New Perspectives in Policing VE R I TAS

HARVARD Kennedy School 

Program in Criminal Justice 

Policy and Management National Institute of Justice 

J U L Y 2 0 1 5 

Childhood Trauma and Its Effects: Implications for Police
 

Richard G. Dudley, Jr., M.D. 

Executive Session on Policing and
 

Public Safety
 

This is one in a series of papers that will be 

published as a result of the Executive Session on 

Policing and Public Safety. 

Harvard’s Executive Sessions are a convening 

of individuals of independent standing who take 

joint responsibility for rethinking and improving 

society’s responses to an issue. Members 

are selected based on their experiences, their 

reputation for thoughtfulness and their potential 

for helping to disseminate the work of the Session. 

In the early 1980s, an Executive Session on Policing 

helped resolve many law enforcement issues of 

the day. It produced a number of papers and 

concepts that revolutionized policing. Thirty 

years later, law enforcement has changed and 

NIJ and the Harvard Kennedy School are again 

collaborating to help resolve law enforcement 

issues of the day. 

Learn more about the Executive Session on 

Policing and Public Safety at: 

www.NIJ.gov, keywords “Executive Session 

Policing” 

www.hks.harvard.edu, keywords “Executive 

Session Policing” 

Repeated exposure to traumatic events during 

childhood can have dramatic and long-lasting 

effects. During the past 20 years, there has been an 

enormous increase in our understanding of how 

being repeatedly traumatized by violence affects 

the growth and development of preadolescent 

children, especially when such traumatized 

children lack a nurturing and protective parental 

figure that might mitigate the impact of the 

trauma. In this paper, I summarize the current 

understanding of the effects of ongoing trauma 

on young children, how these effects impair 

adolescent and young adult functioning, and the 

possible implications of this for policing. 

To demonstrate this, I describe the case of a 

17-year-old African American male who was 

charged with attempted murder. I was asked 

to perform a psychiatric evaluation because 

(1) everyone who knew him was shocked about 

what happened because, before the crime, he 

had never been in trouble and he had always 

appeared to be functioning well; and (2) he 

appeared to be extremely unemotional about 

what happened, which his attorney viewed as 

either a lack of remorse or a failure to appreciate 

how much trouble he was in. 
 

 

2 | New Perspectives in Policing 

Although this young man had always lived 

in an extremely violent and drug-infested 

neighborhood, he was neither a drug dealer 

nor a gang member. Instead, he had shown 

such promise that his single mother had gotten 

him a scholarship to a private school. He was 

performing well in school despite the problems 

in his neighborhood and his home, including his 

mother’s involvement in a series of relationships 

in which she had been physically abused. When I 

asked him about the multiple homemade tattoos 

on his body, he told me that each represented a 

family member or friend who had been killed. 

He cried as he described the first in this series 

of deaths, including the death of his best friend, 

which occurred when they were 8 years old and 

walking home from school. He also noted that the 

most recent death, that of his brother, occurred 

about a year ago. As he spoke of these deaths, 

that first one, which occurred about 9 years ago, 

seemed just as fresh to him as the recent death of 

his brother. In addition, I was struck by the fact 

that this young man had never been given any 

parental support that might have helped him 

begin to cope with these losses. When he was 

only 8 years old, instead of helping her young 

son cope with his trauma, his mother yelled at 

him for being on a street that she had told him 

not to go on. 

During his psychiatric evaluation, it became 

clear that the young man’s initial unemotional 

Cite this paper as: Dudley, Richard G., Jr., M.D. Childhood Trauma and 

Its Effects: Implications for Police. New Perspectives in Policing Bulletin. 

Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, National Institute of Justice, 

2015. NCJ 248686 

presentation was a psychological defense against 

his enormous fear that he would be killed. He 

had been carrying a gun since his brother was 

killed; the shooting incident for which he was 

charged was the first time he had used the gun. 

Furthermore, the fear for his life, coupled with his 

almost taking another’s life, made the incident yet 

another traumatic experience for him. 

It also became clear that his history of trauma 

influenced his interaction with the police at 

the time of his arrest. The police had shown 

no sensitivity to him when he was 8 years old, 

found holding and crying over his dead friend’s 

body. Instead, they simply pulled him away from 

his friend, pushed him into the background, 

and never attempted to assess his physical or 

emotional status or make sure that someone else 

did so. During his early adolescent years, he had 

seen police officers mistreat others, which made 

it harder for him to trust or feel comfortable with 

police officers. His interaction with the police was 

further complicated by their initial presumption 

that he, like the victim, was a gang member and 

that the attempted murder was gang-related, 

which influenced not only perceptions of him 

but also how they treated him, even though he 

presented no physical threat to them. As a result, 

the police were physically aggressive with him. 

Being roughed up made him fearful of the police, 

and his attempts to manage that high level of 

anxiety and fear with an unemotional and cold 

presentation caused the police to be suspicious 

that he would suddenly act out, which in turn 

caused them to be even more confrontational 

and physical with him. 
 

Childhood Trauma and Its Effects: Implications for Police | 3 

Police officers may also suffer from trauma-related 

difficulties that impair their ability to do their work. 

These may be long-standing difficulties stemming 

from their own childhood that were never identified 

or adequately addressed, or they may stem from 

traumatic experiences that occurred while working 

as a police officer. However, a fuller discussion of 

that is beyond the scope of this paper. 

