Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) and juvenile violent delinquency in multiple successive birth cohorts

Abstract

Early-life adversities are associated with juvenile violent offending, but temporal and gender differences in this association remain unclear. This study used data from multiple successive birth cohorts (1,006,028 individuals) born in Finland between 1987 and 2003, followed until age 17. Register-based adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) measured at ages 0–14 included parental social assistance recipiency, unemployment, substance abuse, psychiatric disorders, violent offending and parental death. We investigated absolute and relative differences in violent crime at ages 15–17 between children exposed and unexposed to ACEs. Our results show that all individual ACEs were positively associated with juvenile violent offending. Parental violent crime and social assistance recipiency demonstrated the strongest associations, with odds ratios (OR) across cohorts fluctuating from 4.24 (95% CI = 3.65–4.91) to 5.85 (95% CI = 4.98–6.87) and 3.65 (95% CI = 3.26–4.08) to 6.07 (95% CI = 5.23–7.04), respectively. The ACE sum score showed a clear graded relationship with violent offending, evident on both absolute and relative scales. For those without ACEs, the offending prevalence ranged between the cohorts from 0.60% to 1.14%. For individuals with ≥ 4 ACEs, offending prevalence fluctuated from 5.40% to 8.59%. Associations between individual and cumulative ACEs with violent delinquency remained relatively constant over time, for both genders, underscoring the need for tailored interventions.