Forensic psychology Psychology Research Paper Essay

Early Child Abuse and Later Perpetration as Offender
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Early Child Abuse and Later Perpetration as Offender
Introduction
There is a general belief that those who become offenders during adulthood have a history of being abused while in childhood. Many suggest that majority of the incarcerated individuals may have undergone neglect and physical abuse as children. Others have postulated a positive correlation between childhood sexual abuse and later criminal behaviors, especially in the context of sexual offending. There is a growing interest in how childhood victimization, neglect, and abuse, play a role in determining the risk of becoming incarcerated offenders during adulthood. One of the grave concerns is a consequence of child maltreatment, which leads to an increased risk for crime and violence during adolescence or adulthood. This paper is an exploration of how childhood abuse and violence may transform into adolescence and adulthood deviance and offending.
The Cycle of Violence and Mistreatment of Children
The cycle of violence defines a phenomenon where children who been victims of any abuse become perpetrators of violence during their adolescence or adulthood phases of life (Manchikanti Gómez, 2011; Widom, 2017). Several theories have been advanced to explain the cycle of violence in a bid to understand the childhood process and contexts that can lead to adult or adolescent offending (Widom, 2017). Social learning theory posits that children who undergo physical abuse are likely to learn that the use of violence is an acceptable and standard way of responding to distress, and resolving conflict is to deploy violence. The cycle of violence can be explained via social learning theory. This theory postulates that behaviors are learned from observation (Manchikanti Gómez, 2011). Thus, persons who are victims of child abuse tend to believe that aggression or violence is an acceptable way of dealing with interpersonal conflicts, especially when they enter adolescence and adulthood. Victim of childhood violence may tend to perceive violence as a norm because they witness it more often, which make them learn aggression as a way of life, and this underpins their increased propensity to adult offending (Reckdenwald, Mancini & Beauregard, 2013). Child abuse victims may respond to intimate partner violence with learned helplessness, where feels of being powerless are overwhelming. Social control theory postulates that child maltreatment or abuse dissolves social bonds that are necessary for pro-social behavior that limits later risk for crime, deviance, and violence. General strain theory suggests that delinquency, deviance, and crime, tend to occur often due to the inability to evade painful or aversive circumstances, for instance, child abuse and neglect (Widom, 2017).
The cycle of violence theory, as earlier seen, postulates that children who experience abuse, violence, and maltreatment, have more likelihood to perpetrate violence as they age. Abused children face rejection in the community primarily by their peers, and this makes such children secure friendship with other peers who are equally deviant, and they also tend to choose lovers who have similar traits. Adult violence victimization and perpetration of adult offending seem to emanate from child abuse partly, but this relationship should be put in the context of diverse disadvantages that include socio-demographic, cultural, and environmental variables that can stimulate aggression and violent behaviors in later adult life. Manchikanti Gómez (2011) recognizes that social and contextual factors that are associated with child abuse and adult intimate partner violence should be examined in the lens of multi-factorial interaction, rather than a singular effect on violence. Women, who are victims of dating violence during adolescence, especially during early and late adolescence, are more likely to be at risk of repeat violence during in young adulthood (Manchikanti Gómez, 2011).
There has been a concerted effort to establish a link between child abuse and intimate partner violence. The majority of reported incidences of intimate partner violence in the U.S are committed against women, but men are also victims of women’s physical and psychological abuse (Manchikanti Gómez, 2011). Women may perpetrate intimate partner violence possibly in concurrence with their victimization, which allows them to protect themselves or children against being victimized. The intimate partner violence that is perpetuated by women need to be understood in the context of the individual, situation and sociocultural factors. The individual variables that may make men be perpetrators f intimate partner violence include witnessing of family or domestic violence during childhood, being abused as a child, or having rejecting or absent father figure (Manchikanti Gómez,2011). The environmental factors are social factors, and they constitute an ecosystem that influences individual's behavioral patterns: these factors include violence that is perpetrated against women due to low socio-economic status, delinquent peer association, and social isolation.
The cycle of violence theory has been deployed in an attempt to explain the link between sexual abuse and later offending. Sexual abuse may have an impact on sex offending, but the sex offenders’ patterns of offending remain unclear: this is due to different influences on the offending during adulthood. Child abuse is a crucial predictor of future violence, perpetration, and victimization. The majority of research investigations that try to establish the link between child abuse and intimate partner violence have mainly focused on married persons as opposed to adolescent dating. Manchikanti Gómez (2011) reaffirmed that child abuse might contribute to violent adolescent dating. Thus, child abuse is a highly predictive element of intimate partner violence.
The theory of the cycle of violence is an area in criminology which has generated a lot of interest. Even though the cycle of violence has been supported empirically, it is not entirely true that all victims of physical child abuse become offenders, or be involved in violence during their adolescence and adulthood (Wright & Fagan, 2013). Wright & Fagan, in a longitudinal study, observed that the effect of child physical abuse on violence was weaker in more disadvantaged communities and neighborhood cultural norms regarding tolerance for youth’s delinquency and fighting amongst friends and families did not modulate child abuse-violence relationship, but each had a direct impact on violence. However, the neighborhoods that depict more tolerance to delinquency, violence, and fight, showed a corresponding increased propensity for violence during adolescence and adulthood. Thus, the cycle of violence is commonly determined by neighborhood structural and cultural conditions (Wright & Fagan, 2013).
The cycle of violence can lead to the intergenerational transmission of child abuse and neglect. It is a widely accepted belief that children can grow up and become abusive parents, and this increases the likelihood of intergenerational violence, deviance, and child abuse (Manchikanti Gómez, 2011). The author argues that the role of sexual abuse and neglect along the lines og intergenerational transmission of child mistreatment is often ignored. In one of the studies, it was found that the offspring of parents with histories of child abuse and neglect were more likely to present reports on both sexual abuse and neglect.
Social Disorganization Theory and Neighborhood Disadvantage in the Context of Childhood Abuse and Violence, and Later Adult Offending
Social disorganization theory can be used to illuminate the intricacy between child abuse and increased predisposition to adult offending in an inclusive and comprehensive approach. Social disorganization identifies surroundings poverty, residential instability, proximity to urban localities, family problems, and population density, among others, as critical structural variables that limit self-regulatory capacity in the community (Yahaya et al., 2013). The societies that lack effective informal social support networks are devoid of the adequate capacity to implement monitoring and to limit sexual, violent behaviors. The structural factors that increase the intricacy of the society's organization and undermine the community’s informal so...