Further Evaluating the Relationship Between Adverse Childhood Experiences, Antisocial Behavior, and Violent Victimization: A Sibling-Comparison Analysis

• Date: 01 January 2020
• Author: Eric J. Connolly
• Published date: 01 January 2020
• DOI: 10.1177/1541204019833145
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Further Evaluating the

Relationship Between

Adverse Childhood Experiences,

Antisocial Behavior, and Violent

Victimization: A Sibling-Comparison

Analysis

Eric J. Connolly

1

Abstract

A developing line of research suggests that adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) increase the

risk for antisocial behavior and future victimization. However, the mechanisms that underlie this

association remain largely speculative. To address this gap in the existing body of research, data on

full siblings from a large population-based sample of youth were analyzed to evaluate the direct

effect of ACEs on child antisocial behavior, adolescent delinquency, and young adult violent vic-

timization after controlling for familial confounders. Traditional between-family analyses revealed

that ACEs were significantly associated with higher levels of childhood antisocial behavior, ado-

lescent delinquent behavior, and risk for violent crime victimization. After controlling for

unmeasured common genetic and shared environmental confounds using fixed-effect sibling

comparisons, siblings exposed to more ACEs did not demonstrate higher levels of antisocial

behavior, delinquent behavior, or risk for future victimization. The implications of these results for

future ACEs research are discussed.

Keywords

adverse childhood experiences, antisocial behavior, violent victimization, familial confounds, family-

based research designs, NLSY

1

Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology, College of Criminal Justice, Sam Houston State University, Huntsville,

TX, USA

Corresponding Author:

Eric J. Connolly, Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology, College of Criminal Justice, Sam Houston State University,

Huntsville, TX 77340, USA.

Email: ejc025@shsu.edu

Youth Violence and JuvenileJustice

2020, Vol. 18(1) 3-23

ªThe Author(s) 2019

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/1541204019833145

journals.sagepub.com/home/yvj

We may be through with the past, but the past is not through with us.

Evans (1946)

Research regarding the effect of adversechildhood experiences (ACEs)on later-life health and human

development has grown at a rapid rate over the past decade. This growing body of research can be

traced back to the landmark Center for Disease Control-Kaiser ACE study conducted by Felitti and

colleagues (1998), which examined the impact of ACEs on health-related outcomes in adulthood.

Results from Felitti et al. (1998) showed, for the first time, that ACEs increase risk for cancer, heart

disease, lung disease, liver disease, and early death. Recently, criminologists have begun to apply the

ACE framework to the study of individual differences in antisocial behavior and criminal victimiza-

tion. Several studies have documented a dose–response relationship between ACEs and a wide range

of antisocial behaviors including childhood externalizing problems (Hunt, Slack, & Berger, 2017),

preadolescentdelinquent behavior (Hambrick,Rubens, Brawner, & Taussig,2017), violent delinquent

behavior (Fox,Perez, Cass, Baglivio, & Epps, 2015), juvenile arrest(Fagan & Novak, 2017), juvenile

offending traject ories (Baglivio , Wolff, Piquero, & Epps, 2 015), juvenile recid ivism (Wolff & Bagli-

vio, 2016; Wolff,Baglivio, & Piquero, 2017), and life-course offending (Craig,Piquero, Farrington, &

Ttofi, 2017). Studies also report a positive associationbetween ACEs and future victimization (Ports,

Ford, & Merrick, 2016; Widom, Czaja, & Dutton, 2008). Taken together, accumulated evidence

indicates that while individuals may be done with ACEs, such experiences may not be done with

them and continue to exert an effect on their health and behavior.

While evidence of a robust association between ACEs, antisocial behavior, and future victimiza-

tion is mounting, there are some important limitations that warrant further examination. First,

evidence from contemporary research on ACEs within criminology is largely based on data from

at-risk samples of delinquent youth, making it difficult to establish whether findings are general-

izable to more representative youth samples. As a result, it is currently unknown whether reported

results can be generalized to nonoffending populations in order to inform evidence-based interven-

tion/prevention programing efforts. Second, while existing research has used a range of multivariate

statistical techniques to control for measurable confounds, no research within criminology has used

a quasi-experimental, genetically informed research design to control for unobservable genetic and

environmental confounds that may partly explain the relationship between ACEs, antisocial beha-

vior, and future victimization. Of primary theoretical significance to this point, a long line of

quantitative behavioral genetic research has now shown that correlations between environmental

exposure and individual’s genetic risk for antisocial behavior and victimization are pervasive across

the life course (Barnes & Beaver, 2012; Connolly & Beaver, 2015; D’Onofrio et al., 2016; Jaffee &

Price, 2012; Kendler & Baker, 2007; Schwartz, Solomon, & Valgardson, 2017). A failure to control

for familial confounds may therefore inflate associations between early-life exposures (i.e., ACEs)

and life outcomes (i.e., antisocial behavior and victimization). Thus, genetically informed research

designs are greatly needed in criminology to allow researchers to move from identifying risks to

examining mechanisms (genetic and/or environmental) by which a risk factor may potentially cause

future antisocial behavior or risk for victimization.

With this in mind, the current study seeks to address the abovementioned limitations by

(1) analyzing longitudinal data from a population-based sample of youth from the United States

to examine the prevalence of ACEs and compare rates to previous research and (2) using traditional

between-family analyses and sibling-comparison analyses to help disentangle co-occurring genetic

and environmental processes between ACEs, antisocial behavior in childhood, delinquent behavior

in adolescence, and violent victimization in young adulthood. The overall rationale for this study is

to use a rigorous quasi-experimental method, such as the sibling-comparison design, to help specify

the processes behind commonly observed associations between ACEs, antisocial behavior,

4Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice 18(1)