Adverse childhood experiences and violent extremism: A scoping review of the literature
This scoping review of the literature examines the link between adverse childhood experiences and violent extremism across 23 studies covering nearly 5,000 individuals. Written by Teja Pammi, Caterina Ceccarelli, Sam Hibbs, Jemima Chase, Nafees Hamid, & Fiona S. McEwen.
Key takeaways:
- Household dysfunction (such as caregiver loss, imprisonment, or substance abuse) emerged as the most commonly reported adversity, followed by maltreatment such as emotional neglect and physical or sexual abuse. Among certain samples, such as US right-wing extremists, up to 70% reported four or more ACEs.
- While ACE rates in extremist populations were often far higher than general population base rates (roughly 38-39%), they were not always higher than in control groups like violent offenders or gang members. For example, political extremists were not statistically significantly more likely to come from broken homes than gang members, and non-radicalized Muslim inmates actually showed higher rates of violent childhood punishment (77%) than radicalized inmates (64%). This points to ‘multifinality,’ meaning ACEs can lead to many different outcomes, not just VE.
- Of the four studies testing direct associations, some found significant links (e.g., ACEs and involvement in terrorist violence: OR = 2.08, p ≤ 0.05), while others did not. Childhood abuse was not statistically significantly associated with participation in violence in a US extremist sample, nor with terrorism in Iraqi prisoners. Continuation in education emerged as a potential protective factor moderating the ACE-VE relationship (p < 0.05).
