Corrections_Today_Summer_2024_Vol.86_No.2

News&Views

CORRECTIONAL CHAPLAIN PERSPECTIVES

The link between adverse childhood experiences and carceral involvement of transition age youth

What is known and what is needed By Joyce Lee MPH and Elizabeth S. Barnert MD, MPH, MS

The life course and adverse childhood experiences T he Life Course Health Development (LCHD) Framework posits health development as an active process in multiple dimensions and at multiple levels and phases. 1 By recognizing the dynamic interplay of factors that shape health, LCHD theory provides a framework for a deeper look into the events in childhood that shape later health trajectories. Of these events, adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are defined as a group of childhood adversities including various forms of abuse and neglect that occur before the age of 18. ACEs can be categorized into three groups: abuse, neglect, and household challenge. Examples of ACEs include physical and emotion al abuse, neglect, caregiver mental illness, and parental divorce. ACEs can have detrimental and long-term consequences on health and social outcomes, as studies have repeat edly demonstrated that exposure to ACEs is connected with poor academic performance, poor health outcomes, and chronic diseases. 2-4

One particular adverse childhood experience — that of parental or household member incarceration — is especially distressing. Many argue that juvenile incarceration itself should be considered an ACE as well. Juvenile incarceration The United States (U.S.) has the highest rate of juvenile incarceration

in the industrialized world, and the U.S. remains the only UN-member state to not have ratified the Con vention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), the most respected frame work for children’s rights globally. 5 This is alarming because carceral involvement is a strong social deter minant of health that has damaging effects on health and social success into adulthood. 6 In fact, among parolees, there is an estimated

Adobe Stock/motortion

Corrections Today | Summer 2024

8