Poly-victimization among Adolescents Adjudicated for Illegal Sexual Behavior: A Latent Class Analysis

Abstract

Justice-involved youth are characterized by higher rates of victimization compared to non-justice-involved youth. Prior research has elucidated the importance of examining cumulative trauma rather than one type of victimization in isolation. The sexually abused-sexual abuser hypothesis has been proposed to explain the pathway from cumulative trauma to offending, accordingly it is critical to examine poly-victimization in adolescents adjudicated for illegal sexual behavior (AISB). The current study aims to investigate categories of poly-victimized AISB through a person-centered analytic approach and compare to a sample of detained general population adolescents. Latent Profile Analysis (LPA) identified a two-class solution for AISB, revealing a low poly-victimization subtype (8.85 victimizations) and a high poly-victimization subtype (15.86 victimizations and scores in the clinical range on a measure of trauma-related symptoms). Considerations for prevention of the abuse-to-prison pipeline are discussed.