U.S. Department of Justice

Office of Justice Programs

National Institute of Justice

DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

OFF ICE OF JUSTICE PROGRAMS

BJA NI J OJJDP BJS OVC

R e s e a r c h i n B r i e f

National Institute of Justice

Jeremy Travis, Director

Focus on sexual abuse

This Research in Brief reports the findings from an analysis of a specific type of

maltreatment—childhood sexual abuse—

and its possible association with criminal

behavior later in life.2

 Using the same

cases of individuals studied previously,

the researcher sought to find out whether

those who had been sexually abused were

more likely to engage in later delinquent

and criminal behavior than those who had

experienced the other types of abuse. Is

there an “inevitable” or likely progression from being sexually victimized in

childhood to being charged with an

offense in adulthood, particularly sex

offenses.

This examination is part of a two-phase

study of the long-term consequences of

childhood abuse and neglect. The findings

reported here are from the first phase,

which used the arrest records of juveniles

and adults to measure the criminal consequences of being maltreated. In the second

phase, now underway, interviews are being

conducted in an attempt to draw a more

complete picture of such consequences.

The researcher is looking at criminal behavior that may not have been included in

official records and at other negative outcomes, including mental health, educational, substance abuse, and other

Over the past 25 years, much has been

written about the “cycle of violence” or

the “intergenerational transmission of

violence.” These terms refer to the possible negative consequences later in life

for children who are sexually or physically abused or neglected. These consequences include an increased potential

for violent behavior. In earlier work the

researcher examined criminal records on

more than 1,500 individuals to determine whether the experience of abuse or

neglect during childhood increased the

likelihood of arrest as a juvenile or

young adult. The research clearly revealed that a childhood history of physical abuse predisposes the survivor to

violence in later years, and that victims

of neglect are more likely to engage in

later violent criminal behavior as well.

Of all types of childhood maltreatment,

physical abuse was the most likely to be

associated with arrest for a violent crime

later in life. The group next most likely

to be arrested for a violent offense were

those who had experienced neglect in

childhood, a finding of particular interest. Though a more “passive” form of

maltreatment, neglect has been associated with an array of developmental

problems, and the finding extended that

array to include greater risk of later

criminal violence.1

Issues and Findings

Discussed in the Brief: Previous

research established evidence for a

“cycle of violence”: people who

were abused and neglected in

childhood are more likely than

those who were not to become involved in criminal behavior, including violent crime, later in life. This

Research in Brief, the second in a

series on the cycle of violence, examines the criminal consequences

in adulthood of a particular type of

childhood victimization: sexual

abuse. It traces the same individuals studied initially, using official

records of arrest and juvenile

detention.

Key issues:

● Whether sexual abuse—more

than other forms of childhood victimization—makes people more

likely to become involved in delinquent and criminal behavior later

in life.

● Whether sexual abuse during

childhood makes it more likely that

these victims will be charged with

a sex crime as an adult.

● Whether there is a “pathway”

from being sexually abused as a

child, to running away as a juvenile, to being arrested for prostitution as an adult.

March 1995

continued on page 2

Victims of Childhood Sexual Abuse–

Later Criminal Consequences

by Cathy Spatz Widom
2

R e s e a r c h i n B r i e f

problems. (See “Preview of Work in

Progress.”)

Evidence from other studies

The link between childhood sexual

abuse and negative consequences for the

victims later in life has been examined

in clinical reports and research studies

in the past two decades. Frequently reported consequences include acting-out

behaviors, such as running away, truancy, conduct disorder, delinquency,

promiscuity, and inappropriate sexual

behavior. Studies of prostitutes have also

revealed an association between sexual

abuse during childhood and deviant and

criminal behavior.

These and other findings have been the

basis for theories linking childhood

sexual abuse to the development of deviant and criminal behavior later in life.

