Minors at riskadverse childhood experiences and youth offending

Resumen

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), broadly defined such as those experiences of abuse, neglect and household dysfunction, have been widely associated to unfavourable consequences throughout the life course. The sequelae of such experiences are clearly manifested during adulthood, with consequences as diverse as substance abuse, emotional distress, deviant behaviour or even premature death. One of the most extended outcomes of ACEs is related to juvenile justice involvement or persistence in crime, due to the large overlap of juvenile victims who subsequently become juvenile offenders. Therefore, the overarching aim of this thesis is to analyse how ACEs influences in the development of negative consequences during the emerging adulthood period. With the first three studies that make up this thesis, an attempt has been made to respond to some aspects scarcely analysed in previous literature such as the consequences of the differential or the cumulative impact of multiple ACEs as well as the intergenerational transmission of these experiences. The results obtained here indicated that the experience of physical abuse increases the odds of antisocial behaviour, neglect predicts lack of altruism, and substance use at home increases the odds of a higher use of drugs in later development. In addition, having 4 or more ACEs was the major turning point in the probability of developing negative effects, especially deviant behaviour. Results also showed an intergenerational transmission of such experiences, perpetuating the cycle of violence generation after generation. The fourth study, a validation of the Deviant Behavior Variety Scale (DBVS) which assesses different types of antisocial behaviour, serves as a transition from minor victims to minor offenders, emphasizing the importance of the applicability of the evaluation instruments depending on the assessed context. Confirmatory factor analyses as well as validity, reliability and consistency analyses demonstrated that the Spanish version of DBVS presented good psychometric properties and therefore, it is a valid measure when assessing deviant behaviour in young Spanish. The last two studies included in this thesis analyse the predictive validity of the Youth Level of Service/Case Management Inventory (YLS/CMI) to assess the risk of recidivism in ethnic minority groups such as the Arab minority and the Roma minority in Spain. Cultural differences were found in both cases (underclassification errors in the case of Arab minority and overclassification errors in the Roma minority) which suggest that predictive validity of the instrument is not as accurate in minority groups as it is in majority groups. In addition, these results also suggest that not only are risk factors taken into account in the assessment of ethnic minorities, but that there is also a disparate impact leading to differences in mean scores between racial groups. This violates the right of children to be equal before the law and emphasises the importance of routinely testing assessment tools for possible biases based on race or ethnicity. Altogether, the results of these studies demonstrate that ACEs have a detrimental impact whose consequences are visible throughout life and may even be passed on from generation to generation. Therefore, the importance of early detection is crucial to mitigate the adverse effects that children may suffer. Trauma-informed care approaches that recognize the need for ACE screening practices may help all those agents involved with children (such as paediatricians, teachers or professionals in the juvenile justice system) to monitor, identify, and address the psychological and behavioural repercussions of ACEs.