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TRAUMA & OFFENDING

CiPN, 16 & 17July 2025, Durham

Marie Chollier, PhD, CPsychol - m.chollier@chester.ac.uk

Pogramme Leader / Senior Lecturer in Psychological Trauma

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WHERE IT COMES FROM…

Clinical psychologist, sexologist, psychotherapist

Clinical Practice (France)

Regional resources centre for people working with sex offenders

People who survived and/or perpetrated violence

People who experienced PTEs

People who live with chronic mental ill health

People experiencing difficulties in relation to their gender identity, sexual orientation, and/or sexuality

Other

French national consortium on sex offenders (2018) and youth sex offenders (2025)

X / Twitter https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Marie-Chollier

ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1475-9769

ResearchGate https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Marie-Chollier

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Research topics/areas

Psychological trauma, mental health

Forensic and clinical psychology

Sexual health, prevention/treatment of sexual violence

Stigma, social inequalities, epistemic (in)justice

Social epistemology (philosophy of psychology/social sciences)

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CONTENT

Conceptual framing
Literature
Working with…

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1. LINKS BETWEEN TRAUMA AND OFFENDING?

Criminological perspective

Individual, contextual and structural determinants of crime involvement
Different factors depending on property off. vs off. Against the persons

Trauma-related perspective

Specific risk factors linked with specific PTEs (context, exposure)

Non-accompanied

Specific risk factors linked with PTSD diagnosis and victimation
Risk factors

Age, gender
Exposure to violence

Family
Community

Overlap / Intersectionality?

Social adversity / vulnerability

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1. TRAUMA: FROM ADVERSITY TO DISORDER

Adversity

Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs)
Social adversity

Potentially Traumatic Events

Type 1
Type 2
Other events

Risk vs vulnerability

Externalised vs internalised problems / disorders
Substance use
Maladaptive coping

Disorders

Post-traumaticresponses, symptoms and disorders

Diagnosis: (C)PTSD, ASD, dissociative disorders
Subclinical threshold

Others

Mood disorders, anxiety, etc.

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1.TRAUMA AND OFFENDING LITERATURE

Entry Points

Blind Spots

Key factors differentiating adolescence-only vs lifespan criminal involvement (risk-oriented)

Developmental criminology (Moffit, 1993, 2017)

Dynamic risk factors

Psychological / psychiatric vulnerability

Mostly in the context of offfences against the persons

Victimation-perpetration cycle

Offense-related PTSD

Understudied even though a few in minors

Type 1 traumas

Case studies
Non-accompanied minors

PTEs linked with migration

Exposure to violence, assault, etc.

Prison-related PTEs

Offending behaviour in forensic / convicted population

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Moffitt, T. E. (1993). A developmental taxonomy. Psychological review, 100(4), 674-701.

Moffitt, T. E. (2017). Life-course-persistent versus adolescence-limited antisocial behavior. In Developmental and life-course criminological theories (pp. 75-103). Routledge.

Crisford, H., Dare, H., & Evangeli, M. (2008). Offence-related posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptomatology and guilt in mentally disordered violent and sexual offenders. The Journal of Forensic Psychiatry & Psychology, 19(1), 86-107.

From Ferenczi to Tardif

Goulet, J. A. S., & Tardif, M. (2018). Exploring sexuality profiles of adolescents who have engaged in sexual abuse and their link to delinquency and offense characteristics. Child abuse & neglect, 82, 112-123.

https://www.ffcriavs.org/media/filer_public/b9/27/b92795cd-1fd5-4e9b-b18e-dd52d5f331d4/q9__monique_tardif.pdf

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2. KEY LITERATURE ON ADULTS

Adult population in the criminal justice system present with higher rates of PTEs (Liu et al., 2021)
Female offenders present very high rate of both childhood and adult trauma (Karatzias et al., 2018)
PTSD diagnosis in inmates:

Higher than in the general population (Facer-Irwin et al., 2019)
4 tp 21% of convicted inmates (Goff et al., 2007)
> 50% in prisoners presenting with substance use / dependence (Sindicich et al., 2014)
42% in people convicted for homicide (Badenes‐Ribera et al., 2021; Harry et Resnick, 1986)
1 to 70% violent acts(Soh et al., 2023)

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Badenes‐Ribera, L., Molla‐Esparza, C., Longobardi, C., Sánchez‐Meca, J., & Fabris, M. A. (2021). Homicide as a source of posttraumatic stress?: A meta‐analysis of the prevalence of posttraumatic stress disorder after committing homicide. Journal of Traumatic Stress, 34(2), 345-356.

Facer-Irwin, E., Blackwood, N. J., Bird, A., Dickson, H., McGlade, D., Alves-Costa, F., & MacManus, D. (2019). PTSD in prison settings: A systematic review and meta-analysis of comorbid mental disorders and problematic behaviours. PLoS one, 14(9), e0222407.

Goff, A., Rose, E., Rose, S., & Purves, D. (2007). Does PTSD occur in sentenced prison populations? A systematic literature review. Criminal behaviour and mental health, 17(3), 152-162.

Harry, B., & Resnick, P. J. (1986). Post-traumatic stress disorder in murderers. Journal of Forensic Sciences, 31(2),

Karatzias, T., Power, K., Woolston, C., Apurva, P., Begley, A., Mirza, K., ... & Purdie, A. (2018). Multiple traumatic experiences, post‐traumatic stress disorder and offending behaviour in female prisoners. Criminal behaviour and mental health, 28(1), 72-84.