Among researchers as well as clinicians,

acceptance of this link is fairly widespread. However, as a review of research

into the impact of childhood sexual

abuse has indicated, the empirical evidence may not be sufficient to justify

this acceptance.3

 And, a recent review of

the long-term effects of childhood sexual

abuse—which cited sexual disturbance,

depression, suicide, revictimization, and

postsexual abuse syndrome—noted

criminal consequences only in passing.4

The need for a new approach

The methods used to conduct these studies make interpretation difficult. For one

thing, most used retrospective selfreports of adults who had been sexually

abused as children; that is, they relied

on the subjects’ own recall. Retrospective accounts of sexual abuse may be

subject to bias or error. For example, unconscious denial (or repression of traumatic events in childhood) may prevent

recollection of severe cases of childhood

Issues and Findings

continued . . .

Key findings:

● People who were sexually victimized during childhood are at higher

risk of arrest for committing crimes

as adults, including sex crimes, than

are people who did not suffer sexual

or physical abuse or neglect during

childhood. However, the risk of arrest for childhood sexual abuse victims as adults is no higher than for

victims of other types of childhood

abuse and neglect.

● The vast majority of childhood

sexual abuse victims are not arrested

for sex crimes or any other crimes as

adults.

● Compared to victims of childhood

physical abuse and neglect, victims of

childhood sexual abuse are at greater

risk of being arrested for one type of

sex crime: prostitution.

● For the specific sex crimes of rape

and sodomy, victims of physical

abuse tended to be at greater risk for

committing those crimes than were

sexual abuse victims and people who

had not been victimized.

● What might seem to be a logical

progression from childhood sexual

abuse to running away to prostitution was not borne out. The adults

arrested for prostitution were not the

runaways identified in this study.

Target audience: Law enforcement

officials, child protection service professionals, researchers, judges, family

counselors, and victim service organizations and agencies.

R e s e a r c h i n B r i e f

sexual abuse. It is also possible that

people forget or redefine their behaviors

in accordance with later life circumstances and their current situation.

Another difficulty with these methods lies

with their reliance on correlation. They involve data collection at only one point in

time. In examining the relationship between sexual abuse and later delinquent

behavior or adult criminality, it is important to ensure the correct temporal sequence of events; that is, to make certain

that the incident of childhood sexual

abuse clearly preceded (not followed) delinquency. Thus, multiple data collection

points are needed. The few studies that

do not rely on retrospection have investigated consequences only over relatively

short periods of time.

Perhaps the most serious methodological

shortcoming is the frequent lack of appropriate control or comparison groups. Childhood sexual abuse often occurs in the

context of multiproblem homes, and sexual

victimization of children may be only one

of these problems. Without control groups,

the effects of other family characteristics,

such as poverty, unemployment, parental

alcoholism or drug problems, or other inadequate social and family functioning,

cannot be easily disentangled from the

specific effects of sexual abuse.

The present study

The study posed three questions designed to shed light on the possible longterm criminal consequences of

childhood sexual abuse:

● Is there a higher risk of criminal behavior later in life? Compared to early

childhood experiences of physical abuse

and neglect (and also compared to children who did not experience maltreatment, at least as documented by official

records), does sexual abuse in early
3

R e s e a r c h i n B r i e f

childhood increase the risk of delinquent and criminal behavior?

● Is there a higher risk of committing

sex crimes? Are childhood sexual abuse

victims more likely to commit such crimes

as prostitution, rape, and sodomy?

● Is there a link between sexual

abuse, running away, and prostitution? Is there a significant and direct

relationship between early childhood

sexual abuse, being arrested as a runaway as an adolescent, and, in turn, being arrested for prostitution as an adult?

How the study was

conducted5

The study examined the official criminal histories of a large number of

people whose sexual victimization during childhood had been validated.

These victims of sexual abuse were

compared to cases of physical abuse

and neglect and to a control group of

individuals who were closely matched

in age, race, sex, and approximate

family socioeconomic status.

The groups selected for study. The subjects were 908 individuals who had been

subjected as children to abuse (physical

or sexual) or neglect, and whose cases

were processed through the courts between 1967 and 1971. All were 11 years

of age or younger at the time of the

incident(s).

The research used a “matched

cohorts” design. Such studies involve

selecting groups of subjects who are

similar (matched) to each other but

who differ in the characteristic being

studied. The “cohort” of children who

had been abused or neglected was

matched with the control group, which

consisted of children who had not been

abused or neglected.

