Childhood maltreatment and subsequent conduct disorders: The case of female street prostitution

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Introduction

The large literature on childhood abuse and neglect reinforces the importance of the family as a developmental crucible in the formation of individual propensities to delinquent and conforming conduct (e.g., Cookston, 1999, Gottfredson & Hirschi, 1990, Heck & Walsh, 2000, Loeber & Stouthamer-Loeber, 1986, McCord, 1979, Riley & Shaw, 1995, Sampson & Laub, 1993, West & Farrington, 1977). Often, the type of delinquent conduct exhibited is believed to correspond to the type of childhood maltreatment experienced during the early formative years in the family, resulting in “homotypic continuity” (Farley & Barkan, 1998, Farley & Kelly, 2000, Kagan, 1969, Goodman & Fallot, 1998, Messman-Moore, & Long, 2000). Social learning theory suggests that childhood maltreatment incurs negative role models and that children may base their future behaviors on the models that they learn to imitate as children. Specific types of childhood maltreatment should therefore produce specific types of delinquency or conduct disorders, i.e., physical abuse leads to childhood aggression. Other analyses, however, suggest that childhood maltreatment is not predictive of specific future conduct disorders, but rather that the effects of maltreatment are more generalized, leading to “heterotypic continuity” in later life (Bennett et al., 2000, Brown et al., 1998, Kaufman & Widom, 1999, Kagan, 1969).

Nowhere is this debate livelier than in the discussion of childhood predictors of female street prostitution and, specifically, the role of incest and sexual abuse in the genesis of prostitution involvement Brannigan & Fleischman, 1989, Lowman, 1991. In the analysis here, we report the results of a study of problematic behaviors exhibited by a sample of prostitute females and a nonprostitute comparison group. Specifically, we investigate the role of childhood maltreatment as a predictor of prostitution, and also examine prostitution in the context of a number of other sequelae to childhood trauma and maltreatment.

Section snippets

Does childhood maltreatment predict future delinquency?

References to “cycles of abuse” and “intergenerational transmission of violence” point to the importance of early childhood experiences in predicting future dysfunctional behavior. The basic proposition is that childhood victimization or maltreatment has long-term negative consequences resulting in abusive or violent behavior among adults (Smith & Thornberry, 1995). Childhood sexual abuse, for example, is a frequently cited cause of participation in prostitution (Bagley, 1999, Bagley & Young,

Sampling

Prostitutes as a group are difficult to sample systematically. Here, we focus on street prostitutes contacted directly on the streets as opposed to those in other venues (escort, massage parlors, brothels, etc.), but it is difficult to identify a single cohesive sampling frame since the parameters of the prostitute population are unknown. In addition, the illegal nature of their activities frequently makes prostitutes reluctant to cooperate with researchers. “Prostitutes” may be characterized

Results

To investigate the null hypothesis that the target and comparison groups are from the same population, unadjusted odds ratio tests were performed on each of the variables (with the exception of age difference) to determine whether membership in the target group inflated the likelihood of experiencing the various traumatic antecedents (see Table 1). The results suggest that the two groups do vary significantly on every dimension, justifying rejection of the null hypothesis. When the two groups

Conclusion

In response to Kruttschnitt et al.'s (1987) observation that marginal findings of a relationship between maltreatment and problematic behaviors are rarely reported, we report such marginal findings with regard to the relationship between sexual abuse and prostitution involvement. The importance of our findings, however, is that they challenge the stereotypic theorizing about the relationship between childhood experiences and future behaviors, and the notion of homotypic continuity, primarily as

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