The path from childhood to crime: Adverse childhood experiences, personality, substance abuse, and criminal decision-making

Abstract

Research in criminal decision-making has greatly expanded beyond the focus on rational (cognitive) choices in several ways. For example, scholars have begun to explore how Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), affective states, maladaptive personality traits, and substance abuse contribute to offending decisions. However, little research has empirically tested the wholistic path from ACEs, personality traits, substance abuse, affect, cognition, and criminal offending. As such, this project explores the indirect path from ACEs to criminal offending via Dark Triad personality traits, substance abuse, and cognitive and affective states. Findings indicate that ACEs are strong positive predictors of both substance abuse and personality traits. In addition, these traits are also positively related to future offending. The results also show that both cognitive and affective states are important predictors of decisions. Specifically, greater perceived certainty, and confidence in this perception, are related to increased fear of apprehension (affect), which nonlinearly predicts future offending.