Stress, Trauma and Parental Protection 

Understanding the stress response in children 

requires consideration of both the persistence and 

the severity of the stressor — which can range from 

those experienced by all children to the most severe 

traumatic events — and the availability of parental 

nurture, support and protection. 

All children have stressful experiences, such as the 

anxiety associated with the first day of school, being 

frustrated by a friend’s behavior, or being frightened 

by a big dog. Stresses such as these can be positive 

experiences when a nurturing adult helps the child 

learn healthy ways to manage anxiety, frustration 

and fear (Briere and Lanktree, 2008; Gunnar and 

Quevedo, 2008; Tarullo and Gunnar, 2006). Some 

children are also exposed to far more stressful 

experiences, such as the death of a parent or other 

close family member, their own childhood illness, 

or exposure to an isolated incident of violence. Here, 

too, a nurturing, protective adult can help the child 

overcome the distress associated with the event 

and thereby help the child not only tolerate the 

stressor but also grow from the event (Goslin et al., 

2013; Maschi, 2006). 

Some children are exposed to events that are 

exceptionally stressful. The impact of such 

traumatic events is more severe when they occur 

repeatedly (Breslau et al., 1999). Various types of 

violence can traumatize children, including sexual 

abuse and nonsexual physical abuse (Beitchman 

et al., 1992; Saywitz et al., 2000). Trauma can also 

result if a child witnesses acts of violence, including 

domestic violence and street violence (Berton 

and Stabb, 1996; Fitzpatrick and Boldizar, 1993). 

Additionally, psychological abuse that threatens 

violence, especially when the child has seen the 

perpetrator become violent, can traumatize 

children (Levendosky et al., 2002). 

Although parental support can attenuate the 

effects of repeated exposure to extremely 

traumatic events, this support tends not to be 

available to these children, who need it the most 

(Green et al., 1991; Terr, 1991). In the vast majority 

of these cases, the parents of these children are 

either abusive (i.e., perpetrators of the abuse) or 

neglectful (i.e., they have failed to protect the child 

from exposure to the violence) or both, instead of 

nurturing and protecting the child. This repeated 

violent traumatization in the absence of parental 

nurture and protection is toxic to developing 

children. The group of children who suffer from 

this harmful combination are the focus of this 

paper. The resulting psychiatric impairments and 

associated dysfunction they exhibit as children 

and adolescents significantly increase their risk of 

coming into contact with police officers and present 

a significant challenge to police officers when such 

contact occurs. 
4 | New Perspectives in Policing 

Parents who fail to adequately nurture and 

protect their children usually have problems 

of their own (Green et al., 1991), including 

their own history of abuse or neglect; serious 

mental health problems, including intellectual 

deficits and substance abuse; and situational 

difficulties that have so overwhelmed them that 

they cannot parent, such as poverty or their own 

victimization by a partner (Gewirtz and Edleson, 

2007; Lieberman, Van Horn and Ippen, 2005). 

Therefore, in addition to having to cope with 

repeated trauma without parental nurture and 

support, often these children also have to cope 

with a range of other problems related to the 

difficulties that their parents might be having. For 

example, in addition to not adequately protecting 

his or her child, a parent might be so depressed, 

drug addicted or cognitively impaired that he or 

she fails to meet the child’s most basic needs. 

For example, I was involved in a case where a 

woman had became involved with a man who 

seemed to be a “good man” until he moved in 

with her, when he began to psychologically 

control and severely physically abuse her and 

her 6-year-old son. Due to her own history and 

associated psychiatric difficulties, she was so 

overwhelmed by the psychological domination 

and physical abuse that she could not protect 

herself or extricate herself from the situation. 

She was also repeatedly abused in front of her son, 

thereby repeatedly exposing him to violence. She 

was so overwhelmed by her predicament that she 

could not protect her son from the abuse that he 

was enduring. As a result, her son felt constantly 

at risk of harm, constantly feared that his mother 

would be harmed or killed, felt there was no 

place where he would be safe, and saw no reason 

why things would or even might soon be better. 

Not surprisingly, the boy developed multiple 

trauma-related symptoms, such as extreme 

hypervigilance and overreactivity, that were 

never identified and treated (these symptoms 

are described in more detail later). Therefore, as 

he got older, he repeatedly overreacted violently 

to perceived threats of harm in all sorts of 

interactions, including his interactions with 

police officers. 

The Child’s Response to Repeated 

Trauma and Its Implications in Later Life 

The combination of repeated childhood trauma 

and the absence of parental nurture, support 

and protection can result in the development 

of multiple psychiatric and neuropsychiatric 

disorders. For the purposes of this paper, it is 

more meaningful to talk in terms of symptoms 

instead of psychiatric disorders because 

discussing symptoms will help readers better 

appreciate the severity of the distress and the 

magnitude of the dysfunction seen in persons 

with such a childhood history. 

I will discuss four categories of symptoms: 

(1) trauma-related neurological symptoms, 

(2) trauma-related psychological symptoms, 

(3) developmental difficulties brought on by poor 

parenting, and (4) other associated difficulties. 

Each of these categories or clusters of symptoms 

cause children considerable emotional distress 

and impair their ability to function, and the 

distress and dysfunction are even more severe 
 

Childhood Trauma and Its Effects: Implications for Police | 5 

when they are combined. Although these four 

sets of difficulties are hard to “cure,” appropriate 

mental health treatment can act as a buffer 

against them and their effects, especially when 

such treatment is initiated during childhood 

(Cicchetti and Toth, 1995; Toth and Cicchetti, 

1993). In the absence of treatment, however, 

trauma-related difficulties and their effects tend 

to persist into adolescence and adulthood and 

become difficult to reverse (Perry et al., 1995; 

Schore, 2001). 

