The Cycle of Violence: Abused and Neglected Girls to Adult Female Offenders

Abstract

Drawing on findings from a prospective cohort design study that followed abused and neglected children and demographically matched controls into adulthood, this paper focuses on these abused and neglected girls and one important consequence—the extent to which these victims become offenders themselves. We ask four questions: Is criminal behavior among abused and neglected girls and women rare? Are abused and neglected girls at increased risk for becoming violent offenders? Does childhood maltreatment affect criminal career trajectories for girls? Do maltreated girls grow up to maltreat their own children? We conclude with discussion, suggestions for future research, and implications.

Keywords

girls child abuse criminality female criminality violence by women

Introduction and Background

Although domestic violence (or family violence) is defined as violence or other abuse that occurs in the context of a domestic setting, in its broadest sense, domestic violence involves violence against children, parents, or the elderly. Other papers in this special issue will focus on domestic violence victims. This paper focuses on abused and neglected girls and one important consequence—the extent to which these victims become offenders themselves. Some of the studies described here were originally published many years ago. We include them here (along with more recent work) for two reasons: first, to provide a historical perspective on the “cycle of violence” literature and, second, because there is a relative lack of longitudinal studies that specifically study girls over a long time period. Most of the longitudinal studies on the causes of delinquency and crime focus on males.

Historically, there has been a general perception that we do not need to understand or intervene to prevent female delinquent or criminal behavior because small numbers of women are involved. They were often deemed “too few to count” and omitted from research altogether (Adelburg & Currie, 1993). Female offenders were viewed as relatively nonthreatening to society and not career criminals. Their offenses were assumed to involve sexual activity, and when a woman did commit more serious offenses, she was viewed as the exception, a manifestation of extreme forms of psychological deviance.

However, there has been increasing concern about female offenders and the need for further understanding of the causes and consequences of their behavior. Feminist criminological scholars emphasized the importance of understanding the ways in which women’s circumstances shaped their behavioral trajectories and outcomes, and cautioned against employing an “add women and stir” approach that assumes that findings based on observing men are generalizable to women as well (Chesney-Lind, 2006). Antisocial behavior was viewed as a survival strategy used by girls (Cernkovich et al., 2008), where adolescent girls run away from home because of abuse in their families and subsequently turn to crime, such as sex work and theft, to survive life on the streets.

Beginning in the 1960s, there was also a pervasive assumption in the scholarly and popular literature that there is a “cycle of violence,” where children who have been physically abused become violent offenders in adolescence and adulthood. One of the prevailing theories was based on a social learning perspective, where physical aggression between family members was thought to provide a model and children learned to be aggressive through imitating aggressive behavior and the appropriateness of such behavior. According to this view, “each generation learns to be violent by being a participant in a violent family” (Straus et al., 1980, p. 121).

Early work connected child abuse and delinquency, but none of the early work looked at sex differences or even mentioned the sex of the subjects. It was assumed that discussions of violence were about boys and men. There were reports of small numbers of violent or homicidal offenders in clinical settings and all were boys (Duncan & Duncan, 1971; Easson & Steinhilber, 1961; King, 1975). Studies of crime and delinquency (Glueck & Glueck, 1950; Kratcoski, 1982; McCord, 1983) and studies of early aggression leading to higher rates of antisocial behavior (Farrington, 1978; Robins, 1978) were about men. One early study of 10 mothers who had murdered their children (Tuteur & Glotzer, 1966) reported that there was no abuse in their backgrounds. A later study of female adjudicated delinquents or status offenders found common reports of having experienced physical abuse (Mouzakitis, 1981).

It is tempting to conclude from these reports that the childhood abuse experiences played a causal role in offending. However, the best way to answer questions about the role of child abuse and neglect in the development of criminal behavior is through prospective, longitudinal studies that follow abused and neglected children into adolescence and adulthood. In this way, one can determine the percentage of children who go on to become offenders as adolescents and adults and the extent to which they engage in criminal careers. In addition, this research strategy also permits knowledge of what happens to abused and neglected children whose careers might not have taken this trajectory. Unfortunately, many of the existing large, longitudinal studies, which have provided much of the empirical base for the field of criminology, have predominantly involved White males.

