The Linkage Between Childhood Bullying Behavior and Future Offending Article Analysis Essay

Introduction/Method

In the general population, there are a group of young children, under the age of 12, who exhibit aggressive, antisocial, or conduct problems. The crime rate in the U.S. is about 47.70 per 100,000 people. The authors of this study want to help increase clinicians’ and researchers’ understanding of early childhood risk factors, to help clinicians systematically identify and clinically manage risk with appropriate treatment plans, and to improve the reliability and validity in predicting future delinquent behavior. The researchers want to identify common factors of persistent antisocial behavior (bullying, lying, stealing) to help lead to a better understanding of bullying at a young age leads to future criminal behavior. Between 2001 and 2009, a Canadian sample (570 boys and 379 girls) was drawn from clients who participated in the evidence-based program SNAP(STOP NOW AND PLAN). To acquire any criminal record data on participants, a court order was obtained. The Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) and the Early Assessment Risk Lists (EARL-20B and EARL-21G) were used to determine the level of risk and bullying behavior. The age at which a kid first came into contact with the criminal justice system, as well as the frequency with which they did so, were both outcome factors.

Results/Discussion/Conclusion

After reviewing the study, I can conclude that this is a cross-sectional study because the researchers select groups of people who are of different ages but investigate them at one point in time. The risk of committing a criminal offense for bullies was significantly higher than for non-bullies, the risk of committing a criminal offense for bullies is 1.9 times (95 percent) higher than for non-bullies, criminal convictions for bullies were nearly twice as high as for non-bullies up until the child's 18th birthday, and EARLs was effective in differentiating risk associated with bullying. These findings point to a strong relationship between bullying behavior in childhood and eventual criminal behavior after the age of 12. Professionally, this emphasizes the necessity of being able to detect children who may engage in bullying behavior and associated risks early on using a variety of data sources.

My Opinion

After reading the article, “The linkage between childhood bullying behavior and future offending” there are many things that I can take away from this study. First, I would take away that you should always monitor how your child acts when they are young to further prevent them from getting into trouble. You should be able to sit down with your child and talk about their acting out and figure out a solution before they grow up to be behind bars. When speaking of the research, I really enjoyed how everything was straight to the point all while still showing lots of detail in their methods. By using many tested and approved programs the researchers were able to get valid information to show the linkage between bullying at a young age and future criminal problems. The checklist to be a part of this study was very strict and that shows that this information is reliable. This study relates to our class because we learn about aggressive children and their victims. We learn there is instrumental aggression and hostile aggression. Hostile aggression, in this case, would be used by the child because bullying can be unprovoked aggression that seems to have the sole goal of intimidating, harassing, or humiliating another child. Throughout the class, it has been a given that everything you do as a child affects who you are later in life. So seeing the strong link between child bullying behaviors and criminal offenses makes sense in terms of lifespan psychology.