Session: Understanding the Developmental Pathways to Sexual Coercion: Trauma, Adverse Childhood Experiences, Callous-Unemotional Traits, Caregiving, and Hopelessness Among Adolescents with Sexually Harmful Behavior (Society for Social Work and Research 22nd Annual Conference - Achieving Equal Opportunity, Equity, and Justice)

Youth in the juvenile justice system disproportionately have a higher number of adverse childhood experiences, and have experienced attachment related disruptions resulting from complex trauma, which are potential developmental pathways to offending. Evidence for the trauma-delinquency link have been found among youth adjudicated for sexually offenses (JSOs), in which early abuse and neglect could contribute to the development of sexually aggressive tendencies. Moreover, interpersonal challenges in emotional reciprocity and co-occurring mental health issues have been found to be related to childhood trauma and to persistent delinquent and problematic sexual behavior. Despite this body of evidence, there is limited research exploring these differential pathways (and the gender differences) among youth with sexually harmful behavior.

Symposium Theme:

In this symposium, four papers will be presented investigating adverse childhood experiences, cumulative trauma, callous unemotional traits, caregiving and attachment, and hopelessness among juveniles with sexual offenses (JSOs). Advanced statistical models were utilized including path analysis and multivariate regressions. In the first paper, female JSOs had significantly higher Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACES) scores than non-JSO youth and females in the general population, and male JSOs had higher scores than general delinquent youth. In the second paper, path analysis examining models of relevant predictors provided a good fit to the data (χ2(6)=8.63, p= 0.20; CFI = .92; RMSEA < 0.049; SRMR = 0.055). Physical abuse had stronger direct and indirect effects on sexual coercion and the indirect effect of physical abuse mediated through Callous Unemotional (CU) traits was the strongest indirect effect. In the third paper, path analyses revealed there were statistically significant direct pathways between harsh and indifferent mother caregiving (β=.897, p<.001) and insecure attachments and between harsh and indifferent mother caregiving (β=.619, p<.001) and ACEs. However, ACEs did not mediate the relationships between mother caregiving and insecure attachment (β= -.04, p=.169, ns). In the fourth paper, hopelessness was not correlated to sexual offenses, such as force or number of victims, but was significantly related to a variety of nonsexual crimes. In the final regression model, early sexual victimization and hopelessness predicted nonsexual criminality, F(2, 246) = 10.62, p < .001 (r = .23).

Implications:

Juvenile justice involved youth in general, and sexually abusive youth in particular, experience more trauma than the general population. They are at higher risk for behavioral health issues, victimization and perpetration, developmental trauma, and other risks/coping mechanisms which have devastating social and economic costs. In alignment with the Grand Challenges for Social Work, the findings from the research presented in this symposium underscore the importance of incorporating strategies to address the consequences of adverse childhood experiences and exposure to violence among adolescents in the justice system.