After reviewing the literature on the “cycle of violence” (Widom, 1989c), it became clear that a way to move the field ahead and to answer questions about the role of childhood victimization in the development of criminal and violent behavior was through prospective longitudinal studies that follow abused and neglected children into adulthood. These studies allow researchers to identify the proportion of children who go on to become offenders as adults. This was particularly important given the almost exclusive reliance on boys for the classic longitudinal studies of crime and delinquency. Following that review, Widom (1989a) set out to directly test the “cycle of violence” and designed a study to overcome some of the methodological problems of earlier research.

During the 1990s, a new literature emerged calling attention to the extent of childhood sexual and physical abuse in the backgrounds of incarcerated women, with the explicit assumption that their childhood victimization experiences played a role in their offending. Ekstrand (1999) found that between 40 to 57% of female offenders in the US reported prior physical or sexual abuse. In another study of prison inmates and probationers in the United States, 32 to 46% of females reported prior physical abuse (Harlow, 1999). Lynch et al. (2012) found that 47% of a sample of women in U.S. jails reported childhood sexual abuse and 40% reported childhood physical abuse. In one of the few longitudinal studies, Cernkovich et al. (2008) followed up a group of institutionalized adolescent female offenders (ages 13–21) into adulthood (ages 26–34) and found that, even among this high-risk sample subjected to multiple negative life experiences, physical and sexual abuse were the best predictors of subsequent antisocial behavior.

Other studies reported associations between physical and sexual abuse and female antisocial behavior and delinquency (Belknap & Holsinger, 2006; Chesney-Lind & Shelden, 2013; Podgurski et al., 2014). This research into the etiology of girls’ delinquency incorporated theoretical perspectives such as the feminist pathways theory (Belknap & Holsinger, 2006), which posits that trajectories toward offending are influenced by gender-specific experiences and life circumstances, and that women often become involved with the legal system as a result of consequences associated with previous trauma and victimization. Subsequent tests of this theory have found support for the link between childhood abuse and later offending, both directly and indirectly through variables such as mental illness and substance abuse (Gehring, 2018; Wattanaporn & Holtfreter, 2014).

Other researchers involved in longitudinal studies that included girls began to report their findings. In a longitudinal study of the effects of early childhood physical abuse, Lansford et al. (2002) reported that the impact of maltreatment on aggression was stronger for girls than boys. Using data from the Chicago Longitudinal Study which studied children annually from kindergarten through seventh grade and collected information about child maltreatment and delinquency and adult crime from official records, Topitzes et al. (2011) found that in females, child maltreatment did not predict juvenile delinquency, but maltreatment predicted adult arrests and convictions. In a study of childhood maltreatment and trajectories of behavioral problems using data from children with allegations of maltreatment before age 4, Godinet et al. (2014) found that there were no differences early on for girls, but differences in externalizing behaviors (including delinquent and aggressive behaviors) later on at age 12.

This paper draws on findings from the prospective cohort design study that Widom began in 1986-1987 with funding from the National Institute of Justice. This study began with the identification of a large group of children with substantiated cases of physical and sexual abuse and neglect (n = 908) and a control group of children (n = 667) matched on age, sex, race/ethnicity, and approximate family social class. [For complete details of the study design and participant selection criteria, see Widom (1989a).] The matched control group was important because it is possible that any relationship between maltreatment and later outcomes (particularly delinquency and criminal behavior) is confounded with or explained by differences in social class (Bradley & Corwyn, 2002; MacMillan et al., 2001). The initial archival phase of the study compared the maltreated and control groups on juvenile and adult criminal records (Widom, 1989b). After that, because the findings showed that childhood abuse and neglect was not inevitable or deterministic (that is, the majority of the maltreated children did not become delinquents or adult offenders), a second phase of the study was undertaken with support from the National Institute of Justice and the National Institute of Mental Health to examine a broader set of outcomes for both groups of children and, indeed, whether they were even alive after these childhood experiences. Both groups were then followed up into adulthood and assessed via in-person interviews in 1989 to 1995 (N = 1196), 2000 to 2002 (N = 896), 2003 to 2005 (N = 808), and 2009 to 2020 (N = 649).