Liu, H., Li, T. W., Liang, L., & Hou, W. K. (2021). Trauma exposure and mental health of prisoners and ex-prisoners: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Clinical Psychology Review, 89, 102069.

Payne, E., Watt, A., Rogers, P., & McMurran, M. (2008). Offence characteristics, trauma histories and post‐traumatic stress disorder symptoms in life sentenced prisoners. The British Journal of Forensic Practice, 10(1), 17-25.

Sindicich, N., Mills, K. L., Barrett, E. L., Indig, D., Sunjic, S., Sannibale, C., ... & Najavits, L. M. (2014). Offenders as victims: post-traumatic stress disorder and substance use disorder among male prisoners. The Journal of Forensic Psychiatry & Psychology, 25(1), 44-60.

Soh, K. C., Tay, Y. H., & Darjee, R. (2023). Those who commit violent crimes can be traumatised by their offences: A systematic review of offence-specific post-traumatic stress disorder. Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment & Trauma, 32(12), 1705-1725.

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2. KEY LITERATURE ON YOUTH OFFENDERS

Children in the care system and the CJS present with more ACEs and PTEs
Presence of a disorder is linked with risk factor/reoffending (Siponen et al., 2023)
Youth sex offenders present with more ACEs and past victimation than other offender
Female youth offenders present with more ACEs and past victimation than male (Foy et al., 2012)

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2. PATHWAY FROM TYPE 1 T TO VIOLENCE PERPETRATION?

Finland cohort study + 900 000 participants (Peltonen et al., 2020) = Stress and trauma related problems at age 12-14 was associated with violent offending at age 15-17

Dierkhising et al. (2013) PTEs in youth offenders (USA)

Traumatic death of a relative 60%
Community violence 40%,
Accidents / injuries 20%,
Natural disaster 7%
War / terrorism 4%

Temple et al. (2011)

Study in American adolescents on violence perpetration after a natural disaster exploring evacuation status (yes/no) and substance use
Non-evacuated adolescents presented higher rates of substance use
Male adolescents were more likely to perpetrate SV AND be sexually victimised
Importance of early support and adaptive coping

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Peltonen, K., Ellonen, N., Pitkänen, J., Aaltonen, M., & Martikainen, P. (2020). Trauma and violent offending among adolescents: a birth cohort study. J Epidemiol Community Health, 74(10), 845-850.

Dierkhising, C. B., Ko, S. J., Woods-Jaeger, B., Briggs, E. C., Lee, R., & Pynoos, R. S. (2013). Trauma histories among justice-involved youth: findings from the National Child Traumatic Stress Network. European journal of psychotraumatology, 4, 10.3402/ejpt.v4i0.20274. https://doi.org/10.3402/ejpt.v4i0.20274

Temple, J. R., van den Berg, P., Thomas, J. F., Northcutt, J., Thomas, C., & Freeman, D. H., Jr (2011). Teen dating violence and substance use following a natural disaster: does evacuation status matter?. American journal of disaster medicine, 6(4), 201–206. https://doi.org/10.5055/ajdm.2011.0059

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3. WORKING WITH…

Case studies and outpatient centre data

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Trauma-informed justice

YOT
Legal system

Trauma-centred care

“Usual” interventions
E.g., Trauma Outcome Process Assessment (TOPA, Rasmussen, 2000, 2012)

Trauma informed practice

Care
Probation
…

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Beyond Youth Custody https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/32944/1/PubSub10327_Goodfellow.pdf

Levenson, J. (2014). Incorporating trauma-informed care into evidence-based sex offender treatment. The Journal of Sexual Aggression, 20(1), 9–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/13552600.2013.861523

Levenson, J. S., Willis, G. M., & Prescott, D. (2018). Incorporating principles of trauma-informed care into evidence-based sex offending treatment. New frontiers in offender treatment: The translation of evidence-based practices to correctional settings, 171-188.

Clark, L., Tyler, N., Gannon, T. A., & Kingham, M. (2014). Eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing for offence-related trauma in a mentally disordered sexual offender. Journal of Sexual Aggression, 20(2), 240-249.

Rasmussen, L. A. (2000). The trauma outcome process: An integrated model for guiding clinical practice with children with sexually abusive behavior problems. Journal of Child Sexual Abuse, 8(4), 3-33.

Rasmussen, L. A. (2012). Trauma outcome process assessment (TOPA) model: An ecological paradigm for treating traumatized sexually abusive youth. Journal of Child & Adolescent Trauma, 5, 63-80.

National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE). Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder; National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE): London, UK, 2018.

https://www.nes.scot.nhs.uk/nes-current/trauma-informed-justice-a-knowledge-and-skills-framework-for-working-with-victims-and-witnesses-launched/

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NOT TO CONCLUDE

Usual challenges

Forensic context and boundaries
What about ongoing PTEs / traumatic exposure
Relational ambivalence despite therapeutic alliance
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Trauma-informed boxology

Ethical dilemma

May working on trauma open Pandora’s box?
Model for trauma-work and processing

Complex to implement given time constraints
Phasic approach?
Self-help and community support

Stigma

Importance of early prevention and support

Adversity-focused rather than trauma-focussed = support and foster adaptive coping across the lifespan

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THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME AND ATTENTION�ANY QUESTIONS?��

Feel free to contact me at m.chollier@chester.ac.uk

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