Risk Factor Profile in Child-to-Parent Violence: A Gender Analysis

Child-to-parent violence (CPV) is one of the crimes that has increased most sharply in Spain in recent years. Few studies identify the predictive variables of CPV specifically with a judicial sample, taking gender differences into account and using a standardized instrument. Participants were 342 juveniles from the Juvenile Court of a Spanish province. The most powerful predictors were depressive states, emotional mismanagement, reiteration, and the combination of various risk factors. For boys, the greatest predictors were a depressed state, criminal recidivism, and a moderate risk of recidivism according to the Youth Level of Service/Case Management Inventory (YLS/CMI). For girls, the greatest predictors were conflicts between partners in the nuclear family and the total score in the YLS/CMI. It is therefore crucial to take the specific predictive factors into account in order to adjust the specific strategies to reduce risk.