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ABSTRACT
Prior work has found that Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) increase the likelihood of offending while turning points decrease the likelihood of offending. However, these two research areas are yet to be combined. The current study assesses how ACEs influence the effects of marriage and military on desistance using a nationally representative sample. Gender and racial differences are also considered. Marriage predicted desistance among those with ACEs. The military was not predictive of desistance among the full sample, though it was salient among nonwhites with ACEs. The results demonstrated that social bonds can still buffer the effects of ACEs on offending.
Acknowledgement
The author would like to thank Drs. Josep Cid and Alex Piquero for their helpful suggestions on this project.
Notes
1 While scholars have used a variety of definitions of desistance, the current study views desistance as a process that leads to a decrease in offending over time (Bushway et al. Citation2001; Laub and Sampson Citation2001). As opposed to measuring offending termination, this method allows us to distinguish higher and lower rate offenders as well as measure their change in behavior, an important component of life course criminology (Piquero, Farrington, and Blumstein Citation2003) .
2 The two ACEs unable to be measured in the current study were emotional neglect and witnessing violence against mother. It is not uncommon for ACEs-related studies to not include all 10 ACEs (Anda et al. Citation1999, Citation2002).
3 At this point, all respondents were at least 18 years of age or older.
4 While this measure does not assess alcoholism based upon the DSM-V definition, drinking five drinks in one occasion does meet the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s definition for binge drinking, a problematic drinking behavior (National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism Citation2012). Unfortunately, the Add Health did not include the DSM measure of alcoholism for the respondents’ parents, representing a limitation to this measure.
5 A large number of cases were missing data on some of the ACEs-related measures, with the physical abuse, neglect, and sexual abuse measures missing the most. However, it was found that these were missing at random so median imputation was used. The analyses were estimated using the original data with listwise deletion as well as with the median-imputed data, and the results were substantially similar, so the median-imputed data were utilized in order to increase statistical power.
6 Specifically among those who served in the military, 3 nonwhites and 13 whites were considered to have high ACEs.
7 The effect of military participation was unable to be estimated in Model 6 because only a small subsample of those without any ACEs was also in the military (n = 12).
8 Caution should be used when interpreting these odds ratios due to the small subsample this analysis is relying upon. Among the 146 white respondents who did not have any ACEs, only 7 of them did not come from a traditional family.
9 Similar to the previous note, caution should be used when interpreting these odds ratios due to the small subsample this analysis is relying upon. Among the 49 nonwhite respondents who did not have any ACEs, only 9 of them did not come from a traditional family.
10 This effect should also be interpreted with caution given the small number of cases who came from a non-traditional family and did not have ACEs.
11 Recall that the effect of military participation among whites and nonwhites with zero ACEs was unable to be estimated. As a result, it is not possible to say what the effects of the military are among whites or nonwhites with zero ACEs.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Jessica M. Craig
Jessica M. Craig is an assistant professor of criminal justice at the University of North Texas. She received both her M.S. and Ph.D. in Criminology from the University of Texas at Dallas. Her research interests include life-course/developmental criminology, delinquency, and juvenile justice. Some of her recent work has been published in the Journal of Criminal Justice, Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice, Criminal Behaviour and Mental Health, and Crime & Delinquency.