Most male felons victimized as children, study says.

Sixty-eight percent of adult male felons at a New York prison suffered physical abuse, sexual abuse, or neglect before age 12, according to a study funded in part by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ).

The findings, released in May, support the belief held by professionals in the criminal justice field that most incarcerated felons were victims of childhood abuse or neglect and that sex offender inmates were more likely than other prisoners to have been sexually abused as children.

Physical abuse was the most common type of victimization reported. Of the 301 inmates who participated in the study, 35 percent reported severe childhood physical abuse, and 23 percent reported experiencing multiple forms of abuse and neglect, including physical abuse and sexual abuse.

About 26 percent of sex offenders reported that they suffered sexual abuse as children, compared with violent offenders (13 percent), nonviolent offenders (18 percent), and nonsex offenders (12 percent). Violent offenders reported more childhood neglect (20 percent) than nonviolent offenders (6 percent), reinforcing arguments that society needs to pay more attention to neglected children.

A summary of the study, Early Childhood Victimization Among Incarcerated Adult Male Felons, is available from the National Criminal Justice Reference Service's fax-on-demand service. Call [phone], and request document 4021. The summary can also be downloaded from the NIJ Web site at http://www.ojp. usdoj.gov/nij.

The full report, Self Reports of Early Childhood Victimization Among Incarcerated Adult Male Felons, by Robin Weeks and Cathy Spatz Widom, appears in the June 1998 issue of Journal of Interpersonal Violence.