Forensic psychology Psychology Research Paper Essay

Early Child Abuse and Later Perpetration as Offender
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Early Child Abuse and Later Perpetration as Offender
Introduction
There is a general belief that those who become offenders during adulthood have a history of being abused while in childhood. Many suggest that majority of the incarcerated individuals may have undergone neglect and physical abuse as children. Others have postulated a positive correlation between childhood sexual abuse and later criminal behaviors, especially in the context of sexual offending. There is a growing interest in how childhood victimization, neglect, and abuse, play a role in determining the risk of becoming incarcerated offenders during adulthood. One of the grave concerns is a consequence of child maltreatment, which leads to an increased risk for crime and violence during adolescence or adulthood. This paper is an exploration of how childhood abuse and violence may transform into adolescence and adulthood deviance and offending.
The Cycle of Violence and Mistreatment of Children
The cycle of violence defines a phenomenon where children who been victims of any abuse become perpetrators of violence during their adolescence or adulthood phases of life (Manchikanti Gómez, 2011; Widom, 2017). Several theories have been advanced to explain the cycle of violence in a bid to understand the childhood process and contexts that can lead to adult or adolescent offending (Widom, 2017). Social learning theory posits that children who undergo physical abuse are likely to learn that the use of violence is an acceptable and standard way of responding to distress, and resolving conflict is to deploy violence. The cycle of violence can be explained via social learning theory. This theory postulates that behaviors are learned from observation (Manchikanti Gómez, 2011). Thus, persons who are victims of child abuse tend to believe that aggression or violence is an acceptable way of dealing with interpersonal conflicts, especially when they enter adolescence and adulthood. Victim of childhood violence may tend to perceive violence as a norm because they witness it more often, which make them learn aggression as a way of life, and this underpins their increased propensity to adult offending (Reckdenwald, Mancini & Beauregard, 2013). Child abuse victims may respond to intimate partner violence with learned helplessness, where feels of being powerless are overwhelming. Social control theory postulates that child maltreatment or abuse dissolves social bonds that are necessary for pro-social behavior that limits later risk for crime, deviance, and violence. General strain theory suggests that delinquency, deviance, and crime, tend to occur often due to the inability to evade painful or aversive circumstances, for instance, child abuse and neglect (Widom, 2017).
The cycle of violence theory, as earlier seen, postulates that children who experience abuse, violence, and maltreatment, have more likelihood to perpetrate violence as they age. Abused children face rejection in the community primarily by their peers, and this makes such children secure friendship with other peers who are equally deviant, and they also tend to choose lovers who have simi...