Abused Adults

DO ADULTS ABUSED AS CHILDREN COMMIT MORE CRIMES THAN NON ABUSED CHILDREN

DO ADULTS ABUSED AS CHILDREN COMMIT MORE CRIMES THAN NON ABUSED CHILDREN

Child abuse, whether it is physical or mental, has and can have a significant impact on the child that is being abused. Society is filled today with so many adults who were abused as a child committing similar acts of crimes or who are constantly in and out of trouble. But the adults who were once abused are not the only ones committing crimes of various types. This paper will focus on and discuss out of the two groups, whether the adults who were in the system as being abused have committed or commit more crimes than those adults who has not been in the system as having been abused. In the literary reviews I have read, there are many different issues that need to be looked at. We have to look at the fact if the household consisted of one or both parents. We also need to look at whether the abuse of the child was at the hands of a parent or whether the abuse was done by a non-parent. According to one study, (Rizmovic, Sloane, Alexander, Seltzer, and Jessor, 1996), the experience of abuse as a child has always been thought to be a strong risk factor, but research does not show a causal relationship. In the study, it appears that the vast majority of abused children do not grow up to be adult offenders. Researchers have traditionally suggested that cyclical patterns emerge among those abused as a child and their own experiences. Truscott (1993) supported this assertion. It was stated that over 50 percent of adult offenders reported that they had committed their first offense when they were adolescents. Studies in the 1990s supported earlier assertions that up to 58 percent of adult offenders first abused or committed crimes as an adolescent and their number and type of offenses grew as they got older (Celleni, Schwartz, and Readio, 1993).

Children who experience sexual, physical or mental abuse and...