Our research questions were: 1) Are children with official-reports of maltreatment in the general population at significantly higher risk of conduct problems, controlling for inherited liability? 2) Do the effects of official-report maltreatment observed in an epidemiologic sample replicate in a clinically-ascertained contrast sample? 3) Are indices of inherited risk that might be feasibly ascertained in public health settings (e.g. by family history methods) robustly predictive of antisocial outcome? Demonstration of the relative contributions of officially-reported maltreatment and familial liability to antisocial development would lend further support to the allocation of specific and sustained targeted efforts to prevent maltreatment and maltreatment recidivism among vulnerable children in the United States.