Trauma-Related Neurological Symptoms 

In the past two decades, a greater understanding 

of the effects of stress on the human brain has 

bolstered our understanding of the dynamics 

of childhood exposure to traumatic stress. 

Research has demonstrated that repeated violent 

traumatization of children in the absence of 

parental protection can permanently rewire their 

brains, which do not become fully developed 

until early adulthood. This influences the 

structure and the functioning of the brain so as 

to create symptoms that were previously thought 

to be purely psychological (Van der Kolk, 1994). 

The human body’s physiological response to 

stress is well-documented. When one encounters 

a stressor and becomes frightened, the body 

produces stress hormones; this has been called 

the “fight or flight response” (Kearney et al., 2010; 

Van der Kolk, 2005). This is a transient hormonal 

response, which healthy individuals experience 

and manage with little long-term effect on their 

functional capacities (Gunnar and Quevedo, 

2008; Tarullo and Gunnar, 2006). However, in 

children, excessive stimulation of this hormonal 

response for prolonged periods of time — due 

to the combination of repeated trauma and the 

absence of parental intervention that helps the 

child manage or calm the response — eventually 

impairs regulation of the response (Handwerger, 

2009; Van Voorhees and Scarpa, 2004). That is 

when the “fight or flight response” ceases to 

become a useful transient response to danger that 

the individual can regulate; instead, it becomes a 

constant, uncontrollable physiological warning 

of danger that persists even when no danger is 

present. Over the past 20 years, research has 

shown that this impaired regulation results 

from the effects of the toxic stress-hormonal 

load on the structure and functioning of the 

still-developing child brain (Lupien et al., 2009; 

Teicher et al., 2003). 

Studies have shown that, when children are 

repeatedly exposed to trauma, the amygdala — 

the area of the brain known to activate the 

physiological stress response — overdevelops. 

This overdevelopment increases the fear and 

anxiety these children experience and causes 

them to be hyperresponsive to frightening 

situations in both their physiology and their 

observable behavior (Pollak, 2008; Shin, Rauch 

and Pitman, 2006). At the same time, the 

development of the hippocampus — the area of 

the brain known to turn off the stress response — 

is inhibited, decreasing its capacity to control 

the response (Bremner et al., 2003). Impairment 

of the hippocampus also results in difficulties 

in memory, mood regulation and contextual 

learning, which includes learning to differentiate 
 

6 | New Perspectives in Policing 

dangerous situations from safe ones (Pugh et 

al., 1997; Rudy, Kuwagama and Pugh, 1999). In 

addition, high levels of stress hormones impair 

the development of the connections to and 

within the prefrontal cortex of the brain (Elzinga 

and Bremner, 2002; Richert et al., 2006). The 

prefrontal cortex plays a role in modulating the 

physiological stress response and is responsible 

for decision-making, which includes assessing a 

perceived threat and responding appropriately 

(Lee and Seo, 2007; Morgan and LeDoux, 1995; 

Morgan, Romanski and LeDoux, 1993; Robbins, 

2000). 

Trauma-Related Psychological Symptoms 

In addition to neurological impairments, 

many trauma-exposed children also develop 

psychological trauma-related symptoms similar 

to those seen in adults with posttraumatic 

stress disorder (PTSD). These children tend to 

be anxious (Copeland et al., 2007). They are 

hypervigilant, meaning that they are always 

expecting something bad to happen to them 

and they often perceive danger where none 

exists (Briere and Lanktree, 2008; Terr, 1991; Van 

Zomeren-Dohm et al., 2013). They also tend to 

be hyperreactive to perceived threats of danger 

(Terr, 1991). These children try not to think about 

their traumatic experiences and they become 

distressed when those experiences come to 

mind (Terr, 1991). New experiences that remind 

them of their past traumatic experiences, or 

symbolize those experiences, exacerbate these 

and other trauma-related symptoms that they 

may have acquired (Ehlers and Clark, 2000; Terr, 

1991). Children also have difficulty calming down 

once hyperreactivity has been triggered (Van der 

Kolk, 1994). Although these difficulties might be 

apparent to others who know them, the author 

believes such affected children are far too young 

to appreciate the fact that they are suffering 

from psychiatric difficulties. Trauma-related 

neurological and psychological difficulties 

interact so as to exacerbate each other. 

I evaluated a young man who was born when his 

mother was still a young adolescent. For some 

years, he and his mother lived with his maternal 

grandmother. His grandmother repeatedly 

physically abused both him and his mother, which 

so overwhelmed his young mother that she was 

of little help to him. As a result of the combined 

effect of his psychological and physiological 

response to the trauma, he was always extremely 

nervous and fearful. Although, finally, the young 

man’s mother took him and ran away from his 

grandmother’s home, the neighborhood that 

she ended up in was extremely dangerous and 

he was constantly exposed to violence that 

neither he nor his mother knew how to cope 

with. This new danger only served to exacerbate 

the difficulties he had already developed. The 

young man became even more hypervigilant: 

He was in constant fear for his life and, by the 

time he was a pre-adolescent, he carried a gun 

with him all of the time. He never shot or even 

brandished the gun. However, as part of a police 

initiative to stop and search adolescents in his 

neighborhood for drugs and weapons, he was 

repeatedly stopped by the police. When stopped, 

he was always found to have a gun; as a result, he 

developed a juvenile record of repeated arrests 
 

Childhood Trauma and Its Effects: Implications for Police | 7 

for gun possession. I present this case because it 

demonstrates the effects of trauma and because 

no one ever seemed to wonder why this young 

man was being repeatedly arrested for the same 

thing. Regrettably, he was never evaluated by a 

mental health professional and never received 

the treatment he so desperately needed. 

