Understanding the Cycle: Childhood Maltreatment and Future Crime

Janet Currie and Erdal Tekin

Journal of Human Resources, 2012, vol. 47, issue 2

Abstract: Child maltreatment is a major social problem. This paper focuses on measuring the relationship between child maltreatment and crime using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health). We focus on crime because it is one of the most costly potential outcomes of maltreatment. Our work addresses two main limitations of the existing literature on child maltreatment. First, we use a large national sample, and investigate different types of maltreatment in a unified framework. Second, we pay careful attention to controlling for possible confounders using a variety of statistical methods that make differing assumptions. The results suggest that maltreatment greatly increases the probability of engaging in crime and that the probability increases with the experience of multiple forms of maltreatment.

Date: 2012
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