Mariah Robles, University of New Haven
In a contemporary study of 64,329 high-risk juvenile offenders, 67.5% reported exposure to four or more adverse childhood experiences, or ACEs (Baglivio & Epps, 2016). Early ACE research assessed exposure to such factors as sexual, physical, and emotional abuse; household mental illness and substance abuse; having an incarcerated household member; parental divorce; and domestic violence (Felitti et al., 1998). Since the seminal research conducted by Felitti and colleagues (1998), there have been countless studies seeking to identify the links between traumatic childhood experiences, their effects on development, and future involvement in criminal behaviors. For instance, Shin and colleagues (2018) found that ACE exposure impacts self-control, impulsivity, and aggressiveness, which are behaviors linked to criminality. Recent studies have expanded ACE research to cover a broader spectrum of traumatic experiences, now including community-level trauma, racism, and discrimination in the realm of adverse childhood experiences.