Examining Parental Factors as Moderators Between Maltreatment and Adolescent Delinquency

There is a well-established relationship between child maltreatment and delinquency, indicating that maltreated youth are at a heightened risk for later delinquency. However, the literature is unclear as to why some maltreated youth proceed to engage in delinquent behaviors, whereas others do not. The present study examined whether parental or family factors moderated the relation between a history of maltreatment and engagement in delinquent behavior during adolescence. Parental and family moderators included parental monitoring, parental emotional distress (depression and everyday stressors), parent-child relationship quality, family community and religious disengagement, poverty, and negative life events. This study utilized data on 1,149 children from the Longitudinal Studies of Child Abuse and Neglect (LONGSCAN), a collaborative effort across research sites that collected data regarding the risk factors and consequences of child maltreatment. For the purposes of this study, we utilized adolescent self-reports of delinquency, caregiver reports of parental and family variables, and administrative data on child maltreatment. Community and religious disengagement was the only variable that moderated the relation between maltreatment and delinquency. The effects of community and religious disengagement varied by maltreatment group such that greater community and religious disengagement was related to increased delinquent involvement for those in the no maltreatment, childhood-only maltreatment, and persistent maltreatment groups. Child maltreatment was not a significant predictor of delinquency over and above the effect of parenting and family variables that were measured during adolescence. Findings point to the importance of considering proximal parenting and family factors in understanding the maltreatment-delinquency relationship.