Peer-reviewed article

Parental Incarceration and Children's Risk of Violent Victimization: An Examination of Risks and Perpetrators' Relationship With the Victim in Finnish Total Population Data.

Nissinen I, Aaltonen M, Pitkänen J, Martikainen P, Suonpää K et al. · 5 Jun 2026

Abstract

Parental incarceration is associated with harmful outcomes in children, but little is known about the relationship between parental incarceration and offspring violent victimization. Using Finnish total population register data (N = 1,017,072), we studied the association between parental incarceration and violent victimization in childhood and adolescence and identified perpetrator's relationship with the victim. We conducted population-level and stratified Cox regression analyses and estimated cumulative incidence from Kaplan-Meier analysis to study the relative and absolute risks of violent victimization. In the population-level analyses, we examined the general risk of violent victimization among children with and without parental incarceration. In the stratified analyses, we studied the risk of violent victimization in relation to the length of co-residence with the parent. We further analyzed relationships between victims and perpetrators. We found that parental incarceration was associated with a notably elevated risk for violent victimization in childhood and adolescence (hazard ratios of 2.4-4.4). The highest relative risks were found for maternal incarceration. The associations between parental incarceration and violent victimization were stronger among children who had co-resided longer with the parent. The absolute risks were the highest for children with incarcerated mothers regardless of co-residence. Among children with parental incarceration, a notable proportion (21.2%-36.4%) of violent victimization was perpetrated by an adult outside the family. Our findings highlight that children with parental incarceration are at a high risk of being violently victimized in childhood and adolescence, and a substantial part of the violence is conducted by someone outside the family. Better identification of violence among children with parental incarceration is needed.