Adverse childhood experiences in Australian youth adjudicated for sexual offences and non-sexual violent offences

Abstract

This study examines the differential childhood adversities experienced by two samples of Australian adolescents involved in the juvenile justice system: male youth who had been adjudicated for sexual offences and their counterparts who had been adjudicated for nonsexual violence. The sample is comprised of clients referred to a service that explicitly prioritises cases identified to be high risk, high need, and living in rural or remote areas. Male youth who had committed a sexual offence were more likely than their counterparts to have experienced emotional and sexual abuse and neglect in their childhoods. Alternatively, the childhoods of the comparison group were marked by characteristics of more general household dysfunction. Potential explanations for these findings are provided. The onset of sexual offending is presented as a possible consequence of poor attachment and emotional dysregulation and the impact of vicarious violence, and a chaotic family life are considered in the development of subsequent nonsexual violence. The implications of these findings for both clinical practice and future research are discussed.