The Impact of Adverse Childhood Experiences, Loss of Family Members, and Family Responsibility on Illegal Acts

Children who experience ACEs are more susceptible to engaging in illegal acts later in adulthood. Despite the frequency of ACEs within the prison population, the criminal justice system continues to employ a punitive ideology in its operations instead of addressing the ACEs that lead people to commit illegal acts. Many defendants in this study had prior charges and/or were confirmed to have previously served some amount of time in an incarceration facility before they appeared in court to be tried again. The criminal justice system is sometimes referred to as a “revolving door” because it describes the high recidivism rate and how many released ex-offenders return to jail a few years after their release. Every single defendant in the study had current and/or previous drug charges or a history of substance abuse, which goes to show how much the criminal justice system needs to change the way it approaches substance use disorders if the goal is to reduce recidivism. A punitive approach to substance abuse and addiction is ineffective when people who have experienced a multitude of ACEs are released from prison just to return to the same environment that they were arrested from.