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Abstract
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The authors interviewed 34 young people who had been sexually abused as children 6 or 8 years after the abuse had occurred and compared them with 34 control subjects who had not been abused. They also compared subjects who had been abused for less than 1 year with those who had been abused for more than 1 year. The findings suggest a link between childhood sexual abuse and later drug abuse, juvenile delinquency, and criminal behavior. The authors explore the effects of pretrauma factors of previous childhood physical abuse and parental modeling of aggression and the postdisclosure factors of social and family blaming.
VioLit summary:
OBJECTIVE:
The goal of this study by Burgess et al. was to examine the consequences of childhood sexual abuse upon later socially deviant behaviors. The data were interpreted using a model of a cognitive-behavioral structure of information processing of traumatic events.
METHODOLOGY:
The authors employed a quasi-experimental prospective longitudinal study with a non-probability sample of 34 youth who had been sexually abused in organized sex rings and 34 control subjects who had not been abused. Between the years 1976 and 1978, 36 children who were victims of sexual abuse were studied, and from 1978 to 1981, 30 more abused children were identified and investigated. Families of these 66 children were sought in 1984, and after refusals to participate and unknown whereabouts of subjects, follow-up investigations were conducted upon 34 children (52%) from the original sample. The control group included a number of non-abused siblings from the subjects' families, as well as children from the school that the victim had attended. The sample was then divided according to the type of control group - sibling or schoolmate - and to the length of time the victim spent involved in the sex ring. Two studies were then conducted upon the various groups: the first involved an 8-year follow-up of 17 white adolescents, 6 boys and 11 girls, who had been involved in the sex rings for less than one year. Precision matching resulted in a control group of 17 non-abused siblings who were matched in gender and closest age to the subject. The second study consisted of a 6- year follow-up of 17 white boys who had been sexually exploited in the sex rings for more than one year, and a precision matched control group of non-abused schoolmates matched on age, race, gender and family structure. For both the studies, the abused subjects were compared with their non-abused counterparts on family history and structure, previous trauma, and outcome behaviors such as symptomatology. substance use, sexual behavior, delinquency and peer and family interactions. A semi-structured interview was used to gather data from the abused subjects, and was divided into three sections. The first was directed at gathering descriptive data, including a background of abuse, descriptions of the sexual contact, the sex rings and the offenders, and a report of any events that occurred within the criminal justice system. The second part of the interview examined the subject's family structure, the sociodemographics of the family, recent incidents of sexual abuse and the consequences of disclosing the victimization experiences. Consequences included whether the child felt pressured, threatened, rejected, punished or blamed by the parents for disclosing the history of victimization. The final section included the Piers-Harris Children's Self-Concept Scale, 27 items from the Moos Family Environment Scale that were used to form cohesion, expressiveness and conflict sub-scales (all with previously established adequate reliability), the Impact of Event Scale, measurements of beliefs about sexual abuse and of life events, checklists for coping, behaviors and delinquency, and each subject's status of sexual behavior. A semi-structured interview was also used for the control subjects, and included any history of abuse, a behavior checklist, a delinquency checklist, a life events scale, the Piers-Harris Scale, the Family Environment Scale and the subject's sexual behavior status. School and/or arrest records were used to confirm all reports of delinquent behavior. Analyses included examination of frequencies and cross-tabulations, with Fisher's exact tests and Bonferroni correction.