One of the most important advantages of this study is its longitudinal cohort design, which established the correct temporal order of participants’ life experiences and permitted the examination of the impact of early maltreatment on later actions and outcomes. Another major strength of the design is the inclusion of a matched control group; because of the matching procedure, the participants are assumed to differ only in the risk factor (i.e., childhood abuse or neglect). The control group establishes the base rates of outcomes that might be expected in individuals from comparable circumstances who did not experience childhood maltreatment.

Four Questions About Maltreated Girls and Crime

This paper focuses on the cycle of violence and the extent to which girls who are victims of childhood abuse and neglect become delinquents and violent offenders in later life. We have organized this paper around common assumptions about childhood victims and subsequent offending behavior and focus on four questions. For the purposes of this paper, we have extracted relevant findings on maltreated girls from previous papers and have conducted new analyses that have not been previously published to focus specifically on the girls and women in the sample.

Is Criminal Behavior Among Abused and Neglected Girls and Women Rare?

Table 1 shows the results of the study with reports of criminal arrests at three points in time when the participants were mean age 26, 32, and 47. As can be seen, at mean age 26, childhood maltreatment increased the likelihood of an arrest record for women (Widom, 1989b). Maltreated girls were twice as likely to be arrested as a juvenile, almost two times as likely to be arrested as an adult and more than two times more likely to be arrested as a juvenile or an adult.

Table 1.

Female Arrests Across Three Waves of Data Collection.

	1988			1994			2013
	(Mean age = 26)			(Mean age = 32)			(Mean age = 51)
Arrest type	Control (%)	Abuse/Neglect (%)	AOR (95%CI)	Control (%)	Abuse/Neglect (%)	AOR (95%CI)	Control (%)	Abuse/Neglect (%)	AOR (95%CI)
Juvenile arrest	10.8	20.0	2.12** (1.40–3.22)	11.4	20.2	2.03** (1.35–3.06)	11.4	20.2	2.03** (1.35–3.06)
Adult arrest	9.6	15.7	1.83** (1.17–2.87)	15.9	28.3	2.26** (1.57–3.26)	21.9	34.5	2.02** (1.45–2.82)
Juvenile or adult arrest	17.1	29.6	2.15** (1.51–3.06)	21.9	37.6	2.28** (1.65–3.16)	27.0	42.1	2.08** (1.53–2.84)
Any violent arrest	2.4	3.4	1.55 (.65–3.69)	3.6	7.7	2.47** (1.25–4.87)	5.4	11.8	2.55** (1.46–4.47)

Note. AOR = adjusted odds ratios, controlling for age and race and sex.

p < .05. ^**p < .01.

This trend continued later into middle adulthood (Maxfield & Widom, 1996). At mean age 32.5, compared with girls who had not been abused and neglected during childhood, abused and neglected girls were nearly twice as likely to be arrested as juveniles [20.2% vs. 11.4%, adjusted odds ratio (AOR) = 2.03]) and twice as likely to be arrested as adults (28.3% vs. 15.9%, AOR = 2.26). The same pattern is evident even later in life when these girls were mean age 51. The abused and neglected girls were twice as likely to have been arrested as an adult (34.5% vs. 21.9%, AOR = 2.02).

These comparisons reveal consistent differences in arrest rates between maltreated girls and controls over the life course. It is clear that criminal behavior among abused and neglected girls and women is not rare. A substantial percentage of these girls became juvenile and adult offenders; but at the same time, the majority of maltreated girls did not go on to become offenders as adolescents or adult women.

Are Abused and Neglected Girls at Increased Risk for Becoming Violent Offenders?

While girls and women generally have lower rates of offending across most crime categories than males, they commit a wider range of offenses than previously thought (Schwartz & Steffensmeier, 2017; Zahn et al., 2010). Some researchers have posited that patterns of delinquency are shaped not only by gender differences in the prevalence of specific types of trauma and abuse, but also in the ways in which men and women respond to those traumas. According to this line of thinking, maltreated boys externalize, directing their pain and suffering outwardly toward others, and maltreated girls internalize, directing their pain and suffering toward themselves (Moylan et al., 2010). There is some support in the literature for the internalizing of suffering among maltreated girls and women. Women with histories of maltreatment report greater rates of self-harm and suicidality than those without such histories (Angelakis et al., 2019; McMahon et al., 2018), though the strength of these relationships differs by type of abuse (Glassman et al., 2007; Lang & Sharma-Patel, 2011).

