Sexual abuse,family violence,and female delinquency: findings from a longitudinal study

The current study examines the effects of three forms of childhood victimization on self-reported delinquency and aggression in adolescent girls. These analyses are based on a longitudinal sample of 141 mother-daughter pairs participating in a study about marital violence and child development. When the children were school aged, mothers and children provided reports describing (a) child exposure to marital violence, (b) escalated physical abuse against the child, and (c) child sexual abuse. Children were followed up into adolescence and re-interviewed. Self-reports of delinquency (violent and nonviolent), running away, and violence against parents were collected. Results indicate that out of the three forms of victimization, child sexual abuse emerged as the strongest predictor of girls' violent and nonviolent criminal behavior. Girls with a history of physical abuse in childhood were most likely to assault their parents. Witnessing marital violence failed to contribute further to delinquency, beyond the adverse association with childhood sexual abuse. Findings highlight a unique avenue for delinquency in girls via childhood sexual exploitation.     

Violence, coping, and mental health in a community sample of adolescents

The current study examined the coping strategies, exposure to violence and psychological trauma symptoms of violent adolescents compared to less violent and nonviolent adolescents in a community sample. An anonymous self-report questionnaire was administered to students in six public high schools (grades 9-12). The 10% most violent adolescents were identified and compared to their less violent and nonviolent peers. A total of 3724 students represented 68% of adolescents in all targeted schools. Ages ranged from 14 to 19 years; 52% were female; and 35% were African-American, 34% Caucasian and 23% Hispanic. Analyses revealed that violent adolescents compared to their less violent and nonviolent peers employed more maladaptive coping strategies, were exposed to higher levels of violence and reported higher clinical levels of psychological trauma symptoms. Maladaptive coping was also significantly associated with psychological trauma symptoms and violent behavior, even after controlling for the influence of demographic factors. The findings support the importance of appropriate identification, assessment and referral services for adolescents in nonclinical settings, and the role that coping strategies play in contributing to adolescent mental health and well-being.     

Child maltreatment, revictimization, and violent behavior

The study investigates the cumulative impact of child maltreatment and victimization in adolescence on violent behavior in young adulthood in a nonclinical high-risk sample. The sample consists of 1,526 incarcerated young men (14 to 24 years) who were interviewed with standardized instruments during their prison term. Violent and nonviolent offenders with and without repeated victimization experiences throughout the life cycle were compared. Results show that child maltreatment doubles the risk for violent victimization in adolescence. Repeated victimization experiences in adolescence heighten the risk for later violent offending. This is the case for officially registered violence and self-reported violent behavior. In addition, child maltreatment increased the probability of self-reported violence as well. However, the interaction effect of victimization in childhood and victimization in early adolescence counteracted the main effects. Being repeatedly victimized throughout the early life cycle slightly reduced the probability of being a frequent offender.     

Stopping the Hate: Applying Insights on Bullying Victimization to Understand and Reduce the Emergence of Hate in Schools*

Scholars and educators study how the school climate influences aggressive behaviors like bullying. Far less research examines the relationship between school climate and hateful actions. This study addresses that gap by examining students’ perceptions and observations of the school climate with a nationally representative sample of U.S. middle and high school students. These data include reports of hateful verbal victimization and observations of hateful words and symbols. While some speculate that bullying and hate are separate phenomena, results indicate that school climates which reduce bullying victimization also reduce this study's measures of hate. One difference is that the presence of security guards or police has no effect on bullying victimization while it is associated with increased reports of hateful incidents. The results are interpreted in light of current efforts to reduce school violence and concerns over the role of harsh punishment and law enforcement in school. While one cannot conclude that bullying and hate are empirically distinct from these findings, they point to strategies to combine formal social control and efforts to improve school climate through forming positive social bonds between students and authority figures. This can keep students safe from both violence and hate.     

Hate at school: victimization and disorder associated with school avoidance

Abstract

Previous research indicates that victimization at school and school disorder are associated with school avoidance. The appearance of hateful words and symbols at schools and verbal hateful attacks at schools are prompting additional concerns about students’ perceived safety. The current study provides evidence that observing and being victimized by hate at school are additional contributors to school avoidance that is enacted over concerns of being attacked at school. This includes avoidance of the school itself as well as specific places at the school such as the school entrance, school cafeteria, and parking lots. Data analyzed from the 2013 School Crime Supplement to the National Crime Victimization Survey provide this evidence. The findings point to recommendations for identifying and reducing hate in schools while maintaining efforts to reduce bullying and provide a positive school climate.     