Other Developmental Difficulties Resulting 

From Trauma and Lack of Parental Nurture 

Individuals whose childhood traumatization 

is left unchecked may also experience 

developmental symptoms such as instability in 

their sense of self (Van der Kolk, 2005). Without 

parental nurture and support, this shifting 

sense of self can be so extreme that sometimes 

the individual feels empty. These feelings of 

emptiness can be associated with cutting (i.e., 

repeatedly cutting oneself to feel pain and see 

the bleeding) or similar behavior in an attempt 

to feel something and know that one is alive 

(Briere and Gil, 1998; Landecker, 1992; Van der 

Kolk, 2005). These individuals also experience 

relational difficulties characterized by intense 

but unstable relationships. These relational 

difficulties are due, at least in part, to a frantic 

need for attachments to feel whole, accompanied 

by fears of abandonment. Such difficulties are 

also due to rapidly alternating perceptions of 

important others, which shift from idealizing 

them to devaluing them because of feelings 

that the other person does not care about the 

traumatized individual (Gunderson and Sabo, 

1993; Herman, 1992). Aff licted individuals 

also experience difficulty in regulating mood 

because of intense depressive, irritable or 

anxious reactions to nontraumatic situations. 

This mood instability can result in suicidal 

behavior, inappropriate and intense outbursts 

of anger, or difficulty in controlling anger. In 

addition, traumatized individuals may exhibit 

impulsive, potentially self-damaging behavior 

such as reckless sex and substance abuse (Van 

der Kolk, 2005). When under extreme stress, such 

individuals can briefly become paranoid and they 

may experience dissociative symptoms such as 

not feeling in control of their own body or actions 

(Steiner, Garcia and Matthews, 1997; Van Der 

Kolk et al., 2009). 

Such broad-based instability in so many 

important areas results in considerable 

emotional distress and dysfunction. “Trust issues” 

are a part of this constellation of developmental 

difficulties that result from inadequate parenting; 

these trust issues exacerbate the anxiety, fear 

and hypervigilance that are part of the trauma 

response. Many adolescents will attempt to block 

out or mask that intense anxiety and fear with 

a tough, “I don’t care about anything” façade. 

When this façade is coupled with the difficulty 

in managing anger and impulsivity that are 

part of this constellation of developmental 

difficulties, these adolescents can appear hostile 

and threatening. When police officers come upon 

such adolescents, they have to instill safety and 

order quickly. However, when the officers’ use 

of increasingly more forceful language and 

more aggressive behavior starts to result in 

increasingly paranoid and defiant behavior on 

the part of the adolescent, this might indicate that 

the adolescent is suffering from trauma-related 
8 | New Perspectives in Policing 

difficulties and that de-escalating the situation 

will require a more calming intervention on the 

officers’ part. 

Other Associated Difficulties 

Most children who develop the above three 

types of disorders eventually also suffer from 

one or more commonly associated difficulties: 

depression, aggressive acting out (in an effort 

to “never be a victim again”), substance abuse, 

which often starts as an attempt to self-medicate 

overwhelming anxiety (Heffernan et al., 2000; 

Van der Kolk, 2005). Each of these associated 

difficulties can, by itself, impair judgment and 

decision-making. When superimposed upon the 

psychiatric and neuropsychiatric difficulties that 

result from early exposure to repeated trauma in 

the absence of parental nurture and support, they 

can render someone extremely dysfunctional. 

Some severely physically abused children sustain 

serious injuries to their developing brain that 

result in cognitive deficits. For example, serious 

injury to the front of the brain might result in 

severely impaired decision-making capacity. In 

addition, in a home where domestic violence 

occurs, a child with existing intellectual or other 

cognitive deficits is often at greatest risk of being 

physically abused, at least in part because the 

abusive parent views that child as more difficult 

to manage. Therefore, intellectual or other 

cognitive deficits should be included in the list of 

other associated difficulties that might be seen in 

these children. Such neuropsychiatric difficulties 

further impair functioning on their own, but 

they also interact with and exacerbate many 

of the other psychiatric and neuropsychiatric 

difficulties. They may also impair insight and 

judgment so as to severely compromise the 

individual’s capacity to recognize a need for 

mental health treatment, access treatment, and 

benefit from treatment. 

Although these four discrete sets of disorders — 

neurological, psychological, developmental and 

other associated difficulties — can be described 

separately, they often occur simultaneously 

in the same person. When they occur together, 

these disorders tend to exacerbate one another, 

in part because their symptoms, such as 

hypervigilance and hyperresponsiveness, 

overlap. Therefore, instead of being simply 

cumulative in contributing to the expression of 

these symptoms, each disorder increases the 

intensity of the symptoms exponentially.