Both groups were followed into adolescence and young adulthood to

determine if they had engaged in

delinquent behavior or had committed

crimes as adults. At the time they were

chosen for the study, none of them had

as yet engaged in delinquent or criminal behavior. The major aim of this

analysis was to determine whether

sexual abuse during childhood puts

victims at greater risk for criminal behavior later in life than do the other

types of maltreatment.

Sources of information about maltreatment. Because it was important to

use substantiated cases of physical and

sexual abuse and neglect, the study relied on the official records of agencies

that handled these cases. Detailed information about the abuse and/or neglect incident and family composition

and characteristics of study subjects

was obtained from the files of the juvenile court and probation department.

The records of the sexual abuse cases

were obtained from the juvenile court

and from the adult criminal court of a

metropolitan area in the Midwest.6

Like all sources of information, official

records have certain limitations. Some

incidents are not reported to law enforcement or social service agencies.

Preview of Work in Progress I f someone commits a crime but is

not apprehended, the crime will not appear in official arrest records. For this reason, in studying the link between

childhood victimization and negative consequences in adulthood, including criminal behavior, it is important to examine

evidence from other sources. In addition,

victims of childhood abuse and neglect

may manifest problems other than criminal behavior later in life, and these too

cannot be traced through arrest records.

The first phase of this study relied exclusively on official records to document incidents of delinquency and criminality.

Because of the limitations of this type of

record, the second phase, begun in 1989,

used interviews. An attempt is being

made to locate as many as possible of the

1,575 people who were studied during

the first phase, for the in-person interviews. Since the abuse and/or neglect incidents took place some 20 years ago, most

of these people had become young adults

in their early 20’s and 30’s by the time of

the interviews.

Information from the interviews is being

used to document a number of long-term

consequences of childhood victimization, including social, emotional, cognitive and intellectual, occupational, psychiatric, and

general health outcomes. Substance abuse is

also being studied. Parental alcohol use has

been identified in previous research as a risk

factor for child abuse, and recent research

considers alcohol use to be a possible consequence of early childhood victimization. In

view of these intergenerational links, the

study will focus on the connections between

child abuse, alcohol abuse, and violence.

In addition, because many victimized children appeared not to exhibit adverse effects

of abuse and neglect, the research will examine the influence of “protective” factors

that might have buffered them from developing negative outcomes, particularly violent

criminal behavior.

Data collection and analysis are projected for

completion in 1995, and the findings will be

prepared for publication. Support received

from the National Institute of Justice has

been supplemented by a grant from the

National Institute of Mental Health.
4

R e s e a r c h i n B r i e f

Moreover, the cases studied were processed before the child abuse reporting laws were passed, when many

cases of sexual abuse were not brought

to the attention of the authorities. For

these reasons, the findings cannot be

interpreted as applying to all incidents. It is more likely that they represented only the serious and extreme

cases—those brought to the attention

of the social service and criminal justice systems.

Types of maltreatment. The sexual

abuse cases represented a variety of

charges, from relatively nonspecific

ones of “assault and battery with intent

to gratify sexual desires” to more specific ones of “fondling or touching in

an obscene manner,” sodomy, incest,

and the like. The physical abuse cases

included those involving injuries such

as bruises, welts, burns, abrasions,

lacerations, wounds, cuts, bone and

skull fractures. The neglect cases reflected the judgment of the court that

the parents’ deficiencies in child care

were beyond those found acceptable

by community and professional standards at the time. They represented

extreme failure to provide adequate

food, clothing, shelter, and medical

attention.

Subgroups created for the study. A

case was identified as involving sexual

abuse if there was evidence in the

records that the charge had been substantiated. Of these cases, most involved sexual abuse only, but some

involved physical abuse and/or neglect

in addition. Because exposure to these

different types of abuse may have different consequences, distinctions were

made. Cases involving only sexual

abuse are referrenced as Sexual Abuse

Only. The others are referred to as

Sexual Abuse Plus (sexual abuse plus

physical abuse or neglect). (table 1.)

The sources of information for delinquency and crime. Finding out

whether the subjects had become delinquent and/or committed crime as

adults required identifying accurate

sources of information about these

types of behavior. The researcher decided to use official arrest records as

the source, for a number of reasons.

