Positive Childhood Experiences (PCE): Cumulative Resiliency in the Face of Adverse Childhood Experiences

• Date: 01 April 2021
• Author: Kevin T. Wolff,Michael T. Baglivio
• DOI: 10.1177/1541204020972487
• Published date: 01 April 2021
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Positive Childhood

Experiences (PCE):

Cumulative Resiliency

in the Face of Adverse

Childhood Experiences

Michael T. Baglivio

1

and Kevin T. Wolff

2

Abstract

The maltreatment-offending relationship has been well elucidated. Less examined are protective

factors that effectively serve to mitigate offending among ACE-exposed youth. The current study

examines whether cumulative positive childhood experiences (PCEs) are themselves associated

with a reduction in recidivism among juvenile justice-involved adolescents, and the ability of

cumulative PCE to moderate the ACE-recidivism relationship. Results demonstrate, among over

28,000 juvenile offenders, high ACE scores were associated with increased reoffending, and high

PCE scores were associated with decreased recidivism, as measured by both rearrest and recon-

viction. Further, among juveniles with four or more ACEs who have six or more PCEs, reconviction

was 23% lower and rearrest 22% lower when compared to those youth with four or more ACEs and

less than six PCEs, controlling for a host of demographic and criminal history measures. Findings

indicate that among youth with high PCE scores the positive association between ACEs and reci-

divism is no longer significant. Implications for juvenile justice practice and policy are discussed.

Keywords

positive childhood experiences, adverse childhood experiences, traumatic exposure, juvenile

offending

Introduction

The childhood maltreatment-delinquency link has been well established for decades (e.g., Widom,

1989) providing vast evidence of the increased likelihood for “hurt people to hurt people.”

1

Youth Opportunity Investments, LLC, St. Petersburg, FL, USA

2

John Jay College of Criminal Justice, New York, NY, USA

Corresponding Author:

Michael T. Baglivio, Youth Opportunity Investments, LLC, 701 94th Ave N., Suite 100, St. Petersburg, FL 33702, USA.

Email: michael.baglivio@youthopportunity.com

Youth Violence and JuvenileJustice

2021, Vol. 19(2) 139-162

ªThe Author(s) 2020

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DOI: 10.1177/1541204020972487

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Borrowing from public health research, the adverse childhood experiences (ACE) concept of cumu-

lative exposure has more recently been advanced, and well-supported, as a strong risk for inter-

nalizing and externalizing behaviors and crime (Baglivio, 2018; Craig, Piquero, et al., 2017).

Research is growing regarding the pathways by which the ACE-crime relationship manifests, while

exploring protective factors in that relationship has been slower, with strong notable exceptions

(Craig, Baglivio et al., 2017). Quite surprisingly, this line of research has not yet examined the

relevance of cumulative protective factors in building resilience to keep ACE exposure from leading

to delinquency. The current study, again borrowing from medical/public health research, examines

whether the effects of increased ACE exposures on juvenile recidivism differ by the extent to which

justice-involved adolescents have experienced potentially resiliency-building cumulative positive

childhood experiences (PCEs).

Heightened ACE Exposure and Deleterious Outcomes

Felitti and colleagues (1998) first articulated an ACE score based on self-reported exposure to 10

types abuse, neglect, and household dysfunction by age 18 and the dose-response, graded relation-

ship between this cumulative measure to the leading causes of death and disease and health-risk

behaviors (see also Anda et al., 2010; Flaherty et al., 2013).

1

Astonishingly, findings included that

individuals with six or more ACEs died, on average, nearly 20 years younger than those with no

ACE exposure (Brown et al., 2009). Recent research suggests that exposure to four or more ACEs

has been linked to a greater than three time s increase in the odds of food insecurity in y oung

adulthood (Testa & Jackson, 2020). With respect to antisocial and violent behavior, it has long

been demonstrated that childhood maltreatment is related to offending (Maxfield & Widom, 1996;

Widom, 1989; Wilson et al., 2009), including among juvenile offenders (Trulson et al., 2016), and

that poly-victimization increases the likelihood of both substance abuse and delinquency (Ford et al.,

2010). However, as espoused by the developers of the ACE score, and supporting research, an

essential concept of the composite ACE score is the interrelatedness and dose-response, cumulative

impact of the individual exposures, which has been demonstrated repeatedly (Anda et al., 1999;

Baglivio & Epps, 2016; Dietz et al., 1999; Dong et al., 2003, 2004; Dube et al., 2001). As Malvaso

and colleagues state in their meta-analysis of prospective maltreatment-offending research “it is

common for children to experien ce multiple forms of maltreatmen t at the same time and it is

therefore difficult to disentangle the unique effects of different types of abuse” (2016, p. 11). It

could be argued that such individual exposure examinations are not only difficult, but may be

inappropriate, as they miss the broader context in which exposures occur. This necessitates the

consideration of the cumulative impact of the exposures; the reason for which the composite ACE

score was created. While the terminology “adverse childhood experiences” has exploded in

criminological-oriented journals in recent years, many such investigations of ACE exposures do

not include a cumulative score.

Perhaps the first use of a cumulative ACE score to examine a violence-related outcome was Duke

and colleagues’ (2010) examination of 136,549 Minnesota students, finding each additional ACE

exposure increased the odds of both self-directed violence and violence perpetration by 35%–144%

(see also Hughes et al., 2017, meta-analysis demonstrating ACE effects on health issues among the

strongest for problematic drug use and interpersonal and self-directed violence). The first study

comparing adult offenders to a normative male sample found offenders evidence significantly higher

prevalence of eight of the 10 ACE exposures, with convicted sexual offenders and (nonsexual) child

abusers more likely to experience sexual abuse than the domestic violence and stalker offender

groups (Reavis et al., 2013). Heightened ACE exposures among juvenile offenders relative to the

general population has been demonstrated, with these youth 13 times less likely to have no ACE

exposure, and four times more likely to have ACE scores of four or above (Baglivio et al., 2014).

140 Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice 19(2)