The Relationship Between Child Sexual Abuse And Female Delinquency And Crime: A Prospective Study

Abstract

Child sexual abuse has been hypothesized to be an especially significant factor in the etiology of girls’ delinquency and women’s crime. This article reports on a prospective study of 206 women who, in the period from 1973 to 1975, were treated in a hospital emergency room in a major city following a report of sexual abuse. Their subsequent juvenile and adult criminal records were compared to a matched comparison group. Child sexual abuse was a statistically significant predictor of certain types of offenses, but other indicators of familial neglect and abuse were significant factors as well.