 For example, both depression and substance 

abuse further impair the decision-making 

mechanisms that exposure to trauma has 

already compromised. The slowed thinking 

associated with depression impairs decisionmaking. Certain drugs can exacerbate depression, 

making its impact on decision-making more 

severe (Cornelius et al., 1998; Kelly, Daley and 

Douaihy, 2012). In addition, some drugs impair 

one’s ability to monitor one’s environment, which 

can increase feelings of fear in an already fearful 

individual. Additionally, the hypervigilance or 

heightened sense of danger, among the cluster 

of trauma-related symptoms such individuals 

may experience, can exacerbate their existing 

relational difficulties (Ehlers and Clark, 2000; 

Rich and Grey, 2005). 
 

Childhood Trauma and Its Effects: Implications for Police | 9 

We now understand that children who are 

repeatedly exposed to violent, traumatic events 

in the absence of parental nurture and support 

develop a number of discrete difficulties that are 

already challenging to cope with on their own but 

then interact with and intensify one another in a 

way that renders normal functioning still more 

difficult. Even during childhood, traumatized 

individuals may exhibit clinically significant 

symptoms that impair their ability to function. 

Left untreated, their problems persist and 

intensify into their adolescence and adulthood 

and become irreversible (Perry et al., 1995; Schore, 

2001). 

Prevalence of Trauma-Related 

Difficulties Among Persons Exposed 

to Violence 

The number of individuals who, as children, 

were repeatedly exposed to violent trauma in 

the absence of parental protection, and then 

went on to develop the cluster of psychiatric 

and neuropsychiatric difficulties, is difficult to 

determine. This is because there are no studies 

that have attempted to determine the overall 

prevalence of children exposed to one or more 

of the various types of violent trauma known 

to cause such psychiatric or neuropsychiatric 

difficulties. Nor are there any studies that 

followed the traumatized children to see what 

percentage actually develop such psychiatric or 

neuropsychiatric difficulties. However, studies 

that have tried to look at prevalence in subsets of 

these children suggest that the rate is alarmingly 

high. 

For example, it is estimated that 35 percent of 

children exposed to domestic violence will 

develop trauma-related difficulties (Moretti et 

al., 2006). A recent estimate puts the number of 

children exposed to domestic violence during 

2012 at 266,110 (U.S. Department of Health 

and Human Services, 2013) — meaning that 

approximately 93,139 children will develop 

trauma-related difficulties as a result of exposure 

to domestic violence during that year. 

Similarly, it is estimated that between 42 percent 

and 90 percent of child victims of sexual abuse 

will develop trauma-related difficulties (De 

Bellis, Spratt and Hooper, 2011). During 2012, an 

estimated 62,936 children were victims of sexual 

abuse (U.S. Department of Health and Human 

Services, 2013) — meaning that between 26,433 

and 56,642 of those children will likely develop 

trauma-related difficulties as a result of being 

sexually abused. 

Although these data give some indication of 

the scope of exposure to domestic violence and 

childhood sexual abuse, statistics related to both 

these issues are thought to be underestimates 

(Leventhal, 1998; Wilt and Olson, 1996). It is 

therefore likely that the actual prevalence of 

PTSD stemming from both childhood sexual 

abuse and exposure to domestic violence is 

greater than stated above. 

More difficult to estimate is the number of 

children repeatedly exposed to or even directly 

threatened by various forms of neighborhood 

violence. We know that, although domestic 

violence and child sexual abuse occur in all 
 

10 | New Perspectives in Policing 

neighborhoods, children who are raised in 

poor, drug-infested, violent neighborhoods are 

at increased risk of exposure to street violence, 

increasing their risk of developing trauma-related 

difficulties (Buka et al., 2001; Stein et al., 2003). 

In addition, because these children are much 

less likely to be identified as needing treatment 

and have less access to medical care, their 

difficulties are more likely to continue unabated 

into adolescence and adulthood (Cooper, Masi 

and Vick, 2009). 

Implications for Policing 

In the course of their duties, police officers 

often encounter individuals who have suffered 

repeated exposure to traumatic events during 

their childhood. Understanding the effects of 

such childhood trauma, and the behaviors that 

these individuals are likely to exhibit as a result, 

has practical implications for police operations in 

three areas: first, where police deal with violence 

and children are victims or witnesses; second, 

where police encounter individuals already 

affected by childhood trauma who exhibit 

behaviors often attributed to aggressiveness 

and callousness; and, third, when a suspect in 

police custody or under interrogation manifests 

behaviors symptomatic of a history of trauma, 

case officers need to recognize those symptoms 

and make appropriate referrals, as they would for 

any other mental disorder. 

Police Challenges in Encounters With 

Traumatized Individuals 

Because of their tendency to violent and erratic 

behavior, these sizable numbers of individuals 

who experience trauma-related difficulties are 

at an increased risk of coming into contact with 

police officers. The likelihood of police contact 

is even greater if these traumatized individuals 

live in violent neighborhoods. This is for two 

reasons. First, violent neighborhoods tend to 

have a large police presence, meaning that all 

residents of these neighborhoods come into 

contact with police more frequently (Hangartner, 

1994). Second, if an individual already suffers 

from trauma-related difficulties, a new traumatic 

experience will exacerbate those difficulties. This 

combination of past trauma and subsequent 

exposure to violence increases the likelihood 

that an individual will have violent reactions 

of the type that would bring them into contact 

with police officers and complicate that contact 

(Donley et al., 2012). 

Without training focused on issues related to 

childhood trauma, it is unlikely that police 

officers will recognize that individuals may be 

acting out due to difficulties stemming from 

past traumatic experiences. Although anxiety, 

fear and impaired regulation of the brain’s stress 

response drive the behavior of traumatized 

individuals, their visible symptoms are more 

obvious. Attention to these visible symptoms at 

the expense of their underlying causes results in 

police misperceiving these children, adolescents 

and young adults. Traumatized individuals 

tend to be hypervigilant and hypersensitive to 

perceived threats, and they tend to overreact 

to such threats, often violently. This extreme 

reaction becomes the focus of police attention. 