However, the internalizing/externalizing dichotomy appears to oversimplify the complex ways in which women may respond to stress and trauma. Some literature has reported a link between a history of physical abuse and later violent behavior among girls (see Asscher et al., 2015; Herrera & McCloskey, 2001; Hubbard & Pratt, 2002; Jones et al., 2020). For example, Herrera and McCloskey (2001) found that physically abused girls were over seven times more likely to engage in violence than non-abused girls. In an adolescent sample, Asscher et al. (2015) found that physical abuse was the only predictor of violence for girls. Similarly, Cernkovich et al. (2008) found that even among a sample of high-risk women with extensive histories of disadvantage and victimization, childhood physical abuse was the strongest predictor of adult criminal offending. One meta-analysis showed that childhood physical abuse was strongly related to violence in girls (Hubbard & Pratt, 2002).

Table 1 also shows the rates of arrest for violent crimes for the abused and neglected and control girls in our study. At mean age 26, the rate of arrest for violence for the abused and neglected girls was higher than for the control girls, but the difference was not significant. However, at mean age 32, Maxfield and Widom (1996) found that abused and neglected girls were 2.5 times more likely to be arrested for violent crimes (8.2% vs. 3.6%, AOR = 2.47), compared to the non-maltreated control girls. This pattern continued into later adulthood (mean age 51) when the previously maltreated girls were more than twice as likely to have been arrested for a violent crime than the control girls (11.8% vs. 5.4%, AOR = 2.55). Thus, there is clear evidence that child maltreatment leads to externalizing behavior in girls and to increases in risk for being arrested for violence in adulthood.

Does Childhood Maltreatment Affect Criminal Career Trajectories for Girls?

Developmental theories suggest that child abuse and neglect influence trajectories of offending. Moffitt’s (1993) conceptualization of life-course persistent offenders posits that neuropsychological deficits, combined with exposure to disadvantaged familial and neighborhood environments, explain early onset and persistence of offending. However, most of the literature is based on trajectories of offending for males. Few longitudinal studies have included data from both males and females, and even among these, there has been a tendency to concentrate on trajectories for males.

Early trajectory studies that included women indicated a small number of offending groups (Broidy et al., 2003; D’Unger et al., 2002; Piquero et al., 2005), lower rates of offending, and in some cases, earlier desistance from offending compared to men (Andersson et al., 2012). Moffitt (1994; Moffitt et al., 2001) reported that most of the girls who engaged in antisocial behavior fit an “adolescent-limited” pattern, with only a small subset of girls who fit a “life-course persistent” pattern.

Widom et al. (2018) examined criminal career trajectories using documented cases of childhood abuse and neglect and matched controls to determine the particular impact of childhood maltreatment on trajectories of offending through mean age 51. The labels for the trajectory groups reflect both the timing and rate of peak offending—that is, the age at which criminal behavior peaked and the average number of arrests during this peak year for participants assigned to that trajectory group. Trajectories that showed offending that peaked in adolescence and dropped off after that time period were labeled adolescent-limited. Trajectories that showed initial offending followed by a serious decline were labeled desisters. Trajectories of offending that continued past age 30 were labeled chronic.

Not surprisingly, the results indicated that the majority of control and maltreated females were in the non-offender group (see Figures 1A and B). For these females, offending rates peaked in their late 30s and early 40s, well beyond the age at which previous research has shown a tapering effect in rates of offending for both males and females (cf. Piquero et al., 2005). However, child maltreatment affected the criminal career trajectories for these females leading to longer chronicity, higher levels, and later onset of offending.

Figure 1.

Criminal career trajectories for control females (A) and abused/neglected females (B).

Do Maltreated Girls Grow Up to Maltreat Their Own Children?

