Alexander Ava R, Kerig Patricia K
Department of Psychology, University of Utah, 380 S 1530 E BEH S 502, Salt Lake City, UT, 84112, USA.
Clin Child Fam Psychol Rev. 2025 Apr 22. doi: 10.1007/s10567-025-00520-y.
It is well established within the literature that early childhood trauma and maltreatment increase risk for adolescent offending behaviors. However, the mechanisms underlying this association are not currently well understood. The construct of moral injury, or distress and psychopathology stemming from events that violate an individual's deeply held moral beliefs, has most frequently been studied in adult veterans. However, researchers have recently begun to apply the concept of moral injury to child and adolescent populations. From a developmental psychopathology perspective, moral injury offers a novel lens through which to view the victim-offender overlap in adolescents. The current paper reviews existing empirical evidence regarding the prevalence and sources of moral injury in justice-involved youth. It further synthesizes theory and research from diverse subfields of developmental and clinical psychology and criminology in order to describe how disruptions to cognitive, affective, and social development might link moral injury with juvenile offending and justice involvement. A novel, dynamic model of moral injury and juvenile offending is proposed, and implications for future research, clinical practice, and juvenile justice policy are discussed.
文献中已明确证实，儿童早期创伤和虐待会增加青少年犯罪行为的风险。然而，这种关联背后的机制目前尚未得到充分理解。道德伤害这一概念，即源于违背个人根深蒂固的道德信念的事件所导致的痛苦和精神病理学，在成年退伍军人中研究最为频繁。然而，研究人员最近已开始将道德伤害的概念应用于儿童和青少年群体。从发展心理病理学的角度来看，道德伤害为观察青少年中受害者与犯罪者的重叠现象提供了一个新的视角。本文回顾了有关涉司法青少年道德伤害的患病率和来源的现有实证证据。它进一步综合了发展心理学、临床心理学和犯罪学等不同子领域的理论和研究，以描述认知、情感和社会发展的中断如何将道德伤害与青少年犯罪及涉司法问题联系起来。本文提出了一个关于道德伤害和青少年犯罪的新颖动态模型，并讨论了其对未来研究、临床实践和青少年司法政策的影响。