For example, a traumatized person may mask 
 

 

Childhood Trauma and Its Ef fects: Implications for Police | 11 

anxiety with an extreme bravado, which police 

view as arrogance or a lack of caring instead 

of the psychological defense mechanism that 

it is (Arroyo, 2001). Also, the brain’s impaired 

regulation of the stress response makes it difficult, 

if not impossible, for traumatized individuals 

to calm themselves down, even when it would 

be in their best interest to do so, which makes 

them seem more aggressive (Van der Kolk et al., 

2009). In addition, associated difficulties such 

as substance abuse can also become a focus of 

police attention, with no thought about whether 

underlying psychiatric difficulties might have 

contributed to such substance abuse. 

Factors other than the absence of police 

training on childhood trauma contribute to a 

misunderstanding of individuals with a history 

of such trauma, especially when the individual is 

a young man of color. Many believe that children 

and adolescents who have been exposed to 

violence — a sizable portion of whom are African 

American children — have become immune 

to violence (Gottlieb, 2004). In my experience, 

this notion is readily expanded into a belief that 

such children and adolescents have become 

hardened to violence and its effects and that 

they virtually embrace violence instead of being 

frightened by it. However, for most children 

repeatedly exposed to violence, this is not the 

case (Thomas et al., 2012; Cooley-Strickland et al., 

2011). Furthermore, recent studies have begun to 

confirm the common anecdotal observation that 

African American boys are viewed as older, less 

childlike and less innocent than white same-age 

peers (Goff et al., 2014). Because they are viewed 

as more like adults, African American boys are 

seen as more responsible for their behavior and, 

as a result, they are at risk of being treated more 

harshly than their white counterparts by police 

and other components of the criminal justice 

system (Goff et al., 2014). Therefore, any training 

on childhood trauma and its effects must address 

how race frames one’s understanding of behavior 

and how, for many, such race-based beliefs 

overshadow other well-established factors in 

their perception of the behavior of young men of 

color. In other words, if a goal of this training is to 

influence the thinking and alter the behavior of 

police officers toward traumatized young men of 

color, the training must first undo the false belief 

that such young men may have never been that 

traumatized and instead became immune to 

violence. 

An increased awareness of the high prevalence 

of severe childhood trauma and an increased 

appreciation of its effects on both the developing 

child and later adolescent and adult functioning 

might impact the thinking and behavior of police 

officers in several ways as they go about the work 

of policing. 

Considerations for Dealing With 

Traumatized Individuals 

First, with regard to prevention, or at least early 

intervention, in the development of traumarelated disorders, police officers can learn more 

about traumatized children when regularly 

called to investigate alleged cases of domestic 

violence (Butzer, Bronfman and Stipak, 1996). An 

increased appreciation for the impact of exposure 
 

 

12 | New Perspectives in Policing 

to domestic violence on developing children 

might lead police to develop better mechanisms 

for reporting domestic violence to their local child 

protective services and to better advocate for the 

development of mental health services to address 

the needs of children so exposed. Furthermore, 

because a significant subset of children living 

in homes where there is domestic violence are 

victims of child abuse and neglect, those children 

will also need services to address these issues. 

Police officers already recognize that one of 

their roles is to enhance a sense of safety in the 

communities they serve (Plant and Scott, 2009). 

However, recognizing that this effort also helps 

decrease the prevalence of childhood traumarelated difficulties — and guard against the 

exacerbation of symptoms in those who already 

suffer from such difficulties — might help police 

understand how important this aspect of their 

work is, and how central it is to decreasing crime. 

Ideally, this would also prompt police to explore 

whether certain police practices that seem to 

undercut this goal might be altered without 

impeding police work. 

One police chief, with whom I spoke in 

connection with writing this article and who 

wished to be unnamed, noticed that many violent 

crime scenes were left undisturbed far longer 

than was required for officers to do their work. 

In his view, having to constantly see these crime 

scenes — with blood and police tape or evidence 

markers and medical refuse — made citizens 

more fearful and caused them to be all the more 

traumatized by the crimes that had occurred. The 

police chief instituted an effort to clean up crime 

scenes as quickly as possible, which significantly 

reduced citizens’ exposure to reminders of 

neighborhood violence. Recognizing that this 

decreased exposure was particularly critical to 

the well-being of children, this chief also began 

a practice where his department notified local 

schools when there were violent crimes in the 

neighborhood. Such notifications allowed school 

personnel to keep an eye out for students with any 

trauma-related difficulties. 

In addition, the list of possible causes of any 

behavior that the police are called upon to 

investigate and address could be broadened 

to include the cluster of psychiatric and 

neuropsychiatric difficulties that result from 

childhood trauma. This might change how police 

officers view and treat alleged perpetrators. 

Armed with such knowledge, possibly from 

internal databases and made available at 

dispatch or, in smaller departments, common 

knowledge about an individual, police officers 

would come to understand that, when managing 

individuals with a childhood trauma history, 

certain interventions may escalate rather than 

control difficulties. For example, interventions 

involving displays of aggression such as yelling, 

rough physical contact and intense eye contact 

(“the stare”), though meant to curb aggressive 

behavior, may provoke aggression. This 

understanding reinforces the notion that police 

need not behave in an overly aggressive manner, 

except when officers deem it necessary to ensure 

the safety of themselves or those around them. It 
 

Childhood Trauma and Its Effects: Implications for Police | 13 

may also prompt police organizations to develop 

new interventions that might help manage 

individuals whom the police already know to 

suffer from trauma-related difficulties. 