The notion that abused children grow up to become abusive parents has been widely accepted. A critical review of the literature on the question “Does violence beget violence?” (Widom, 1989c) written many years ago, concluded that existing knowledge about the strength of the cycle of violence was limited and lacked convincing empirical evidence. Since that publication, some evidence from other longitudinal studies provides support for the intergenerational transmission of child abuse (Berlin et al., 2011; Dixon et al., 2005; Pears & Capaldi, 2001; Thornberry, 2009), although other studies do not (Renner & Slack, 2006; Sidebotham et al., 2001). Critical reviews have also called attention to serious methodological limitations (Thornberry et al., 2012), including reliance on cross-sectional designs, reliance on studies of abusive parents without inclusion of successful parents, potential method bias by using the same respondent for assessing the independent and dependent variables, potential unwillingness to report poor parenting practices because of social desirability or mandatory reporting laws, and wide variations in defining child abuse and neglect. Furthermore, theoretical explanations and empirical research have focused on physical abuse, largely ignoring the roles of sexual abuse and neglect in the intergenerational transmission of child maltreatment. One exception is the work of Trickett et al. (2011) who found that offspring born to sexually abused mothers in their longitudinal study were at increased risk for child maltreatment.

In research designed to examine the intergenerational transmission of child abuse and neglect, Widom et al. (2015) studied individuals with documented histories of childhood abuse and neglect and matched controls and a subset of their children. Parents and children were interviewed in 2009 to 2010. To avoid problems with using a single source for information, child maltreatment information was based on child protective service (CPS) agency records and self-reports by parents and offspring. The results were surprising. The extent of the intergenerational transmission of abuse and neglect depended in large part on the source of the information. For the purposes of this paper, we re-analyzed these data using only the females in the study and asked whether the previously maltreated women were more likely to be reported to CPS, compared to non-maltreated women, and whether their children were at higher risk of being abused or neglected or reported to CPS agencies.

Table 2 shows that maltreated women overall and physically and sexually abused and neglected women were all significantly more likely to have a CPS report against them than matched controls. This is striking because the sample sizes for the specific types of abuse and neglect vary widely, with the physical abuse group being rather small. This is also particularly noteworthy because official CPS records of child abuse and neglect are often criticized for only reflecting the most extreme cases or the “tip of the iceberg” (MacMillan et al., 2003; Petersen et al., 2014). These results are also noteworthy because women with documented histories of child maltreatment did not self-report maltreating their children—with two exceptions. Maltreated women overall and women who were neglected reported higher rates of neglect of their offspring than control women. Maltreated women overall and those with histories of physical and sexual abuse and neglect reported hitting a child hard.

Table 2.

Intergenerational Transmission of Abuse and Neglect for Female Parents: CPS and Self-Reports.

	Control	Abuse and neglect	Chi square	Physical abuse	Chi square	Sexual abuse	Chi square	Neglect	Chi square
CPS record: Age 50 (N = 562)
Any maltreatment	26 (11.1%)	87 (26.6%)	19.6***	13 (26.5%)	6.93**	25 (29.4%)	14.35***	62 (26.2%)	16.75***
Parent self-report (N = 316)
CTS: Physical abuse	45 (33.3%)	63 (34.8%)	0.02	9 (40.9%)	0.20	15 (35.7%)	0.01	47 (34.1%)	–
CTS: Sexual abuse	2 (1.5%)	5 (2.7%)	0.15	0 (0%)	–	0 (0%)	–	5 (3.6%)	0.54
CTS: Neglect	68 (50.4%)	93 (52%)	0.03	10 (45.5%)	0.04	22 (52.4%)	–	72 (52.9%)	0.09
CEQ: Neglect	35 (25.9%)	79 (44.1%)	10.26***	9 (40.9%)	1.43	15 (35.7%)	1.07	63 (46.3%)	11.34***
Ever hit child hard: Age 29 (N = 580)	4 (1.7%)	25 (7.4%)	8.62**	6 (12.8%)	11.41***	6 (7.9%)	5.49*	18 (7%)	7.25**
Child in custody: Age 29 (N = 499)	3 (1.5%)	13 (4.4%)	2.38	1 (2.7%)	–	2 (2.8%)	0.04	12 (5.3%)	3.58^§
Child in custody: Age 40 (N = 408)	3 (1.8%)	10 (4.2%)	1.24	1 (2.7%)	–	2 (4.3%)	0.22	9 (4.9%)	1.85
Child in custody: Age 47 (N = 203)	3 (2.3%)	4 (2.4%)	–	1 (4.8%)	–	0 (0%)	–	3 (2.3%)	–

