I can find all kinds of research related to ACEs and incarceration except the most obvious: that high ACEs scores makes people more likely to end up incarcerated. I'm looking for something that says, in effect, that people with ACEs score of 4 or higher are X times more likely to experience incarceration. Does anyone know of research like this?
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Hi, Cynthia,
I'm interested in the same question. Here's one article:
“Adverse childhood events: incarceration of household members and health-related quality of life in adulthood,’ J Health Care Poor Underserved. 2014 Aug; 25(3): 1169-82.
Annie Gjelsvik, Dora M Dumont, Amy Nunn, David L Rosen
PMID: 25130232
PMCID: PMC4897769
I will post citations for others as I find them.
Lorraine S
I looked for similar articles last year and found very little. However, we are working with a group of women in a local criminal justice system in the Pittsburgh area and have begun to collect ACES data. We are generally seeing an average of scores even higher than 4!
@Vicki Sirockman posted:I looked for similar articles last year and found very little. However, we are working with a group of women in a local criminal justice system in the Pittsburgh area and have begun to collect ACES data. We are generally seeing an average of scores even higher than 4!"
When I work with incarcerated women I usually find that the score is around 7, and 5-6 with the men. Which is part of the reason I'm finding it frustrating not to find the research evidence to back this up so that I can use data and not just anecdotal evidence.
I have helped write several articles on the subject regarding juveniles. Try doing a search on my colleagues, Michael Baglivio or Kevin Wolff, who are still active in the area.
Nathan Epps
I have included a link to a study of incarcerated juveniles. Good luck in your research.
Beverly Tobiason
I am Co-Director of the Neurofeedback Advocacy Project. We implement neurofeedback in 3 agencies in Oregon, one of which Sponsors Inc provides transitional housing and other support to felons just released from prison. The other two sites were the forensics unit of the county Behavioral Health Department and a community mental health center serving a economically hard pressed small town. We collected ACE scores on all participants. The scores were nearly identical at 5.9. In addition to ACE's scores, we collect scores of the number of DSM current Psychosocial Stresses and the number of concurrent symptom clusters (e.g. Anxiety, sleep, depression). Again, the scores on these measures for our sample of felons, male and female matches those from the other sites.
Not directly related to your question but the results to date show significant improvements on client-select, client-rated behavioral health concerns from the treatment. We have added four more sites to the original study and are enrolling several more. We are definitely looking into recruiting sites in prison settings and in the juvenile justice system. If you could point us to such agency sites, it would be a great help.
Seconding the work of Nathan Epps, Michael Baglivio and Kevin Wolff in this arena. Outstanding and mind-blowing!
Hi Cynthia - this recent post on the ACEs to prison pipeline might be of interest to you: https://www.pacesconnection.com...1#505446391208441411 . You might also want to join our ACEs in the Criminal Justice System Community if you haven't already.
Here are a few references I found:
https://www.apa.org/science/ab...04/adverse-childhood
Adverse Childhood Experiences and Adult Criminality:
How Long Must We Live before We Possess Our Own Lives?
James a Reavis, PsyD; Jan looman, PhD; Kristina a franco; Briana Rojas
Perm J 2013 Spring;17(2):44-48
Good luck, John
Here is the citation for the report of another relevant study:
"Sociodemographic Characteristics, Adverse Childhood Experiences, and Substance Use and Psychiatric Disorders Among Adolescent- Limited, Adult-Onset, Life-Course- Persistent Offenders and Nonoffenders in a General Population Survey"
Authors: Bradley T. Kerridge , S. Patricia Chou, Boji Huang,, and Thomas C. Harford
Crime & Delinquency 2020, Vol. 66(12) 1729–1753 © The Author(s) 2020 Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions httpDs
//dIo: i1.o0r.g1/107.171/0770/10101121827827029091155697
From the Introduction: "Two of the most significant and recurring findings in the criminal behavior literature are that juvenile ... offenders have high rates of substance use disorders and other psychiatric disorders and experience adverse childhood experiences (ACEs; e.g., sexual, physical abuse) (Aebi et al., 2015; Friestad et al., 2014; King et al., 2011; National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, 2010) disproportionately in relation to the general population. Furthermore, ACEs have been linked to substance use and psychiatric disorders ..." (Emphasis added.)