Parenting as a moderator of minority, adolescent victimization and violent behavior in high-risk neighborhoods

Adolescent male youth in high-crime neighborhoods are at the greatest risk for personal victimization and violent behavior. The temporal relationship between victimization and violent behavior for minority youth in high-crime neighborhoods was examined to determine whether victimization is a risk factor for or by-product of violent behavior. Whether parenting and other control factors moderated the relationship between victimization and violent behavior was also examined. Interviews with 349 urban Hispanic and African American youth revealed that victimization was strongly associated with violent behavior and violent behavior was found to precede direct victimization. Race was found to moderate the relationship between parental attachment and violent behavior. African American youth with the highest levels of parental attachment also had the highest levels of violent behavior, while higher parental attachment for Latino youth was associated with lower violent behavior.     

Female-perpetrated intimate partner violence and romantic attachment style in a college student sample

The frequency, severity, and reciprocity of female-perpetrated intimate partner violence and its consequences (i.e., injuries) were investigated in a college sample of women (N = 457). Participants were classified into one of the following four groups on the basis of self-reported physical assault perpetration and victimization against their relationship partners: nonviolent, perpetrator-only, victim-only, and bidirectionally violent. Results showed that females in the bidirectionally violent group had a reportedly higher occurrence (although not always statistically significant) of perpetration and victimization than those in the perpetrator-only and victim-only groups. Additionally, a similar degree of reciprocity was indicated by females in bidirectionally violent relationships in terms of violence severity and the occurrence of injury. Adult romantic attachment style was also examined among a subset of females (N = 328), and bidirectionally violent females were found to have the highest reported levels of attachment anxiety. Further, females high in attachment anxiety and low in attachment avoidance were more likely to report perpetrating violence than females high in both styles. Implications for prevention are discussed.     

Exploring bystander presence and intervention in nonfatal violent victimization: when does helping really help?

The current research explores two important issues related to the study of bystander intervention during nonfatal violent victimization. First, using data from the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), conjunctive analysis of case configurations is conducted to identify the most dominant situational contexts in which a bystander is present during violent crime. Second, the prevalence of responses in which a bystander helps or hurts during these events is determined. Results and the analytical approach used in this investigation are discussed in terms of their implications for future research on the normative and deviant reactions to crime by third parties and its victims.     

Sexual violence victimization among female secondary school students in eastern Ethiopia

Behavioral, lifestyle, and relationship factors have all been identified as risk factors that increase a woman's vulnerability to sexual violence victimization. However, it remains unclear which risk factors most strongly increase young women's vulnerability to sexual violence victimization because most studies only examine a few factors simultaneously. Using a cross-sectional sample of 764 female secondary school students from eastern Ethiopia, multivariate analyses revealed that high-rejection sensitivity, having multiple sexual partners, the frequent watching of pornography, and use of alcohol or other soft drugs (Khat or shisha) are factors associated with higher levels of sexual violence victimization. The overall rates of victimization is high in this group, with 68% of the young women studied having experienced at least one instance of sexual violence victimization. Based on type of sexual perpetration, 52% of the young women were victimized by at least one instance of sexual offence, 56% by sexual assault, 25% by sexual coercion, and 15% by sexual aggression. Qualitative data gathered from interviews of extracurricular club members and school officials and focus group discussion with students were used to further augment and illustrate results from the quantitative data. Several suggestions for intervention are presented in light of these results.     

Substance use and vulnerability to sexual and physical aggression: a longitudinal study of young adults

Using data from 2,170 individuals who participated in Waves 8 (age 23) and 9 (age 29) of a multiyear panel study, this study examined whether alcohol and marijuana use in young adulthood increase one's risk for experiencing subsequent sexual or physical assault victimization, whether victims' own violent behavior or involvement in the sale of drugs explain any effects of substance use on victimization, and whether these associations differ by gender. Controlling for prior victimization, we found that marijuana use, but not alcohol use, predicted women's and men's subsequent sexual victimization and men's subsequent physical assault victimization, and that heavy alcohol use, but not marijuana use, predicted women's subsequent physical assault victimization. Whereas the links from marijuana use to victimization were explained by users' own violent behavior, the link from alcohol use to women's physical assault victimization was not.     

Testing a path model of relationships between gender,age, and bullying victimization and violent behavior,substance abuse,depression, suicidal ideation,and suicide attempts in adolescents

The goal of this study was to test a path model for the relationships between age, gender, traditional bullying and cyberbullying victimization, and violent behavior, substance abuse, depression, suicidal ideation and suicide attempts in adolescents. A hypothesized path model was fit to data from the 2011 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System (YRBSS) on a nationally representative sample of 15,425 high-school students from across the United States. Results suggested that the effects of traditional and cyberbullying victimization on suicidal thinking, suicide planning, and suicide attempts were mediated by violent behavior, substance abuse, and depression. Results also suggested reciprocal paths between substance abuse and violent behavior. There were statistically significant indirect paths from both traditional and cyberbullying victimization to suicide attempts without the involvement of depression, suicidal thinking, or suicide planning, findings suggesting a model for spontaneous, unplanned adolescent suicides. Results suggested that female adolescents who reported cyberbullying victimization also reported higher rates of depression and suicidal behaviors compared to their male counterparts, and that as adolescents got older, depression and substance abuse tended to increase, while violent behavior and suicidal thinking tended to decrease. The implications of these findings for social workers, school counselors, and others who work with adolescents are considered.     

