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Child Neglect and Its Association With Subsequent Juvenile Drug and Alcohol Offense

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Abstract

This study presents empirical findings about the association between childhood neglect and adolescents’ subsequent involvement with drug and alcohol related offense from a sample of 251 neglected children and their community matched control (N = 502) from a 17-year period longitudinal data set. Findings confirmed that neglected children were at greater risk to be arrested for later juvenile drug and alcohol offenses than non-neglected children. Being male, White and the presence of domestic violence also significantly contributed to elevated risks of being arrested for juvenile drug and alcohol violations for neglected children. Implications for practice and future research are discussed.

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Acknowledgements

The data utilized in this study were made available by the Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) and National Institute of Justice Data Resource Center. The data from Childhood Victimization and Delinquency, Adult Criminality, and Violent Criminal Behavior in a Large Urban County in the Northwest United States, 1980–1997 (English and Widom 2003) were originally collected by Diane J. English and Cathy Spatz Widom with funding support from National Institute of Justice (grant number 97-IJ-CX-0017).

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Neither the collector of the original data, the funding agency, nor the ICPSR bears any responsibility for the analyses or interpretations in this study.

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Correspondence to Wan-Yi Chen.

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Chen, WY., Propp, J., deLara, E. et al. Child Neglect and Its Association With Subsequent Juvenile Drug and Alcohol Offense. Child Adolesc Soc Work J 28, 273–290 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10560-011-0232-2

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