TY - JOUR
T1 - The Interrelationship Between Empathy and Adverse Childhood Experiences and Their Impact on Juvenile Recidivism
AU - Narvey, Chelsey
AU - Yang, Jennifer
AU - Wolff, Kevin T.
AU - Baglivio, Michael
AU - Piquero, Alex R.
PY - 2020/1/1
Y1 - 2020/1/1
N2 - Low empathy has been implicated in antisocial, aggressive, and criminal behavior, especially among adolescents. Less understood is the extent to which empathy is amenable to treatment, and whether an improvement in empathy can mitigate the deleterious effects of known risk factors, such as childhood maltreatment. A sample of 11,000 serious juvenile offenders in long-term residential placement is leveraged to examine whether over cumulative traumatic exposure, measured by the adverse childhood experience (ACE) score, is associated with the initial level of empathy at admission to a residential program, and whether changes in empathy during treatment moderate the impact of ACEs on juvenile recidivism. Results show youth with higher ACE scores have less empathy at admission and both ACEs and empathy predict recidivism. Most importantly, large gains in empathy are able to dampen the effect of ACEs on recidivism.
AB - Low empathy has been implicated in antisocial, aggressive, and criminal behavior, especially among adolescents. Less understood is the extent to which empathy is amenable to treatment, and whether an improvement in empathy can mitigate the deleterious effects of known risk factors, such as childhood maltreatment. A sample of 11,000 serious juvenile offenders in long-term residential placement is leveraged to examine whether over cumulative traumatic exposure, measured by the adverse childhood experience (ACE) score, is associated with the initial level of empathy at admission to a residential program, and whether changes in empathy during treatment moderate the impact of ACEs on juvenile recidivism. Results show youth with higher ACE scores have less empathy at admission and both ACEs and empathy predict recidivism. Most importantly, large gains in empathy are able to dampen the effect of ACEs on recidivism.
KW - adverse childhood experiences
KW - empathy
KW - juvenile recidivism
KW - trauma
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85087968935&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/1541204020939647
DO - 10.1177/1541204020939647
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85087968935
JO - Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice
JF - Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice
SN - 1541-2040
ER -