“Harm as Harm”

TLDR

The construct of perpetration‑induced trauma (PT) proposes that inflicting harm on others may itself be a traumatic event, a notion that could be relevant to youth in gangs. This study aimed to examine PT, trauma exposure, posttraumatic stress symptoms, and gang membership among 660 detained youth. The authors assessed PT, trauma exposure, PTSD symptoms, and gang membership in a sample of 660 detained youth (484 boys, 176 girls) recruited from a detention center. Youth in gangs reported higher violence exposure, PT, dissociation, and emotional numbing than non‑gang peers; girls in gangs were most likely to meet PTSD criteria, and regression analyses showed PT uniquely predicted PTSD symptoms and mediated the link between gang membership and PTSD.

Abstract

The construct of perpetration-induced trauma (PT) proposes that inflicting harm on others may constitute a traumatic event, a phenomenon which might be relevant to youth in gangs. This study investigated PT, trauma exposure, posttraumatic stress symptoms, and gang membership in a sample of 660 youth (484 boys, 176 girls) recruited from a detention center. When compared with their non-gang-member peers, youth in gangs endorsed higher levels of exposure to violence and PT, as well as higher symptoms of dissociation and emotional numbing. Girls who endorsed gang membership were those most likely to meet full or partial criteria for a posttraumatic stress disorder diagnosis. Results of regression analyses showed that PT predicted unique variance in posttraumatic stress above and beyond other variables and results of tests for bootstrapped indirect effects were consistent with the hypothesis that PT acts as a mediator of the association between gang membership and posttraumatic stress.