Letter From Guest Editor

Abstract

When Editor Trulson asked me to guest edit a special issue of Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice, I took some time to reflect on how best to position my primary area of interest—developmental criminology—within the scope of the journal’s focus. Some of the more recent work from this paradigm has concentrated on the impact of early traumatic experiences on subsequent offending. Indeed, scholars have demonstrated that those with a higher exposure to early trauma are more likely to be violent juvenile offenders—one of the primary areas of attention for this journal. This special issue thus represented a unique opportunity to ask several of my colleagues to contribute articles on the theme Developmental Perspectives on Youth Violence: The Role of Trauma and Other Life Experiences. I am extremely grateful to each of the authors who contributed to this special issue and believe the work presented in this issue represent an important contribution to the field. The studies are also representative of a wide variety of research designs as they include samples from the US, Canada, and Australia and include not only non-experimental designs but randomized controlled trials as well. While most of the articles in this special issue focused on trauma as traditionally defined, Cardwell and her colleagues focused on trauma not caused by one’s family but instead at the hands of peers. Cardwell et al. studied the intersection between bully victimization and truancy on later violent offending in the context of a randomized control trial of the Ability School Engagement Program (ASEP) in Queensland, Australia. Prior research has found that bully victimization can have similar impacts on mental health and behavioral outcomes and some argue being bullied should be part of the ACE paradigm. This article represents an important extension of our understanding of trauma to include school-based experiences, particularly given the significant association the researchers found between bullying victimization and violent behavior. Some of the articles in the current issue examined the relationship between Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and offending. First, Craig and Zettler relied upon a sample of institutionalized serious adjudicated delinquents and found the impact of ACEs on violent offending differed by offense type as well as the offender sex and race/ethnicity. For instance, while ACEs were found to increase the likelihood of reoffending with sexual violence or domestic violence, it had no impact on murder or aggravated assault. These results suggested the impact of trauma is not consistent across groups and further research is needed to understand potential mechanisms in the ACE-offending relationship.