Note. CPS = child protective services agency record, based on individuals known to have lived in the original state at some point in their lives; Age = mean age at the time of the data collection; CTS = conflict tactics scale; CEQ = childhood experiences questionnaire; Child in custody = response to question: “During the past year, did you have a child placed in the custody of the courts?”

p ≤ .10. ^*p ≤ .05. ^**p ≤ .01. ^***p ≤ .001.

When we examined offspring reports of whether they had been abused or neglected in childhood (see Table 3), the results indicated that more offspring of female parents with histories of abuse and neglect (and mothers who had been neglected) reported being sexually abused. But consistent with the findings in Table 2, the offspring of mothers with any maltreatment and mothers with specific types of maltreatment were more likely to report that CPS had ever been concerned about them at some point in their lives, compared to offspring of mothers without those histories. Additional analyses reported in the Widom et al. (2015) paper suggested that detection or surveillance bias may account for the greater likelihood of CPS reports. However, these new analyses provide some support for the intergenerational transmission of child abuse and neglect from one generation to the next in girls who become mothers. It is also clear that considerably more research is needed to understand the meaning of these findings.

Table 3.

Offspring Self-Reports of Child Maltreatment by Female Parent.

	Control	Abuse and neglect	Chi square	Physical abuse	Chi square	Sexual abuse	Chi square	Neglect	Chi square
Type of offspring abuse or neglect
Physical abuse (LS 0–11	90 (75.6%)	110 (68.8%)	1.27	13 (68.4%)	0.15	22 (62.9%)	1.63	85 (69.1%)	0.98
Physical abuse (LS 12–17)	60 (50.4%)	90 (56.2%)	0.71	9 (47.4%)	0.0	17 (48.6%)	0.0	71 (57.7%)	1.02
Physical abuse (Add Health)	24 (20.3%)	47 (29.4%)	2.46	5 (26.3%)	0.08	7 (20%)	0.0	38 (30.9%)	2.98^§
Physical abuse (LTVH)	31 (26.1%)	51 (32.1%)	0.92	7 (36.8%)	0.49	10 (28.6%)	0.01	38 (31.1%)	0.54
Sexual abuse (LS 0–11)	19 (15.7%)	42 (26.1%)	3.8^*	5 (26.3%)	0.66	9 (25.7%)	1.23	32 (25.8%)	3.2^§
Sexual abuse (LS 12–17)	19 (15.7%)	29 (18%)	0.12	4 (21.1%)	0.06	4 (11.4%)	0.13	24 (19.4%)	0.34
Sexual abuse (Add Health)	4 (3.4%)	23 (14.6%)	8.08**	2 (10.5%)	0.62	2 (6.1%)	0.03	19 (15.7%)	8.8**
Sexual abuse (LTVH)	17 (15%)	38 (24.7%)	3.13^§	5 (27.8%)	1.01	8 (23.5%)	0.8	29 (24.6%)	2.72^§
Neglect (CTS)	72 (62.1%)	111 (69.8%)	1.47	15 (78.9%)	1.36	27 (77.1%)	2.08	83 (68%)	0.69
Neglect (Add Health)	74 (62.7%)	101 (63.5%)	0.0	13 (68.4%)	0.05	24 (68.6%)	0.19	75 (61.5%)	0.0
Neglect (CEQ)	48 (42.9%)	72 (48.3%)	0.56	6 (33.3%)	0.25	16 (47.1%)	0.06	54 (47.8%)	0.37
Was CPS ever concerned?	7 (6%)	31 (19.4%)	9.14*	4 (21.1%)	3.17§	7 (20%)	4.76*	23 (18.7%)	7.74**
Any of the above	110 (90.9%)	141 (87.6%)	0.48	16 (84.2%)	0.24	30 (85.7%)	0.57	109 (87.9%)	0.31

Note. LS = LONGSCAN; 0–11 = years; 12–17 = years; Add Health = adolescent health; LTVH = lifetime trauma and victimization history instrument; CTS = conflict tactics scale; CEQ = childhood experiences questionnaire; CPS = child protective services.

p ≤ .10; ^*p ≤ .05. ^** p ≤ .01. ^***p ≤ .001.