FINDINGS/DISCUSSION:
The authors compared findings from study 1 - with victims involved in the sex rings for less than one year - with those from the second study, which had subjects who had been victimized for more than one year. They found that, whilst subjects in the first study had approximately even numbers of one- (n=8) and two-parent (n=9) families, in the second study 12 subjects came from families with only one parent, and only 5 came from those with two. 59% of subjects in the second study had fathers with a history of alcohol abuse, 24% of the fathers had a criminal record, and 71% of the subjects' fathers had been away from the household for more than ten months at a time before the child had reached the age of twelve. These figures were contrasted with those found in the first study, where 29% had abused alcohol, 6% had criminal histories and 35% had been absent for more than ten months. Of those subjects in the second study, 82% had been physically abused as children; 18% of those in the first study had been victimized in such a way. The offenders in the first study often had access to the subjects through the neighborhood, the family or work. Subjects were not often involved in pornography, drugs and alcohol were not imposed, and disclosure was made before the age of 12, after which the subjects remained in school. In the second study, older boys were told to recruit younger siblings, and the use of alcohol and drugs, and participation in pornography, were expected. Violent threats and activities were present between the boys, and sadistic homosexuality was practiced. The victims were already teenagers by the time the abuse was disclosed, and most dropped out of school after disclosure. Subjects of both studies experienced symptoms of posttraumatic stress after disclosure, with significant differences in symptoms such as levels of fear, nervousness, inhibition, confusion about sex and problems sleeping between abused and non-abused subjects in study 1. Subjects in the first study used significantly more alcohol than did the non-abused controls in that study, whilst subjects in study 2 used amphetamines, heroin and psychedelics significantly more than did the control group. No differences were found in sexual behavior for study 1; however, abused subjects in the second study participated in significantly more masturbation and prostitution than did the controls. Abused subjects in the first study reported problems with interactions with the opposite sex, although no difference was found between abused subjects and controls in relationship with parents. Subjects of the second study reported significantly more physical fights with friends, as well as with parents, than did the controls. Victims in the second study were more likely than those in the first to feel pressured, threatened, rejected and punished for disclosing their experiences. No difference was found between the victims and the controls in the first study on measures of family environment, but for the second study, the abused subjects reported more anger, aggression and conflict in their families, as well as less support. Study 1 subjects were no more likely than their control counterparts to have been delinquent, however study 2 subjects were significantly more aggressive, unresponsive to authority and resistant to control than were the non-abused youth. They were more likely to have been in contact with the law's authorities, to have run away and stolen from the family, to have participated in breaking and entering and destroying property, to have physically assaulted someone and to have used a weapon. The authors concluded that their findings suggest a descriptive link between sexual abuse in childhood and subsequent socially deviant behaviors. They then turned to a cognitive-behavioral explanation of their findings. The first phase for these children occurred before the trauma of victimization, with a family environment of aggression, violence, criminality, substance abuse and child abuse leading to feelings of anger, drug use and aggression. During the second phase, the trauma itself was replayed time and again, which led to the use of dissociation, aggression and withdrawal as defense mechanisms. The third, posttraumatic phase involved disclosure, and included extended use of drugs to help reduce the tension and stress that accompanied such open acknowledgement of victimization. For the abused youth who later became abusers themselves, the authors suggested that their dissociation, leading to a sensory response of drug use, to a perceptual response of a lack of ability to show caring for others, and to a cognitive response of an acceptance of sexual violence and aggression, were all manifestations of early childhood abuse combined with subsequent sexual victimization experiences, and together created the link from abused to abuser.
AUTHORS' RECOMMENDATIONS:
The authors suggested that therapeutic intervention must address issues of identifying and stopping the abuse, of understanding the defensive mechanisms used by the victims and the relationship of these structures to the abuse, of modifying these mechanisms so that the victim can discuss the victimization experience, of unlinking the experience from dysfunctional behaviors at sensory, perceptual and cognitive levels, of processing the trauma into past memory, and of restructuring coping behaviors to allow for a more positive future.
EVALUATION:
The authors present an interesting examination of the consequences of child abuse. However, the small sample size suggests that the results be interpreted with some caution. A more thorough discussion of the measures, including definitions and operationalizations of variables, would have been helpful, as would have a discussion of methods of sample selection and a more detailed treatment of implications. The cognitive-behavioral discussion is presented in a somewhat confusing manner, addressing issues and behaviors that are not measured in the study. However, the study provides a good basis for future research in this field. (CSPV Abstract - Copyright © 1992-2007 by the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence, Institute of Behavioral Science, Regents of the University of Colorado)
KW - Long-Term Effects
KW - 1970s
KW - 1980s
KW - Child Sexual Abuse Effects
KW - Child Sexual Abuse Victim
KW - Child Abuse Victim
KW - Child Abuse Effects
KW - Child Abuse-Delinquency Link
KW - Middle Childhood
KW - Childhood Experience
KW - Childhood Victimization
KW - Long-Term Effects
KW - Sexual Assault Effects
KW - Sexual Assault Victim
KW - Psychological Victimization Effects
KW - Delinquency Causes
KW - Juvenile Delinquency
KW - Juvenile Crime
KW - Juvenile Substance Use
KW - Juvenile Offender
KW - Victim Turned Offender
KW - Substance Use Causes
KW - Drug Use Causes
KW - Crime Causes
KW - Child Abuse-Crime Link
KW - Child Abuse-Substance Use Link
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