Recommendations for Dealing With 

Traumatized Individuals 

With regard to developing trauma-specific 

interventions, much can be learned from 

many police organizations’ efforts to develop 

alternative interventions to manage individuals 

who suffer from a range of psychiatric and 

neuropsychiatric issues. For example, many 

police organizations have developed units of 

officers who understand and appreciate the 

impact of paranoid delusions. They also learned 

(a) how to respond to individuals suffering from 

such delusions in a way that helps calm them 

instead of making them more paranoid, and 

(b) what to do if attempts to calm individuals 

suffering from delusions fail. Although the fears 

of traumatized individuals are not delusional, 

neither are they rational — their fears are greater 

than the situation merits. Furthermore, as with 

persons suffering from paranoid delusions, the 

fears of persons suffering from trauma-related 

difficulties can be exacerbated by the behavior 

of those they come in contact with. Therefore, it 

is reasonable for police organizations to develop 

a protocol for trauma-specific interventions, with 

goals and objectives similar to those developed to 

manage other mentally ill individuals. 

Moving beyond on-street dealings with 

traumatized individuals, once a suspect is taken 

into custody and is being questioned and a 

full investigation is under way, understanding 

childhood trauma and its effects might inform 

next steps. At this point, trained officers can 

recognize, better than they can during on-street 

encounters, that they are dealing with a person 

with a trauma history, and they can use the 

knowledge, understanding and associated skills 

that they have developed to deal with such a 

person. This knowledge and these skills may 

help officers obtain the cooperation of a suspect 

instead of making the suspect so much more 

fearful that he or she shuts down and refuses to 

cooperate or even speak. This knowledge may 

also help officers better understand the suspect’s 

responses to questioning and determine the best 

approach to further questioning. In addition, this 

new awareness may help officers understand 

more accurately what happened during the 

course of the alleged crime. 

When individuals suffering from the psychiatric 

and neuropsychiatric effects of childhood 

trauma are victimized again as adolescents or 

young adults, or when someone close to them 

is victimized, this can significantly exacerbate 

their symptoms. Unfortunately, this problem is 

far too common in poor communities of color, 

and there are virtually no victim services, mental 

health treatment or social services programs 

specifically designed for young men of color who 

are revictimized (Bell and Jenkins, 1991; Edwards 

and Foley, 1997; Snowden, 2001). Because leaving 

their difficulties unaddressed causes them 

additional pain, suffering and dysfunction and 

further increases their risk of coming into contact 

with the police, an awareness of these issues 
 

14 | New Perspectives in Policing 

Child Development — Community Policing 

In Child Development — Community Policing (CD-CP) service areas, mental health professionals are on call 

24 hours a day, seven days a week, to respond immediately to police calls involving child victims or witnesses 

to violence or other trauma. Working together, police, mental health professionals, child protective services and 

other providers coordinate multisystem interventions that re-establish safety, security and well-being in the 

immediate wake of violent events. CD-CP has served as a model for law enforcement–mental health partnerships 

around the country. 

The goals of the CD-CP program are to: 

• Increase officer awareness and identification of children exposed to violence and other trauma. 

• Increase clinical assessment and coordinated services to targeted children and families. 

The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention recognizes the program as a successful model 

and has designated the Childhood Violent Trauma Center, a component of the Yale Child Study Center at Yale 

University School of Medicine, as the National Center for Children Exposed to Violence (NCCEV), with CharlotteMecklenburg as the NCCEV Southeast Regional Training Center. The Charlotte-Mecklenburg CD-CP replicates 

the parent program between the Yale Child Study Center and the New Haven Department of Police Service. For 

more information about the program at Yale, see http://www.nccev.org. For more information about the program 

in Charlotte-Mecklenburg, see http://charmeck.org/Mecklenburg/county/PSO/CJS/Pages/CD-CP.aspx. 

See also the International Association of Chiefs of Police website, www.theiacp.org, for additional resources about 

the program, including an article from Police Chief Magazine, http://www.policechiefmagazine.org/magazine/ 

index.cfm?fuseaction=display_archandarticle_id=2882andissue_id=32013. 

might help police become important advocates 

for the development of treatment and service 

programs for these victims. 

As police and police organizations increase their 

understanding of childhood trauma and its 

effects, they will be more invested in and better 

able to develop and institute police practices 

that take this serious mental health problem 

into consideration. In addition, if this training 

is integrated with training on how race frames 

our understanding of human behavior, then 

the relationships that the police have with 

communities of color could be significantly 

Summary and Conclusion 

For children, repeated exposure to violent trauma, 

particularly in the absence of parental nurture, 

support and protection that might mitigate the 

impact of such trauma, can have devastating 

effects on their psychiatric and neuropsychiatric 

development. These include the development of 

mutually exacerbating disorders: neurological 

difficulties, trauma-specific psychological 

difficulties, developmental difficulties and other 

associated functional difficulties. 

These psychiatric and neuropsychiatric 

difficulties become evident when traumatized 

enhanced. 
 

