The Suitability of the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire in Criminal Offender Samples

Vera Maria Wente, Petra Retz-Junginger, Anselm Crombach, Wolfgang Retz and Steffen Barra ()
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Vera Maria Wente: Institute for Forensic Psychology and Psychiatry, Saarland University Hospital, 66421 Homburg, Germany
Petra Retz-Junginger: Institute for Forensic Psychology and Psychiatry, Saarland University Hospital, 66421 Homburg, Germany
Anselm Crombach: Department of Psychology, Saarland University, 66123 Saarbruecken, Germany
Wolfgang Retz: Institute for Forensic Psychology and Psychiatry, Saarland University Hospital, 66421 Homburg, Germany
Steffen Barra: Institute for Forensic Psychology and Psychiatry, Saarland University Hospital, 66421 Homburg, Germany

IJERPH, 2023, vol. 20, issue 6, 1-18

Abstract: Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are common in community samples and are associated with various dysfunctional physical, psychological, and behavioral consequences. In this regard, criminal offenders are at specific risk, considering their elevated ACE rates compared with community samples and the associations of ACEs with criminal behaviors. However, assessing ACEs in offender samples by self-reports has been criticized with regard to their validity and reliability. We examined the suitability of ACE-self-reports using the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire (CTQ) in a sample of 231 male offenders involved in the German criminal justice system by comparing self-reported to externally rated ACEs to externally rated ACEs based on the information from the offenders’ criminal and health-related files and on interviews conducted by forensically trained psychological/psychiatric experts. The accordance between self-ratings and expert ratings was examined considering mean differences, correlations, inter-rater agreement measures, and regression analyses. Offenders themselves reported a higher ACE burden than the one that was rated externally, but there was a strong relationship between CTQ self-assessments and external assessments. However, associations were stronger in offenders seen for risk assessment than in those evaluated for criminal responsibility. Overall, the CTQ seems suitable for use in forensic samples. However, reporting bias in self-reports of ACEs should be expected. Therefore, the combination of self-assessments and external assessments seems appropriate.

Keywords: childhood maltreatment; adverse childhood experiences; ACE; bias; delinquency; trauma; reliability (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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