The Effect of Childhood Trauma on the Development of Trauma-Related Cognitions in the Lives of Incarcerated Women

Background and Purpose

The factors that contribute to female criminal behavior and subsequent incarceration are quite varied. However, the most commonly reported factors are childhood and adult sexual and physical abuse. This study examined the role that childhood trauma plays in the development of trauma-related cognitions.  Childhood trauma encompasses physical abuse and  physical neglect, emotional abuse and emotional neglect and sexual abuse.

Recent statistics suggest that upward of 60 percent of incarcerated women are exposed to trauma prior to incarceration with 99 percent of incarcerated women reporting at least one traumatic event during their life time.  In fact, incarcerated women’s experiences with interpersonal violence (childhood and adult sexual and physical abuse) surpasses the number of women in the general population exposed to these forms of trauma.

Hypothesis:   Childhood sexual abuse will be a better predictor of trauma-related cognitions than other forms of childhood trauma in the lives of incarcerated women.

Methods

A cross-sectional research design was employed using a stratified random sampling procedure. The strata used was housing security levels 1-4. The study was conducted in three prisons.

The study sample (N=250) female inmates; 152 White (62%), 50 Black (20.4%), 18 Bi-racial, 13 (7.3%) Native American/Pacific Islanders (503%) and 12 Hispanic females (4.9%).  Mean age: 36.2 (min 20, max 80); education: 94 (38.8%) high school/GED, 85 (35.5%) some college and 201 were mothers (82.4%).

Self administered questionnaires measured childhood trauma (Childhood Trauma Questionnaire) and trauma-related cognitions (Posttraumatic Cognitions Inventory).

Results

In this study, incarcerated women’s experiences with childhood sexual abuse was a associated with higher levels of trauma-related cognitions.  These results align with previous studies that have focused on the prevalence of childhood sexual abuse in the lives of incarcerated women. However, simultaneous examination of multiple forms of childhood trauma indicated childhood emotional abuse was a better predictor of trauma-related cognitions than childhood physical abuse and physical neglect, childhood emotional neglect and childhood sexual abuse. 

Current studies have suggested that childhood emotional abuse should be considered as an entity in itself—able to occur independently from other forms of childhood abuse (Garbarino, Guttman & Seeley, 1986). The high prevalence of childhood emotional abuse in this sample may be indicative of the family environment in which childhood sexual abuse and/ or all other forms of childhood trauma take place.

Implications

Previous studies have focused on the relationship between childhood sexual abuse and trauma-related cognitions.  However, analyses showed that childhood emotional abuse was a better  predictor of trauma-related cognitions than childhood sexual abuse. These findings support the need for future studies to examine the role of childhood emotional abuse as a response to traumatic events and the development of trauma-related cognitions.  This information may assist future social work practitioners in the development of guidelines to assess emotional abuse within the family environment; specifically, when there appears to be no physical indicators of trauma and abuse.