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Part A:
Part B:
1. Breyonna Johnson
2. Exploring Traumatic Experiences of African American Males with a Criminal History:
Retrospective Study
3. 2019
4. California School of Professional Psychology
5. The goal of this study was to investigate the factors that appeared to contribute to African
American men’s criminal history by exploring their traumatic experiences and their impairing
effects.
6. The results from this study provided a voice for an underserved population that is exposed to a
unique set of traumatic experiences throughout their childhood. The findings help to further
support the extensive research of Pressley and Smith (2017) surrounding the occurrence and
impact of chronic adversity for young adults who grow up amidst poverty and community
violence. Such research points to the need to first establish an understanding of complex trauma
in order to unravel the complexities of the findings of this study. In addition, problems in the
criminal justice system represent the high levels of difficulty and unjust treatment African
American men, and especially young African American men, experience from those who have
authority.
7. This particular study would be important in the field of Criminal Justice because it allows for an
insight to a group of people who are underrepresented and misrepresented, especially in the
justice system. This study gave a voice to people who weren’t being heard about their traumatic
experiences in life and with the justice system.
8. If I were to do a similar study what I would do differently would be focus more on the
misrepresentation of African Americans in the justice system. My study would focus on why
African Americans appear to be targeted by law enforcement. This type of study would take
talking to those very people who do the targeting, the people within the system. However, the
difficulty with such a study would be getting those very people to admit to the faults in the
system and why African Americans are misrepresented and even put to blame for things they
have not done. From there my study could then tie into a study just like this one. Long term,
there could be a comparison between those that experience the trauma and those that do not,
depending on their different backgrounds and history.