They are relatively easy to locate and

contain reasonably complete information. The source of information about

delinquent juveniles was the files of

the juvenile probation department.

Criminal consequences

In general, people who experience

any type of maltreatment during childhood—whether sexual abuse, physical

abuse, or neglect—are more likely

than people who were not maltreated

to be arrested later in life. This is true

for juvenile as well as adult arrests. As

the figures in table 2 indicate, 26 percent of the people who were abused

and/or neglected were later arrested as

juveniles, compared with only 16.8

percent of the people who were not.

The figures for adults also indicate a

greater likelihood of arrest among

people who were maltreated during

childhood.

For certain specific offenses, the likelihood of arrest is also greater among

people who were abused and/or neglected. (These figures are not presented in tabular format.) For example,

14.3 percent of the people who were

abused or neglected as children were

later charged with property crimes as

juveniles, while this was true for only

8.5 percent of the controls. A similar

difference in the rate of property crime

arrests was found among adults. Childhood abuse and neglect were also associated with later arrest for drugrelated offenses. More than 8 percent

of the individuals abused or neglected

as children were arrested for these offenses as adults, compared to only 5.2

percent of the control group.

Sexual abuse. All types of abuse and neglect in childhood put people at

greater risk for arrest later in life. But

an important finding of this study is

that, in cases of sexual abuse, the risk

is no greater than for other types of

maltreatment. (See table 2.) In other

words, the victims of sexual abuse are

no more likely than other victims to

become involved with crime.

A breakdown of the types of offenses

reveals one exception. People who

were victimized during childhood by

either physical abuse or neglect in addition to sexual abuse (the Sexual

Abuse Plus group) were more likely

than those subjected to other types of

maltreatment (and also more likely

than the controls) to be arrested as

runaways during their juvenile years.

Likelihood of arrest for sex crimes

Could it be that additional breakdowns

of types of offenses would reveal

greater risk for individuals who were

sexually abused in childhood? PreviTable 1: Types of Child

Victimization Cases

Number

Type of Cases

Physical Abuse

and Neglect 70

Physical Abuse

Only 76

Neglect Only 609

Sexual Abuse Only 125

Sexual Abuse Plus

(Sexual abuse with

physical abuse

and/or neglect) 28

Total 908
5

R e s e a r c h i n B r i e f

ous research indicating that these

people are more likely to be arrested

for sex crimes suggests this might be

the case.

Sex crimes in general. Arrest records

revealed that, compared to children

who had not been victimized, those

who had been were more likely to be

arrested for sex crimes. Thus, experiencing any type of abuse/neglect in

childhood increases the risk for sex

crimes. Children who were sexually

abused were about as likely as neglect

victims to be arrested for any sex

crime and less likely than victims of

physical abuse. (See table 3.)

Calculating the odds that abused and

neglected children will subsequently be

arrested for sex crimes as adults confirmed the statistics on likelihood of arrest. For abused and neglected children

in general, the odds of being arrested as

adults for a sex crime were higher than

for nonvictims. Among sexually abused

children, the odds were 4.7 times

higher. Among physically abused children, the odds of arrest as adults for a

sex crime were only a bit less—more

than four times higher than for the controls. Neglected children were also at increased risk of subsequent arrest for a

sex crime (2.2 times the rate for the controls). (See table 3.)

Specific sex crimes. The study also

looked at various types of sex crimes,

and the breakdown revealed more

complexity. The differences among the

groups in arrest for one particular sex

crime, prostitution, were significant.

Arrests for this crime were rare, but

child sex abuse victims were more

likely to be charged with it than were

victims of physical abuse and neglect.

(Table 4.) The same is true for the

odds. Among children who were sexually abused, the odds are 27.7 times

higher than for the control group of being arrested for prostitution as an

adult.7 For rape or sodomy, childhood

victims of physical abuse were found to

be at higher risk of arrest than either

other victims or the controls, and the

odds of arrest for these crimes were 7.6

times higher than for the controls.

From sexual abuse to running away

to prostitution—Is the path inevitable? It may seem logical to assume

that children who are sexually abused

follow a direct path from being

victimized to becoming a runaway as

an adolescent, and then becoming a

prostitute as an adult. The findings of

the current research support the first

part of this relationship; 5.8 percent

of abused and neglected children became runaways, compared with only

2.4 percent of the controls.

