Patterns of Trauma and Their Association with Delinquency and Criminality: A Latent Class Approach

Background/Purpose: Research has demonstrated the link between early trauma and future deleterious outcomes, including delinquency.  However, some youth with considerable early trauma avoid later delinquency and criminality, while others with fewer trauma experiences manifest pronounced challenges.  Because the number of traumatic experiences does not consistently predict which youth struggle later in life, we need better tools to identify those most at risk.  We hypothesize that trauma-related risk involves not just the amount of early trauma, but also patterns of traumatic experience.  Identifying these patterns can inform early intervention and targeting of programs aimed at reducing delinquency and criminal behavior. 

Methods:  This study uses data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health, a large representative longitudinal data set of adolescents and young adults.  Early trauma was measured in Waves 1 and 2; Waves 3 and 4  measured delinquency and adult criminality. Our analytic sample included 3224 young adults.

Indicators of early trauma captured presence and severity of traumatic experiences across multiple categories (e.g. physical abuse in home, sexual abuse, victim of physical violence, parental incarceration).   Latent class analysis was used to identify patterns in these traumatic experiences that characterize different groups, or “classes”, of adolescents. Logistic regression then assesses relationships between latent class membership and later delinquency and criminality.

Results:  Results indicated 4 distinct classes of youth: Class 1 - high levels of trauma across multiple categories;  Class 2 - significant physical abuse in the home/ little trauma outside the home;  Class 3 - minor/moderate trauma across multiple categories; and Class 4 -  little/no trauma.  Logistic regression indicated that compared to Class 4 (little/no trauma), Class 1 youth (high trauma/multiple categories) had higher odds of both delinquency (OR = 5.13; 95 % CI: 2.96, 8.87) and criminal behavior (OR = 8.07; 95 % CI: 4.46, 14.59).  The same pattern was found for Class 2 youth (physical abuse in home) (Delinquency OR =3.65; 95 % CI: 2.41, 5.52 and Criminality OR = 4.64; 95 % CI: 2.66, 8.10), but not for Class 3 youth (low/moderate level trauma/multiple categories).  

Conclusions/Implications:  This study extends knowledge about the relationship between early trauma and later negative consequences, suggesting that developmental risk accrues not so much from the overall accumulation of trauma experiences as from exposure to particular types and patterns of experiences.  The latent class approach identified heightened risk of delinquency and criminality not only for youth with high levels of trauma across multiple types (Class 1),  but also for youth with fewer total experiences of trauma but who experienced trauma in their home (Class 2).  Additionally, this approach identified a group that had low-risk despite experiencing many types of trauma (Class 3).  Overall, this analysis indicates that different patterns of traumatic experiences have different developmental impacts, suggesting the need for additional research to 1) examine how and why particular patterns of trauma (e.g. in-home trauma) are linked to deleterious outcomes, and 2) identify how best to intervene.  Implications for mental health, family support, and juvenile justice practice and policy are discussed.