Linsey Belisle, an assistant professor of criminal justice, recently published an article titled “Examining the prevalence of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) among justice-involved youth in the U.S.: The importance of accounting for race/ethnicity, gender, and gendered racial/ethnic groups.”
According to Belisle, “It is a well-established fact that youth in the U.S. juvenile justice system are more likely to be exposed to adverse childhood experiences than their counterparts in the general public. However, there is a significant gap in our understanding of how these experiences present themselves across gendered racial/ethnic groups of justice-involved youth.”
To bridge this gap, this exploratory study is the first to apply an intersectional lens to examine the prevalence of ACEs among a group of justice-involved youth in the U.S. Using secondary data, the study investigates ACEs by gender, race/ethnicity, and six gendered racial/ethnic groups of justice-involved youth in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The study’s findings, which are consistent with previous research, highlight the need to consider race/ethnicity and gender simultaneously to understand the unique experiences of ACEs among justice-involved youth.