As noted earlier, the researcher

found that sexually abused children

were more likely than other victims to

be arrested for prostitution as adults,

and the odds were higher that a sexually abused child would be charged

with prostitution as an adult (table 4).

But are juvenile runaways subsequently charged with prostitution?

The researcher looked at all runaways in the sample studied, both the

victimized groups and the control

group. When some of these runaways

became adults, they were charged

with sex crimes. None of the runaways were arrested for prostitution,

however.

Thus, the findings do not support the

notion of a direct causal link between

childhood victimization, becoming a

runaway, and in turn being arrested for

prostitution. Some adults were found to

be arrested for prostitution, but they

were not the runaways in this sample.

Understanding the aftermath

of childhood sexual abuse

All types of childhood abuse and neglect put the victims at higher risk for

criminal behavior. However, the particular type of victimization suffered

by children who are sexually abused

does not set them apart. It does not put

them at an even higher risk of arrest,

for they are no more likely than children who are physically abused or neglected to be charged with a crime

later in life.

Table 2: Likelihood of Arrest Depending on Type of Abuse Experienced

Type of Abuse Number of Any Juvenile Any Adult

 Subjects Arrests Arrest Arrest

% %

All Cases of Abuse

and Neglect 908 26.0*** 28.6***

Any Sexual Abuse 153 22.2 20.3

Any Physical Abuse 146 19.9 27.4

Any Neglect 609 28.4 30.7

Control Group 667 16.8 21.0

Note: the asterisks indicate instances in which the differences between all cases of abuse/neglect and

the control groups were statistically significant.

***p<.001 (The probability is less than 1 in 1,000 that the occurrence could have happened by chance.)
6

R e s e a r c h i n B r i e f

association between these crimes and

childhood physical abuse, not sexual

abuse. Males who were physically

abused in childhood showed a greater

tendency than other abused and neglected children and the controls to be

arrested for these types of sex crimes.

This is consistent with earlier findings

regarding the “cycle of violence,”

which indicated that physical abuse in

childhood is associated with the highest rates of arrest for violence later in

life.8 Thus, the violent aspect of rape

rather than its sexual component or

sexual motivation may explain the association. Indeed, practitioners and

clinicians who work with these victims

commonly refer to rape as a crime of

violence, not simply a sex crime.

Patterns of offending

Tentative evidence is offered here to

support the notion that when sexual

abuse is differentiated by type, the

subsequent patterns of juvenile and

adult offending are also different. The

Sexual Abuse Plus group tended to be

at greater risk for running away, particularly compared to the other abuse

and neglect groups and the controls.

Other analysis showed this group more

often victimized by family members or

relatives in their own homes than the

Sexual Abuse Only group. If one’s

home is abusive in multiple ways, it is

not surprising that the victims would

resort to running away as an escape.

These tentative differences suggest

that studies of the long-term consequences of childhood sexual abuse

might find it worthwhile to disaggregate sexual abuse experiences into

groups consisting exclusively of sexual

abuse and groups consisting of sexual

abuse in conjunction with other childhood victimization. Future research

might examine the question of whether

Table 3: Likelihood and Odds of Being Arrested for Any Sex Crimea

Type of

Childhood Number of Likelihoodb Oddsc

Victimization Subjects %

Any Sexual Abuse 153 3.9 4.7

Any Physical Abuse 146 6.2 4.1

Any Neglect 609 3.6 2.2

Control Group 667 1.6 —

aSex crimes include prostitution, incest, child molestation, rape, sodomy, assault and

battery with intent to gratify, peeping, public indecency, criminal deviant conduct, and

contributing to the delinquency of a minor.

b

p<.02

c

The numbers are odds ratios. They depict the odds that a person who has experienced a

certain type of childhood abuse or neglect will commit a sex crime. Thus, for example, the

odds that a childhood sexual abuse victim will be arrested as an adult for any sex crime is

4.7 times higher than for people in the control group, who experienced no victimization as

children. (In calculating these odds, sex, age, and race were taken into account.)

