cycle of violence, cycle of abuse

["Mark J. Chaffin" <Mark-Chaffin@xxxxxxxxx>]

Stephanie,

There is considerable prospective research to suggest that maltreated
children are at higher risk to end up in the juvenile justice system at some
point in their later lives, and Widom's work is among the most informative
on these questions.  However, the "cycle of abuse" concept is probably one
of the more over-rated and under-supported notions to worm its way into the
clinical lore over the years, particularly when it comes to child sexual
abuse, where it is often thought to be gospel.  Where the support is shaky
is in the over-simplified one-to-one ideas that "sexually abused children
become molesters" or "physically abused children become violent criminals."
The Government Accounting Office published a literature review on this
question a few years ago which reviews the existing literature and found
little to support the idea that sexual abuse history was either a necessary
or sufficient condition for the development of adult sex crimes. This report
can be downloaded from the GAO website.  Although maltreatment (which is
prominantly neglect and is strongly associated with living in poverty, etc.
etc.)is associated with a range of later criminal justice outcomes, I think
the key to understanding this relationship is to look at the total ecology,
not the overly simplified "abused becomes abuser" paradigm.  It is worth
noting that when prospective studies have looked at the broader ecological
variables and examined pathways to serious and violent juvenile offending,
abuse history is one of the weaker factors (see the work of Loeber and
others, or reviews which can be downloaded from the OJJDP web site).    

Mark Chaffin, Ph.D.
Center on Child Abuse and Neglect
University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center
P.O. Box 26901; CHO 3406
Oklahoma City, OK  73190
(405) 271-8858; fax 271-2931
mark-chaffin@ouhsc.edu