Study highlights importance of poverty in criminal convictions

Study highlights importance of poverty in criminal convictions

According to a study conducted in Brazil, a significant reduction in child poverty could reduce the number of criminal convictions by almost a quarter. An article about the study is published in Scientific Reports. The researchers used an innovative approach that included an analysis of 22 risk factors affecting human development and interviews with 1,905 children at two time points - an initial interview to establish a baseline (average age 10.3) and a follow-up interview seven years later (average age 17.8).

The researchers concluded that poverty - broadly measured by a combination of the household head's low level of education, low purchasing power and limited access to basic services - was the only factor related to crime that could be prevented. They used population risk fraction (PARF) estimates to predict the potential reduction in criminal convictions if successful early anti-poverty intervention was adopted in children's lives.

In a non-poverty scenario, 22.5% of these youth's criminal convictions could have been prevented. On the other hand, factors such as unplanned pregnancy, prematurity, breastfeeding, and maternal prenatal smoking or drinking showed no association with future criminal convictions.

Understanding the circumstances that led to this situation requires a holistic view of young people who commit crime and takes into account a range of preventable factors.”

Carolina Ziebold, lead author and researcher of the study, Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, Federal University of São Paulo

Ziebold was supported by FAPESP during her doctoral research. She also received a Talented Young Investigator grant from CAPES, the Ministry of Education's coordination for the improvement of higher education workforce, through the Internationalization Program.

For Ary Gadelha, the article's final author, the use of a complex poverty measure that includes many more factors than household income is a groundbreaking aspect of the study. Gadelha is a professor of psychiatry at EPM-UNIFESP and was Ziebold's doctoral supervisor.

"The study took into account housing conditions and access to public services such as health care or sanitation, in order to understand poverty more comprehensively. This has led us to advocate more comprehensive solutions than simply improving income. The many adversities that these children face will become difficulties in adulthood, such as low educational attainment and unemployment, among others," Gadelha told Agência FAPESP.

The approach used in the study is based on an epidemiological method called “exposure-wide association,” which is similar to the method used in genome-wide association studies (GWAS). “Exposure-wide association studies examine a broad range of potential exposures in relation to a single outcome (using a hypothesis-free approach),” the authors write.

In this case, they add, the analysis included "multiple modifiable perinatal, individual, family, and school-related exposures associated with juvenile criminal convictions to identify new potential targets for the prevention of this complex phenomenon." Furthermore, they argue, “if a significant risk factor [such as poverty] is identified, the extent of its impact on criminal sentencing should be explained to inform and guide public crime prevention efforts.”

Another Ziebold-led study with the same cohort, published in December 2021, had already found correlations between childhood poverty and an increased propensity to develop externalizing disorders during adolescence and early adulthood, particularly in girls. The researchers concluded that multidimensional poverty and exposure to stressful life events, including frequent deaths and family conflict, are preventable risk factors that should be addressed in childhood to reduce the impact of mental health problems in adult life.

Results

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In the recent Scientific Reports article, the researchers emphasize that although baseline poverty was the only modifiable risk factor significantly associated with crime for the children in the study sample, most of them (89%) had no criminal convictions.

"We wanted to avoid criminalizing poverty and show that it is a complex phenomenon. Exposure to this situation over the course of a life can lead to a social tragedy. Crime is a social issue and punishment alone may not be adequately more useful in young people in creating real opportunities for rehabilitation - life chances," said Gadelha.

Only a small proportion (4.3%) of the 1,905 participants surveyed reported having a criminal conviction in the past, primarily related to theft, violent robbery, drug trafficking and other violent crimes, including one murder and one attempted murder.

Participants were drawn from the Brazilian High-Risk Cohort Study for Psychiatric Disorders (BHRC), a large community-based survey that included 2,511 families with children ages 6 to 10 when it began in 2010. They were all students of public schools in two major Brazilian state capitals, São Paulo and Porto Alegre (Rio Grande do Sul). Three follow-up surveys have been conducted so far, the most recent in 2018-19. A fourth began this year and is scheduled to be completed in 2024.

The BHRC, also known as Project Connection – Minds of the Future, is considered one of the most ambitious child mental health surveys ever conducted in Brazil. It is led by the National Institute of Developmental Psychiatry (INPD), supported by FAPESP and the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), an arm of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MCTI).

More than 20 universities in Brazil and elsewhere are involved in INPD's activities. The principal investigator is Eurípedes Constantino Miguel Filho, professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of São Paulo Faculty of Medicine (FM-USP).

impact

According to a report published by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) in March 2022, "Children and young people have always been the most vulnerable to poverty - and continue to be in financial poverty, and extreme financial poverty in Brazil was proportionately twice that of adults."

Between 35% and 45%, depending on age group, lived on less than $5.50 per day in 2020. The proportion living on less than $1.90 a day – the limit of extreme monetary poverty – was 12%.

In addition, according to the Center for Research on Social Policies (FGV Social) of the Getúlio Vargas Foundation, food insecurity reached record levels in Brazil at the end of 2021, exceeding the global average and mainly affecting women, poor families and people aged 30 to 49. The proportion of the total population experiencing food insecurity reached 36%, compared to 17% in 2014. The global average for 2021 was 35%.

"We know that people have yet to fully feel the economic impacts of the pandemic, including food insecurity and lack of access to schooling. The consequences of children's exposure will become clear in the future," Ziebold said, adding that more research is needed to understand how the vulnerabilities of the places where children live can influence juvenile crime rates. "This type of factor has been observed in research conducted in other countries such as the United States, where young people are more likely to commit crimes if they live in areas without infrastructure or with gangs. This is a topic for further research."

About 46,000 young people in conflict with the law were processed by SINASE, Brazil's special justice system for juvenile offenders, in 2019.

Source:

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo

Reference:

Ziebold, C., et al. (2022) Individual and family modifiable risk factors for criminal conviction in childhood: a 7-year cohort study from Brazil. Scientific reports. doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-13975-8.

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