Child abuse and neglect, how do these contribute to delinquency? In both these cases, the child
is the victim. Does this mean victims are more likely to become offenders? Well, it could be.
And, not really. Evidence shows that childhood abuse is linked to delinquency and adult crime.
Abuse can cause psychological problems and social deficits, which both contribute to antisocial
behaviors. When abuse is a part of a person’s life, it becomes the norm. When it becomes the
norm, it becomes acceptable. Simply put, hurting others doesn’t appear to be a bad thing. It’s
what happens, what supposed to happen. For some young people, it’s what parents do. Here
is where I love to jump into my stories. A kid I worked with kid who had a family who took an
interest in him and took him in providing him with a very nice alternative to his life. After a
short time, he left their home to back to his home and family. When I asked him why he left, he
explained to me that he was uncomfortable and couldn’t understand why they were being so
nice to him. “Mr. G, my mom would beat me and even threw a hot iron at me. She did this to
me and she loves me. It scares me that that they are being so nice to me. Why are they doing
this?” To him, if they loved him, or even cared about him, they wouldn’t be so nice to him. To
him, abusive behavior equated to love. What is sad, is if that cycle isn’t broken, how do you
think he will show love to his own kids? The good thing is that in these cases, the cycle of abuse
can be mitigated if the victim develops supportive relationships with nonabusive adults and
peers. This family did not give up on him, and today he is a wonderful father.
I worked with another young man whose mother called me one day to tell me that she walked
in on him in the bathroom where he had his much younger brother with him forcing the little
brother to out his penis in the brother’s mouth. Naturally CPS got involved and the kid was
forced to live with another family member or the “victim” would have to be removed from the
home. I arranged for him to live with the paternal grandparents. The kid wasn’t thrilled with
this telling me his grandfather was too strict. As a probation officer, I didn’t see a problem with
this. Strict supervision in this case was not a bad thing. Every week the kid would call me
complaining about the grandfather; “he doesn’t give me my own time,” “ He doesn’t let me
walk to school, he drives me there every day. I don’t want him to drive me to school.” Again, I
saw no problem with this level of supervision. Weeks later, the mother called me to let me
know her son called her and told her that he wanted share something with her that he knew he
should have told her long ago; he had been sexually abused. He wouldn’t tell her who it was,
but he told her he would tell me. She quickly said she knew it was going to be her brother who
had been dishonorably discharged from the armed services for molesting his daughter. Ai met
with her son and he shared that it was his grandfather. The same man to I was telling him it
was good for him to live with. When I shared that with the mother, she sat back in shock and
said, “I remember when I left my daughter with him once as a toddler, and when I got back, he
was coming out of the bathroom with her. I asked him why he had her in there with him and
said he had to go to the restroom and didn’t want to leave her alone. I should have known
better.” I called the kid’s father, who identified as a rage-aholic, to let him know what the kid
had reported. After a moment of silence, the father said, “That SOB never stopped.” This poor
kid, abusive history on both sides of the family. A cycle.
I have several stories that include kids being physically and/or sexually abused or neglected.
Another kid whose mother’s husband would carry him and deliver to the husband’s brother to molest. He told me how he remembers call out to his mother and hearing her laugh. We know
that most kids in our system have suffered some form of trauma. We actually assess for
Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) to determine a young person’s risk level. Or, their risk to
reoffend. What we know is the greater number of ACEs, the higher the risk to reoffend.
Again, this is not the case with all young people who have suffered this. For some, this
experience gives them the drive to be different from their own parents, swearing they will
never be the same kind of parent theirs was. As I write this, I remember when I was young,
there were many times I would think, “when I am a parent, I will never do this.” Of course, the
things I was protesting are those things that good parents do. And as a parent, I found myself
doing those exact same things as my father. And that is because I came to realize that was the
right approach. When young people grow up with the wrong approaches, abuse, they have to
come to terms that that was not the best approach. That was not the acceptable norm. and
when they do that, they are able to break that cycle.
Now, for your assignment. Tell me as much as you can about ACEs (Adverse Childhood
Experiences.) What are these? Why is important to identify these? What are your experiences
with ACEs, with yourself or with people you know?
