Impact of Family Childhood Adversity on Risk of Violence and Involvement with Police in Adolescence: Findings from the UK Millennium Cohort Study

Nicholas Adjei, University of Liverpool
Kenisha Russell Jonsson, School of Public Health and Community Medicine, Institute of Medicine, Gothenburg University, Göteborg
Jones Opoku-Ware, Department of Sociology and Social Work, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology
Sanni Yaya, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Ottawa, Canada
Yanhua Chen, Policy and Systems, University of Liverpool, Liverpool
Davara Bennetta, Department of Public Health, Policy and Systems, University of Liverpool, Liverpool
Michelle Black, Department of Public Health, Policy and Systems, University of Liverpool, Liverpool
Ruth McGovern, Population Health Sciences Institute, Newcastle University, Newcastle
Luke Munford, Population Health Sciences Institute, Newcastle University, Newcastle
David Taylor-Robinson, Department of Public Health, Policy and Systems, University of Liverpool, Liverpool

This study investigates the associations between trajectories of family adversity and poverty during childhood, and the risk of involvement in violence and contact with police during adolescence. We extend the literature by using a life course and syndemic approach to examine how the clustering and accumulation of poverty and family adversities (i.e., parental mental illness, domestic violence and abuse, substance use) across childhood developmental periods impact violence and crime in young adulthood. The empirical analysis relies on longitudinal data from the UK Millennium Cohort Study, an ongoing study tracking the lives of over 18,000 children born between September 2000 and January 2002, followed up through seven survey waves. Overall, the results show that children exposed to persistent poverty and poor parental mental health throughout childhood were at a markedly increased risk of carrying weapons and reporting contact with the police compared to those who experienced low poverty and adversity. We further estimate that about 32% of weapon involvement and 23% of contact with the police at age 17 were attributable to persistent poverty and family adversity. These findings emphasize the importance of life course and anti-poverty approaches to reducing involvement in crime in the UK.

Keywords: Children, Adolescents, and Youth, Longitudinal studies , Inequality, Disadvantage and Discrimination, Data and Methods

See paper.