Date

12-4-2025

Department

School of Behavioral Sciences

Degree

Doctor of Education in Community Care and Counseling (EdD)

Chair

Joseph Torres

Keywords

perpetration-induced stress, posttraumatic stress disorder, psychological trauma, gang membership, criminal activity

Disciplines

Counseling | Psychology

Abstract

Perpetration-Induced Traumatic Stress, or PITS, is an area of study that needs more scholarly attention. The lack of research about this mental health leads to an ineffectiveness of traditional interventions, as they fail to address the needs of people with former criminal affiliations, causing them to experience negative psychological, physical, and social health outcomes. As such this study seeks to explore, via a hermeneutic phenomenological research design- a qualitative approach that will allow this researcher to understand the lived experiences and explore PITS in the lives of past gang members and the manifestation of PITS as a prevalent and underdiagnosed health concern among people with former criminal/gang affiliations. It evaluates the directionality of the correlation between PITS and gang engagement. Additionally, it compares the effectiveness of normative and trauma-sensitive interventions in meeting the psychological needs of people with former criminal affiliations.

This study will report PITS as a prevalent psychological health concern among people with former gang affiliations and shows that while gang life is a risk variable for PITS, PITS-related difficulties predispose individuals to gang involvement. Furthermore, the findings will report the ineffectiveness of normative interventions in addressing the PITS-related needs of the cohort of interest, emphasizing the importance of trauma-centric interventions. As such, PITS will be highlighted as a prevalent and underdiagnosed issue among former gang members and will propose using trauma-informed interventions for enhanced emotional, behavioral, and social outcomes.

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