Trauma, World Assumptions, and Coping Resources among Youthful Offenders: Social Work, Mental Health, and Criminal Justi
- PDF / 238,805 Bytes
- 17 Pages / 439.37 x 666.142 pts Page_size
- 14 Downloads / 168 Views
Trauma, World Assumptions, and Coping Resources among Youthful Offenders: Social Work, Mental Health, and Criminal Justice Implications Tina Maschi • Thalia MacMillan • Keith Morgen Sandy Gibson • Matthew Stimmel
•
Published online: 24 August 2010 Ó Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2010
Abstract The purpose of this study was to contribute to the extant literature by examining the relationship of traumatic and stressful life experiences among youthful offenders aged 18–24 years old. The sample included 38 youthful offenders incarcerated in the New Jersey Department of Corrections in 2008. During in-person interviews, youthful offenders completed a survey that gathered information on cumulative trauma, world assumptions, and coping resources using the Stressful Life Experiences Screening Inventory-Long Form, World Assumption Scale, and Coping Resources Inventory. A series of OLS regression analyses revealed partial support for the study hypotheses that cumulative trauma is significantly and negatively associated to youthful offenders’ basic world assumptions about the world having meaning. Opposite of what was expected, it was found that
T. Maschi (&) T. MacMillan Fordham University Graduate School of Social Service, 113 West 60th Street, New York, NY 10023, USA e-mail: [email protected] T. MacMillan e-mail: [email protected] K. Morgen Department of Behavioral and Historical Studies, Centenary College, 400 Jefferson Street, Hackettstown, NJ 07840, USA e-mail: [email protected] S. Gibson Gibson Social Research Group, Philadelphia, PA, USA e-mail: [email protected] M. Stimmel Department of Clinical Psychology, Fordham University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Bronx, NY 10458, USA e-mail: [email protected]
123
378
T. Maschi et al.
cumulative trauma was significantly and positively associated with spiritual coping resources among youthful offenders. These findings have important implications for developing and improving interdisciplinary and multi-level trauma assessment and intervention strategies with youthful offenders. Keywords Trauma World assumptions Coping resources Youthful offenders Prisoners Late adolescence Young adults Social work Mental health Juvenile justice Criminal justice Interdisciplinary practice
Introduction Research consistently shows that both youth and adults who experience trauma or stressful life events are at risk for adverse psychological consequences. The types of traumatic and stressful experiences linked to adverse psychological consequences include victim or witness to violence, natural or manmade disasters, and traumatic loss (Engelkemeyer and Marwit 2008; Hochstetler et al. 2004; Wolfe et al. 2003). An individual may experience one or more traumatic experiences in childhood, adolescence, adulthood, and/or older adulthood (Abram et al. 2007; Freuh et al. 2007; Maschi 2006; Overstreet and Braun 2000). These traumatic experiences may have both short and long term impact on survivors’ psychological well-being (Acierno et al.
Data Loading...
