Research Outline

Title: Victim or Criminal?

Thesis: Children who commit crimes often correlated with violent childhoods or psychopathy.

Body paragraph 1: One’s childhood can influence a child’s tendency to commit crimes at a young age or even later in their life. According to Kenny and Press, children who commit crimes often have signs of aggression or violent behavior at a younger age. They discussed how during childhood, many children experience different classifications or levels of violent behavior which correlates to the tendency to commit crimes. This behavior may go on to effect their childhood at first then continue on in their life. This constant aggressive behavior leads to these children committing crimes because they feel that there is nothing wrong with their actions since they are so accustomed to it. They will not feel remorse because no one has showed them that these acts of aggression are not acceptable at times. This shows how violent behavior in childhood greatly relates to children who commit crimes.

Body paragraph 2: Young offenders who are diagnosed psychopaths or have psychopathic tendencies are the ones who usually commit crimes as they reach adulthood.  A study was done and it consisted of comparing young offenders that were referred to a Youth Forensic Psychiatric Services for assessment and their level of psychopathy to the risk of violence that occurs in their young adulthood. They were able to record the amount of violence in their adulthood because they kept up with the subjects’ lives for 10 years. The researchers used a Psychopathy Checklist: Youth Version (PCL: YV) and found that the adolescence with high PCL: YV scores were the ones with high risk to violence in adulthood and the ones who scored low on the PCL: YV had low risk to violence (Gretton, Catchpole 2004). Children or young offenders with high PCL: YV suggests that they are more likely to expose themselves to violence or commit violence according to the study. This shows how there is a relationship between crimes and the mentality of young adolescences.

Body paragraph 3: Childhood trauma has a large impact on violent offenders. Robertson and Burton stated that “Violent offenders reported significantly greater frequency of physical neglect and sexual abuse and a higher total score on the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire than nonviolent offenders.” (Robertson, Burton 2010) Childhood experiences especially ones that can serve as stressors have great impact on a person’s life later on causing them to be a violent offender.

Body paragraph 4: Children who experienced a rough childhood increases exposure to violent behavior. Bruce and Laporte explain how they found that criminals that had a childhood trauma were more likely to engage in violent acts than those who do not possess a traumatic childhood. This proves that there is a correlation between rough adolescent life and violent behavior.