The same is true for sex crimes. People

victimized by sexual abuse as children

are also significantly more likely than

nonvictims to be arrested for a sex

crime, although no more so than victims

of physical abuse and neglect.

This similarity among all three groups

of maltreatment victims suggests that

for sexual abuse victims, the criminal

effect later in life may result not from

the specifically sexual nature of the

incident but rather from the trauma and

stress of these early childhood experiences or society’s response to them.

For prostitution, the likelihood is

greater. For prostitution, findings

were consistent with those of previous

studies: childhood sexual abuse victims run a greater risk than other maltreatment victims of being arrested for

prostitution. The percentage of sexual

abuse victims arrested for this offense

was low, however (3.3 percent).

From runaway to prostitute? As

noted earlier, while the findings support the existence of a link between

sexual abuse in childhood and becoming a runaway as a juvenile, they do

not support a subsequent link to adult

prostitution. That is, being arrested as

an adolescent runaway does not predispose people who were sexually

abused as children to be arrested for

prostitution as adults.

The current research is limited because of its exclusive reliance on official criminal histories. Certainly, such

records underestimate the number of

runaways, since many of them may be

brought to the attention of social service agencies without being arrested.

For this reason, other types of data

should be examined. However, the fact

that none of the runaways identified in

this study were arrested for prostitution (while other individuals were)

suggests that the connection is at least

not as strong as would have been

previously thought.

Other sex crimes. Childhood sexual

abuse victims were not at greater risk

later in life of arrest for rape or sodomy. Rather, the findings reveal an
7

R e s e a r c h i n B r i e f

the effect of multiple forms of abuse is

additive.

Criminal behavior is not the

inevitable outcome

The link between early childhood

sexual abuse and later delinquent and

adult criminal behavior is not inevitable. Although it is clear that individuals who were sexually abused in

childhood are at increased risk of arrest as juveniles and adults, many do

not become delinquents or adult criminals. In fact the majority of the sexually abused children in this study do

not have an official criminal history

as adults. Long-term consequences of

childhood sexual abuse may be manifest across a number of domains of

psychological distress and dysfunction, but not necessarily in criminal

behavior. Delinquency and criminality

represent only one possible type of

outcome of childhood sexual abuse. A

number of researchers have described

depression, anxiety, self-destructive

behavior, and low self-esteem among

adults who were sexually abused in

childhood. Further research with these

samples is underway to document the

long-term effects of childhood victimization in a broad array of outcomes.

(See “Preview of Work in Progress.”)

Implications for policy

In planning and implementing treatment and prevention programs for

children who are sexually abused,

practitioners need to keep in mind that

these children are in no sense destined

for later involvement in criminal behavior. Like other victims of abuse and

neglect, the majority will manifest no

such negative outcome, at least as evidenced by official records of arrest.

However, interventions need to be

grounded in the knowledge that childhood victims of sexual abuse, as well

as other types of abuse and neglect,

are at increased risk for criminal involvement compared to nonvictims.

The need to avoid projecting criminal

outcomes for sexually abused children

has to be balanced by awareness of the

particular risks they face. For example, interventions for sexually

abused children should be informed

by knowing that the likelihood of becoming a juvenile runaway is not only

greater than among nonvictims, but

also greater than for other types of

childhood maltreatment victims. In

developing interventions, it is also important to consider the higher risk for

later prostitution that sexual abuse

victims face. The health threat posed,

not only with respect to the more conventional sexually transmitted diseases, but particularly to HIV

infection, makes the need for prevention interventions directed at childhood sexual abuse even more urgent.

According to this

study, child victims

arrested as

runaways

are not arrested

for prostitution

as adults.

As the example of prostitution makes

clear, outcomes later in life may differ

with the type of victimization experienced in childhood. This makes it evident that not all types of childhood

maltreatment are alike and makes it

incumbent on practitioners to craft responses that meet particular needs.

While practitioners need to be aware

that sexually abused children are at

greater risk of becoming juvenile runaways, they also need to temper that

awareness with the knowledge that

these runaways are not necessarily

“tracked” into prostitution as adults.

Information from the interview phase

of the study is likely to bring further

nuances to light. If running away does

not necessarily lead to prostitution, it

may nonetheless place the victim at

risk in ways that are not documented

in the arrest record.