Childhood Trauma and Its Effects: Implications for Police | 15 

children are still children, long before they 

understand what is happening to them or 

can assume responsibility for addressing 

what is happening to them. Early therapeutic 

intervention can help enormously. However, 

when such early therapeutic intervention does 

not occur, many of these difficulties become 

irreversible. Individuals continue to suffer 

from these difficulties during their adolescent 

and adult years, and they are vulnerable to 

exacerbation of their symptoms by subsequent 

traumatic events as well as events that remind 

them of or symbolize the childhood traumas that 

they endured. 

Although children from any neighborhood can 

be exposed to the type of trauma described here, 

children from poor communities of color are 

particularly at risk for such exposure. Because 

these communities are often the focus of police 

attention, it is important that police be aware of 

the high prevalence of severe childhood trauma 

in such communities, appreciate its effects on 

the developing child, and understand its impact 

on adolescent and adult functioning. With this 

knowledge, police officers will have a greater 

capacity to help decrease the prevalence of this 

major public mental health problem and will be 

able to better manage those they come in contact 

with who suffer from trauma-related psychiatric 

and neuropsychiatric difficulties. 

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Childhood Trauma and Its Effects: Implications for Police | 21 

Author Note 

Richard G. Dudley, Jr., M.D., is a psychiatrist with 

a private practice in New York City that focuses 

on both clinical and forensic psychiatry. He has 

been retained as an expert in psychiatry in both 

criminal and civil matters throughout the United 

States. He was previously an Adjunct Assistant 

Professor at the New York University School of 

Law, and a Visiting Associate Professor at The 

City University of New York Medical School at 

City College. 

Acknowledgments 

Dr. Dudley would like to especially thank 

Anthony Bator for his research assistance, 

without which the completion of this paper 

wouldn’t have been possible. Dr. Dudley would 

also like to thank the members of the Harvard 

Executive Session on Policing and Public Safety 

for their helpful comments on earlier versions 

of this paper, especially those from police 

organizations who suggested the ways in which 

the information summarized in this paper could 

be utilized by individual police officers and police 

organizations. 

Findings and conclusions in this publication are those of the authors and do not 

necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. 
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Members of the Executive Session on Policing and Public Safety

Chief Edward Flynn, Milwaukee 

Police Department 

Colonel Rick Fuentes, Superintendent, New Jersey State Police 

District Attorney George Gascón, San 

Francisco District Attorney’s Office 

Mr. Gil Kerlikowske, Director, Office of 

National Drug Control Policy 

Professor John H. Laub, Distinguished 

University Professor, Department of 

Criminology and Criminal Justice, College of 

Behavioral and Social Sciences, University 

of Maryland, and former Director of the 

National Institute of Justice

Chief Susan Manheimer, San Mateo 

Police Department 

Superintendent Garry McCarthy, Chicago 

Police Department

Professor Tracey Meares, Walton Hale 

Hamilton Professor of Law, Yale Law School 

Dr. Bernard K. Melekian, Director, Office 

of Community Oriented Policing Services 

(retired), United States Department of 

Justice

Ms. Sue Rahr, Director, Washington State Criminal Justice Training Commission

Commissioner Charles Ramsey,

Philadelphia Police Department

Professor Greg Ridgeway, Associate 

Professor of Criminology, University of 

Pennsylvania, and former Acting Director, 

National Institute of Justice

Professor David Sklansky, Yosef 

Osheawich Professor of Law, University of California, Berkeley, School of Law 

Mr. Sean Smoot, Director and Chief Legal Counsel, Police Benevolent and Protective 

Association of Illinois 

Professor Malcolm Sparrow, Professor 

of Practice of Public Management, John F. 

Kennedy School of Government, Harvard 

University 

Mr. Darrel Stephens, Executive Director, 

Major Cities Chiefs Association 

Mr. Christopher Stone, President, Open Society Foundations

Mr. Richard Van Houten, President, Fort 

Worth Police Officers Association

Lieutenant Paul M. Weber, Los Angeles 

Police Department

Professor David Weisburd, Walter E. Meyer Professor of Law and Criminal Justice, 

Faculty of Law, The Hebrew University; 

and Distinguished Professor, Department 

of Criminology, Law and Society, George 

Mason University

Dr. Chuck Wexler, Executive Director, 

Police Executive Research Forum

Commissioner Anthony Batts, Baltimore 

Police Department

Professor David Bayley, Distinguished Professor (Emeritus), School of Criminal 

Justice, State University of New York at 

Albany 

Professor Anthony Braga, Senior Research 

Fellow, Program in Criminal Justice Policy 

and Management, John F. Kennedy School 

of Government, Harvard University; and 

Don M. Gottfredson Professor of EvidenceBased Criminology, School of Criminal 

Justice, Rutgers University

Chief Jane Castor, Tampa Police Department

Ms. Christine Cole (Facilitator), Executive Director, Program in Criminal Justice Policy 

and Management, John F. Kennedy School 

of Government, Harvard University 

Commissioner Edward Davis, Boston 

Police Department (retired)

Chief Michael Davis, Director, Public Safety 

Division, Northeastern University

Mr. Ronald Davis, Director, Office of 

Community Oriented Policing Services, 

United States Department of Justice

Ms. Madeline deLone, Executive Director, 

The Innocence Project

Dr. Richard Dudley, Clinical and Forensic 

Psychiatrist

*NCJ~248686*
 

Learn more about the Executive Session at: 

www.NIJ.gov, keywords “Executive Session Policing” 

www.hks.harvard.edu, keywords “Executive Session Policing”