuse or neglect. Findings indicated the need to recognize the impact of both abuse and neglect, to identify these children early, and to avoid intervention that becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. The speaker is a professor at the State University of New York at Albany. Questions from the audience, answers from the speaker, and introduction by National Institute of Justice Director Jeremy Travis