The interviews may also shed light on

intervening factors that mediate between the experience of victimization

in childhood and behavioral outcomes

in adulthood. Again, prostitution is an

example. Since prostitutes have

Table 4: Likelihood and Odds of Being Arrested for a Specific Sex Crime

Type of Number Prostitution Rape or Sodomy

Childhood of Likelihooda Oddsb Likelihood Oddsb

Victimization Subjects % %

Any Sexual Abuse 153 3.3 27.7 0.7 c

Any Physical Abuse 146 0.7 c 2.1 7.6

Any Neglect 609 1.5 10.2 1.1 c

Control Group 667 0.1 — 0.4 —

ap<.003

bSee Note C on table 3.

c

Not statistically significant. All other findings on odds were significant at the p<.05 level.
8

R e s e a r c h i n B r i e f

diverse backgrounds, it is unlikely that

any single factor (for example, childhood victimization) explains their entrance into this type of life. While

early sexual abuse places a child at increased risk, many other factors play a

role, and these factors may emerge in

the interviews. If such factors are

identified, they would necessarily affect the way practitioners intervene for

child victims.

Future directions

Researchers have recently begun to

acknowledge that studies of the impact

of childhood abuse (including sexual

abuse) find substantially large groups

of individuals who appear to have experienced little or no long-term negative consequences. There are a

number of possible explanations,

among them inadequate measurement

techniques on the part of the researchers. It is also possible that some factors or characteristics of the abuse

incident (less severity, for example), or

some characteristics of the child (having effective coping skills, for example) or the child’s environment

(having a close relationship with a

supportive person, for example) may

have served as a buffer from the longterm consequences. Protective factors

in the lives of abused and neglected

children need to be uncovered.

Future studies need to examine cases

in which children appear to have overcome, or been protected from, the

negative consequences of their early

childhood experiences with abuse. The

knowledge from such studies would

have important implications for developing prevention and treatment programs for children who experience

early childhood victimization. These

“protective factors” are being explored

as part of the study now being conducted by the present researcher.

Notes

1. A summary of this research is in Widom, Cathy

Spatz, The Cycle of Violence, Research in Brief,

Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, October 1992. The document can be obtained from the National Criminal

Justice Reference Service, Box 6000, Rockville, MD

20849–6000; call 800–851–3420 or order through

the Internet at lookncjrs@aspensys.com.

2. A fuller presentation is in Widom, C. S., and

Ames, M. A., “Criminal Consequences of Childhood

Sexual Victimization,” Child Abuse and Neglect, 18

(1994):303–318.

3. Browne, A., and Finkelhor, D., “Impact of Sexual

Abuse: A Review of the Research,” Psychological

Bulletin, 99 (1986):66–77.

4. Beitchman, J. H., et al., “A Review of the LongTerm Effects of Child Sexual Abuse,” Child Abuse

and Neglect, 16 (1992):101–118.

5. A full description of the research design is in

Widom, Cathy Spatz, “Child Abuse, Neglect, and

Adult Behavior: Research Design and Findings on

Criminality, Violence, and Child Abuse,” American

Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 59 (1989):355–67.

6. Of the 153 cases of sexual abuse, 40 were processed

in juvenile court and 113 in adult criminal court.

7. In calculating the odds, the researcher controlled

for the person’s sex, race, and age, as these factors

may affect the likelihood of being arrested for a crime.

8. See Widom, Cycle of Violence: 3.

U.S. Department of Justice

Office of Justice Programs

National Institute of Justice

Washington, D.C. 20531

____________________________

Official Business

Penalty for Private Use $300

BULK RATE

POSTAGE & FEES PAID

DOJ/NIJ

Permit No. G–91

Cathy Spatz Widom, Ph.D., is

professor of criminal justice and

psychology at the State University

of New York at Albany.

Findings and conclusions of the research reported here are those of the authors and do not

necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

The National Institute of Justice is a

component of the Office of Justice

Programs, which also includes the Bureau

of Justice Assistance, Bureau of Justice

Statistics, Office of Juvenile Justice and

Delinquency Prevention, and the Office for

Victims of Crime.

NCJ 151525