NCJ Number
208558
Journal
Journal of Interpersonal Violence Volume: 17 Issue: 9 Dated: September 2002 Pages: 1002-1019
Editor(s)
Jon R. Conte
Date Published
September 2002
Length
18 pages
Annotation
In examining the effects of out-of-home placement when children have experienced family separation and frequent family moves, this study explored the link between child abuse/neglect and criminality, reviewed the literature on the role of out-of-home placements in the child abuse/neglect criminality relationship, and examined the effect that removing an abused/neglected child from his/her home had on the likelihood of future arrests.
Abstract
The serious consequences associated with child abuse and neglect have been well documented in research. In order to protect a child from harm, social service workers have the difficult task of deciding how to best intervene. For this study, data were collected by Cathy Spatz Widom (1994) with support from the National Institute of Justice to examine the extent to which family disorganization moderates the effect of social service placement on juvenile and adult arrests. The data contained 749 substantiated cases of child abuse and neglect and were used to test hypotheses relating to two measures of family disorganization: family separation and family moves. In addition, dependent variables for the study were binary measures of arrest. Overall, the results indicate that the effect of placement on criminality may depend on the presence of family disorganization measured by recent family separation and frequent family moves. It was also found that the overall pattern of effects differed for males and females. An example of this difference is youths whose families experienced a recent separation, such as divorce or death in the family were found to be at a greater risk of adult arrest if they were removed from the home, whereas placement had different effects for males and females when the family experienced frequent moves. References