Childhood trauma and criminal reoffending

Donncha Hanna, Madeleine Dalsklev, Twylla Cunningham

Research output: Contribution to conferencePaperpeer-review

Abstract

Background: It is well-established in the literature that there is a high prevalence rate of childhood trauma experiences among the prison population; however, previous research on the relationship between childhood trauma and reoffending often focus on adolescent populations or risk of offending.

Objective 1: The first part of this paper will outline a systematic review exploring the association between childhood physical and sexual abuse and its prediction on reoffending rates in adult populations. A total of 3,151 studies were identified, and 13 met the a priori eligibility criteria.

Results 1: A narrative synthesis of the results suggests that childhood physical and sexual abuse are generally high among the prison population and tend to be even higher among those who reoffend. A substantial number of studies found that childhood physical and sexual abuse predict reoffending, and the majority of the studies found a positive direction for this association, albeit of a small magnitude.

Objective 2: The second part of the paper will outline an investigation into whether childhood or troubles-related trauma among 100 offenders who have served a life sentence in Northern Ireland was associated with general and violent reoffending patterns.

Results 2: The most common form of childhood trauma were emotional abuse and/or emotional neglect (43%), troubles-related trauma (43%) and physical abuse (40%). Only age (OR: .91) and troubles-related trauma (OR: 5.57) emerged as significant predictors of general reoffending at any time post release. Childhood physical abuse was related to an increase in the odds of violently reoffending, (OR: 4.09).

Original languageEnglish
Publication statusPublished - 14 Jun 2023
Event 17th Biennial Conference of the European Society for Traumatic Stress Studies 2023 -
Duration: 14 Jun 202317 Jun 2023
https://estss.org/past-conferences/

Conference

Conference 17th Biennial Conference of the European Society for Traumatic Stress Studies 2023
Period14/06/202317/06/2023
Internet address

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Childhood trauma and criminal reoffending'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this