Unpacking the Criminogenic Aspects of Stress Over the Life Course: The Joint Effects of Proximal Strain and Childhood Abuse on Violence and Substance Use in a High-Risk Sample of Women

• Author: Lee Ann Slocum,Jennifer Medel,Elaine Eggleston Doherty,Sally S. Simpson
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/00224278211068188
• Published date: 01 November 2022
• Date: 01 November 2022
• Subject Matter: Original Research Articles

Unpacking the

Criminogenic Aspects

of Stress Over the

Life Course: The Joint

Effects of Proximal

Strain and Childhood

Abuse on Violence

and Substance Use

in a High-Risk

Sample of Women

Lee Ann Slocum

1

,

Jennifer Medel

2

, Elaine

Eggleston Doherty

1

, and Sally

S. Simpson

3

Abstract

Purpose: Drawing on concepts from strain, feminist, and life-course per-

spectives, we investigate the proximal effects of strain on violence and

1

University of Missouri –St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, USA

2

University of the Pacific, Stockton, CA, USA

3

University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA

Corresponding Author:

Lee Ann Slocum, Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of Missouri –St. Louis, 324

Lucas Hall, One University Blvd., St. Louis, Missouri, USA.

Email: slocuml@umsl.edu

Original Research Article

Journal of Research in Crime and

Delinquency

2022, Vol. 59(6) 699–755

© The Author(s) 2022

Article reuse guidelines:

sagepub.com/journals-permissions

DOI: 10.1177/00224278211068188

journals.sagepub.com/home/jrc

serious drug use along with the distal “carryover”effects of childhood

abuse among women. Methods: Using 36 months of retrospective data col-

lected from 778 incarcerated women, we estimate monthly within-person

effects of four types of strain experienced in adulthood (i.e., negative life

events and three forms of victimization) on respondent-initiated violence

and serious drug use. Cross-level interactions assess the moderating “car-

ryover”effects of childhood abuse and cumulative adversity. Results:

Negative life events increased women’s initiation of violence and serious

drug use. Having a near violent experience was positively associated with

violence, while violent conflict increased drug use. Experiencing both child-

hood physical and sexual abuse accentuated the effect of predatory victim-

ization on violence, and physical victimization amplified the positive

relationship between near violence and drug use. Unexpectedly, women

who experienced childhood sexual abuse were less likely to use drugs

after experiencing strain. The accumulation of adversity among abused

women could not account for these moderating effects. Conclusion:

Findings suggest women’s recent life experiences can explain offending in

the foreground, while childhood abuse can account for some within-sex

heterogeneity in these relationships.

Keywords

Childhood abuse, General Strain Theory, victimization, carryover effects,

life course

Research has consistently found that acute life events such as loss of a job,

death of a loved one, and violent victimization, induce stress or strain, and in

an effort to ameliorate this strain and accompanying negative emotions,

people engage in a wide range of coping behaviors, including some that

are illegal (e.g., violence, illegal drug use) (see Agnew 2006 for a

review). However, not all types of strains are equally likely to result in

offending, nor are all individuals likely to respond to strains in the same

manner. As Rutter states “it is certainly striking how very differently

people respond to what is apparently the same situation”(Rutter 1985:607).

In criminology, this kind of variability has largely been studied with

respect to the type, magnitude, chronicity, or clustering of stressful life

events (Agnew 1992; Slocum, Simpson, and Smith 2005), differences in

personal traits (e.g., negative emotionality, self-control) (e.g., Agnew

et al. 2002), and access to criminal and legal coping, such as social

support (Agnew 2001, 2013; Thaxton and Agnew 2018). Yet, the broader

700 Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency 59(6)

stress literature also indicates that early life experiences can shape the

impact of strains experienced in adulthood (Pearlin et al. 1981; Rutter

1987; Thoits 2010). The notion of the past having a “carryover”effect

also resonates with the life-course perspective, which views childhood

and adult experiences as working both in concert and independently to

shape the prevalence and temporal patterning of offending (Elder 1985).

One type of early experience that may be particularly salient for under-

standing differential responses to strain is childhood abuse that can

include physical and sexual abuse as well as neglect. This type of trauma

can hinder neurobiological, cognitive, psychological and behavioral devel-

opment (Fishbein 2001; Margolin and Gordis 2000) and make individuals

more vulnerable to obstacles in adulthood (Dannefer 2003; Nuytiens and

Christiaens 2016; Rutter 1994; Simpson and Miller 2002). Although child-

hood abuse is related to both male and female offending (Afifi et al. 2012;

Carlson, Shafer, and Duffee 2010; Milaniak and Widom 2015; Topitzes,

Mersky, and Reynolds 2011), recent research highlights how childhood

exposure to Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) carries gendered con-

sequences later in life, including involvement in violence and substance

abuse (Pierce and Jones 2022). These processes are featured prominently

in studies of female offending, including the feminist pathways literature,

which often theorize women’s offending as the culmination of a state-

dependent process in which early abuse generates a host of negative conse-

quences, increasing the likelihood of adult violence and substance use (e.g.,

Daly 1992; Carbone-Lopez and Miller 2012; DeHart 2008).

The current study builds on prior work by examining a second, parallel

process that gives primacy to proximal adult experiences, while recognizing

that childhood abuse may shape how women experience and react to adver-

sity in adulthood. Drawing on complementary and overlapping literatures

rooted in the study of strain, the life course, and feminist perspectives

(Agnew 1997; Carbone-Lopez and Miller 2012; Jones, Sharp, and

Worthen 2018), we explore how childhood physical and sexual abuse inter-

act with stressors in adulthood to shape the use of violence and drugs among

a sample of incarcerated women. Also, we examine if this moderation effect

can be accounted for by greater exposure to adversity in adulthood among

abused women.

This study extends prior literature in three additional ways. First, there is

evidence that the processes linking childhood abuse and adult offending are

gendered, particularly for sexual abuse (e.g., Afifi et al. 2012;

Carbone-Lopez and Miller 2012; Chesney-Lind 1997; Daly 1992; Pierce

and Jones 2022; Topitzes, Mersky, and Reynolds 2011; Widom,

Slocum et al. 701