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Abstract
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OBJECTIVE: Guided by continuous traumatic stress theory (Eagle & Kaminer, 2013) and trauma coping theory (Ford et al., 2006), the present study examined hostility and callous-unemotional traits as mediators between chronic community violence exposure in adolescence and violent offending in early adulthood.
METHOD: Baseline surveys and data over 5 years (8 follow-up time points) were analyzed from 1,354 justice-involved adolescents (86% male) Ages 14-19 (M = 16.04, SD = 1.14) in the Pathways to Desistance Project.
RESULTS: Results demonstrated that callous-unemotional traits, but not hostility, mediated the association between violence exposure and aggressive offending such that increased chronic violence exposure predicted increases in callous-unemotional traits, and subsequent increased aggressive offending. Moderated mediation analyses revealed that the association between chronic violence (both witnessed and victimization) and callous-unemotional traits was stronger for males and females who were younger at the time of their first offense. When gender was examined as a moderator, the callous-unemotional traits mediation model was significant for males, but not for females. However, the interaction effects between gender and chronic violence exposure were not significant at the more stringent p <.01 level.
CONCLUSIONS: Findings call attention to the need to reduce youth exposure to violence via community-based crime prevention. For youth who are already justice-involved, trauma-informed personality assessments and interventions that build emotion regulation and healthy interpersonal interactions may help reduce recidivism rates. These community and therapeutic interventions may decrease future aggressive offending as youth age into early adulthood. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)
Keywords: Juvenile justice
Language: en |