Discussion, Suggestions for Future Research, and Implications

Criminologists’ understanding of the relationships between maltreatment and girls’ and women’s offending has advanced significantly in recent years and has expanded to incorporate additional adverse childhood experiences. For example, under the broad conceptualization of the cycle of violence, there has been increased attention to and research on the influence of witnessing interparental violence as an additional contributing factor to understanding crime and violence (Eriksson & Mazerolle, 2015; Manchikati Gomez, 2011).

While beyond the scope of the current paper, another emerging literature relevant to the cycle of violence is the research linking exposure to child abuse as a risk factor for later victimization in adulthood, particularly in the context of intimate partner violence. In their meta-analysis of the intergenerational transmission of spouse abuse across 30 studies, Stith et al. (2000) concluded that there is a “weak-to-moderate relationship between growing up in an abusive family and becoming involved in a violent martial relationship” (p. 640). More than 10 years later, Capaldi et al. (2012) similarly concluded that the “findings indicate a low-to-moderate significant association of child abuse and neglect with later intimate partner violence,” but cautioned that these findings are “generally overreliant on retrospective reports” (p. 247). A more recent study found that women who had been victims of child abuse were 210% more likely to report having experienced partner violence compared to non-abused women, whereas this relationship was not demonstrated among men (Manchikati Gomez, 2011). And, in their longitudinal follow-up, Widom et al. (2014) found that women, but not men, with documented histories of abuse and neglect were significantly more likely to be physically injured by a partner in adulthood. There has been considerable research on these issues recently, particularly mediating and moderating mechanisms, that will help inform our understanding of the cycle of violence (Wright & Fagan, 2013; Wright et al., 2019).

Future research also needs to examine the extent to which other individual and contextual variables (e.g., race, ethnicity, age, sexual orientation, socioeconomic status, and neighborhood characteristics) influence the relationship between child maltreatment and criminal behavior and shape women’s access to resources, support, and opportunities. There is an increasing interest in examining factors that mediate or moderate the relationship between child maltreatment and delinquency and criminal behavior (see Malvaso et al., 2016, for a recent review). Some research suggests gender differences in these relationships. For example, Topitzes et al. (2011) found that the maltreatment-offending association was fully mediated by educational and behavioral factors among men, but only partially mediated among women, suggesting that risk factors specific to women need to be considered. Recognition of the importance of these influences is necessary to avoid presenting oversimplified depictions of women’s experiences and behavior trajectories (Belknap & Holsinger, 2006; Burgess-Proctor, 2006).

Second, it is important to recognize that potential differences in outcomes may occur as a result of different types of maltreatment (Pezzoli et al., 2019; Widom et al., 2012). Relatedly, a common criticism raised by maltreatment scholars is the “neglect of neglect,” despite being the most prevalent type of child maltreatment (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2019). Attention must also be paid to the ways in which gender influences experiences of, and reactions to, different types of maltreatment and other childhood adversities.

Third, there is a need to recognize the role of psychiatric disorders in understanding violent criminal behavior among women (Trauffer & Widom, 2017). Women with a history of childhood maltreatment were at increased risk of being arrested for violence compared with non-maltreated women. However, Trauffer and Widom (2017) found that traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) diagnosis moderated this relationship, such that PTSD increased the risk of violence among non-maltreated women, whereas maltreated women were equally likely to be arrested for violence regardless of whether they were diagnosed with PTSD. This suggests that multiple trauma-related factors may increase a woman’s likelihood of engaging in violence, with maltreatment representing one such pathway and PTSD representing a second.

