A new study has found that children who are frequently bullied in their childhood and teenage years are more likely to commit crimes that would land them in prison in later years.
According to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, close to half of all children experience school bullying at some point while they are in primary or secondary school. At least 10 percent of children are bullied regularly. Child bullying is a serious problem in schools around the country, and it can be very harmful, long term, to children.
In a new study, researchers from the University of North Carolina found that children who are subjected to bullying frequently through their childhood and teenage years are more likely to commit crimes that would land them in prison in their later years.
"Previous research has examined bullying during specific time periods, whereas this study is the first to look at individuals' reports of bullying that lasted throughout their childhood and teen years, and the legal consequences they faced in late adolescence and as adults," said Michael G. Turner, PhD, of the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology at the University of North Carolina, in a press release.
For the study, he and his team analyzed data from the 1997 National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, conducted by the U.S. Department of Labor and the Bureau of Justice Statistics. The data included surveys conducted on 7,335 individuals between the ages of 12 and 16 in the year 1996.
He divided the individuals into four groups: non-victims (74 percent); those bullied repeatedly before the age of 12 (15 percent); those bullied repeatedly after the age of 12 (6 percent); and those repeatedly victimized before and after the age of 12 (5 percent).
After an analysis, researchers found that while only 6 percent of non victims of bullying ended up in prison as adults, this percentage rose to 14 percent among individuals who reported being bullying repeatedly during their childhood and teenage years. Nine percent of individuals who were subjected to bullying only in their childhood and 7 percent of individuals who were bullied only in their teenage years went to prison as adults. When comparing rates of convictions, more than 20 percent of those who endured chronic bullying were convicted of crimes, compared to 11 percent of non-victims, 16 percent of childhood victims and 13 percent of teen victims.
"This study highlights the important role that health care professionals can play early in a child's life when bullying is not adequately addressed by teachers, parents or guardians," Turner said. "With appropriate questions during routine medical checkups, they can be critical first points of contact for childhood victims. Programs that help children deal with the adverse impacts of repeated bullying could make the difference in whether they end up in the adult legal system."
