The effects of child maltreatment on violent offending among institutionalized youth

While prior literature generally supports the connection between child maltreatment and violent offending in adolescence and early adulthood for general population samples, less is known about the relationship between child maltreatment and the frequency of violent offending among serious juvenile offenders. As a result, few studies have examined whether the effects of child maltreatment on the frequency of violent offending are mediated by other social processes, as developmental models of aggression and violence would suggest. To examine this issue, self-report data on child maltreatment, general delinquency risk factors, and violent offending were collected from 3,694 juveniles confined to 48 correctional institutions. Results from a series of negative binomial regression models indicated that the relationship between child maltreatment and the frequency of violent offending was mediated by social risk factors. The implications of these findings for theory and practice are discussed.