ABSTRACT
The negative repercussions of heightened exposure to adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) across physical health, mental health, and behavioral outcomes is well elucidated. A growing body of work has extended these deleterious impacts of ACE effects to crime and delinquency, including reoffending among samples with justice system involvement. With respect to juvenile and criminal justice system implications, more limited empirical examination has fortunately indicated the predominant paradigm of targeted intervention to assessed dynamic risk factors is similarly effective for non-exposed individuals and those with substantial traumatic exposure. Unfortunately, however, that work has also demonstrated that the negative effects of ACE on offending/reoffending remain. Promising avenues of service improvement include additional focus on strengths-based approaches and trauma-responsive intervention. As such, a multi-tiered model of 1) prevention; 2) screening, assessment, staff training, and service referrals; and 3) targeted mental health and trauma-specific treatment interventions, coupled with a resiliency-building focus and 4) systems alignment, is suggested.