Fourth, further study of resilience and the identification of protective factors that may help to mitigate the negative effects of childhood maltreatment is necessary. McGloin and Widom (2001) found that girls in general were more resilient than boys across a number of domains of functioning, as did Mersky and Topitzes (2010). Although more attention must be paid to whether protective factors associated with resilience are gender or race specific, some researchers have addressed these issues. Hawkins et al. (2009) suggested that protective factors specific to girls may include school connectedness, academic success, a relationship with a caring adult figure, and spirituality. DuMont et al. (2007) reported that a supportive partner promoted resilience in young adulthood and neighborhood advantage moderated the relationship between cognitive ability and resilience in maltreated children. Jaffee et al. (2007) found that intelligence and adjustment level predicted resilience in boys but not in girls. Graduating from high school profoundly reduced the impact of child maltreatment on the risk for adult criminal justice involvement, reducing the odds of being arrested as an adult for Blacks from 2.18 to 0.36 (Allwood & Widom, 2013). Recent research has compared the impact of individual-level protective factors (e.g., self-control) and social ones (e.g., job satisfaction, college attendance) that may promote resilience to offending among maltreated people (Wright et al., 2019).

Fifth, most studies examining the consequences of childhood abuse and neglect understandably rely on retrospective assessments of maltreatment. However, in a recent systematic review and meta-analysis, Baldwin et al. (2019) found poor agreement between prospective and retrospective measures of maltreatment, indicating that research with these measures identifies different groups of individuals and cannot be used interchangeably. This finding may reflect evolving constructions and legal definitions of maltreatment, memory biases, and individuals’ interpretations of their past experiences (Baldwin et al., 2019; Widom, 2019). But these differences in approach should be considered in research that attempts to draw conclusions based on cross-sectional designs with retrospective reports of childhood maltreatment or longitudinal studies with objective measures of maltreatment.

The final issue concerns the intergenerational transmission of abuse and neglect. The findings reported in Widom et al. (2015) and here have implications for the various systems (education, child protective services, police, health) that may disproportionately scrutinize families with past histories of child maltreatment, while overlooking instances of child abuse and neglect among families in the broader public. Research is needed to understand whether these families present more opportunities for intervention (e.g., are using more services) or whether they are truly more dysfunctional.

An advantage of better training for police officers and school teachers to identify child abuse and neglect is the potential for the helping these children access support and interventions. On the other hand, surveillance is a double-edged sword, associated with potentially serious negative consequences. Some segments of the population are at risk for different levels of surveillance. Almost 40 years ago, Pagelow (1982) suggested that the process of intervening and labeling abused and neglected children, disrupting their residence with their family, and stigmatizing the parents (who often receive little or no assistance to improve) may create a self-fulfilling prophecy that can be difficult to resist or overcome. For example, families who because of their demographic characteristics (poverty, unemployment, or single parenthood) have frequent contact with public service agencies such as welfare or public housing are more often exposed to mandated reporters and get closer scrutiny. In particular, Black families are disproportionately likely to become involved with child protective services (Wildeman et al., 2014), whether due to reporting bias, an unequal distribution of underlying risk factors, or a combination of both (Drake et al., 2011; Knott & Donovan, 2010). Special care needs to be taken in responding to and handling cases of child victims to prevent damage from the destructive edge of the sword. At a minimum, intervention agents need to be sensitive to the possibilities of differential treatment on the basis of race, ethnic background, or poverty and take steps to avoid such practices.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was supported in part by Grants (PI: Widom) from NIJ (86-IJ-CX-0033, 89-IJ-CX-0007, and 2011-WG-BX-0013), NIMH (MH49467 and MH58386), Eunice Kennedy Shriver NICHD (HD40774 and HD072581), NIDA (DA17842 and DA10060), NIAAA (AA09238 and AA11108), NIA (AG058683), and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation. Points of view are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the position of the United States Department of Justice.

ORCID iD

Cathy Spatz Widom

Author Biographies

Cathy Spatz Widom, PhD, is a distinguished professor in the Psychology Department at John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a member of the Graduate Center faculty, City University of New York. Widom and her colleagues have been studying the long-term consequences of childhood abuse (physical and sexual) and neglect, the cycle of violence, and the intergenerational transmission of child abuse and neglect.

Megan Osborn, MA, is a PhD candidate in Criminal Justice at John Jay College/CUNY Graduate Center whose research focuses on trauma and resistance, help-seeking processes after victimization, and the experiences of marginalized groups within the legal system.

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