Associations Between Past Bullying Experiences and Psychosocial and Academic Functioning Among College Students

Abstract. Objectives: This study examined whether childhood bullying victimization was associated with psychosocial and academic functioning at college. Participants: The sample consisted of 413 first-year students from a large northeastern university. Methods: Students completed an online survey in February 2012 that included items assessing past bullying involvement, current psychosocial and academic functioning, and victimization experiences since arriving at college. Results: Regression analyses indicated that reports of past bullying and other peer victimization were associated with lower mental health functioning and perceptions of physical and mental health, but were not associated with perceptions of social life at college, overall college experience, or academic performance. Conclusions: Childhood bullying victimization is associated with poorer mental and physical health among first-year college students. Colleges should consider assessing histories of bullying victimization, along with other past victimization exposures, in their service provision to students.     

Opportunity theory and adolescent school-based victimization

While school-based adolescent victimization has received a great deal of public attention, there exist relatively few theoretically driven studies aimed at explaining this phenomenon. We address this paucity by providing a test of a criminal-opportunity model of school-based victimization using data on over 3,000 students from 40 different Kentucky middle and high schools. The effects of opportunity-related concepts are estimated for both violent and property victimization, and comparisons are made for each victimization type across middle- and high-school student subsamples. Findings suggest that criminal opportunity theory is relevant to the understanding of school-based victimization. In particular, indicators of exposure to crime and target antagonism appear to be robust predictors. Further, there appears to be substantial generalizability in the effects of opportunity-related variables across violent versus property victimization as well as across middle-school versus high-school contexts.     

The Nonverbal Decoding Ability of Children Exposed to Family Violence or Maltreatment: Prospective Evidence from a British Cohort

The prospective association between exposure to family violence or maltreatment in the first four years of life and nonverbal decoding ability at age 8.5 years was examined in a British birth cohort. Overall differences were very minor, except it was found that children exposed to maternal victimization were less accurate in decoding low intensity expressions of fear, than were children from nonviolent homes. Children from violent homes were also more likely to identify expressions of anger, fear, and sadness as happiness. Maltreated children showed a global deficit in decoding emotions, but only when presented as high intensity expressions. Whilst these results point to longitudinal associations between these variables, they do not discount the potential impact of third variables. Results are discussed in relation to current theoretical positions, and the need for further research.     

Implementing School Based Youth Courts in a Rural Context: The Impact on Students’ Perceptions of School Climate,Individual Functioning,and Interpersonal Relationships

The Youth Court in Schools Project was implemented in two low-income, violent, racially/ethnically diverse rural counties. This study examined if the presence of Youth Court impacted students’ perceptions of school danger, individual functioning, and interpersonal relationships. Data were gathered from 3454 youth; following multiple imputation, data were analyzed using paired samples t tests. Results indicated that perceptions of school danger increased significantly and self-esteem decreased significantly in the control schools pretest to posttest. Violent behavior, anxiety, friend rejection, and bullying victimization decreased significantly in the Youth Court intervention schools pretest to posttest, but did not change significantly in the control schools. Findings provide preliminary evidence that Youth Court is an effective way of improving school climate, individual functioning, and interpersonal relationships.     

Stalking as a variant of intimate violence: implications from a young adult sample

There is a limited but growing literature which suggests that stalking is a variant of intimate violence. The purpose of this study was to examine physical, psychological, and stalking victimization and perpetration among males and females. Alcohol use was also examined. The sample was 46 male and 84 female undergraduate students who reported stalking victimization and perpetration after a difficult breakup, and psychological and physical victimization and perpetration during that specific relationship. Overall, 27% of the sample study was classified into the stalking victimization group, which is consistent with other stalking prevalence rates among college samples. For females, stalking victimization was significantly associated with physical and psychological abuse victimization. For males, stalking victimization was significantly associated with psychological abuse victimization. However, there was also a strong significant reciprocal relationship of stalking and psychological abuse victimization and perpetration, especially for males. Also, alcohol use was significantly associated with victimization and perpetration of stalking and psychological abuse for males. The data from this study contribute to the hypothesis that stalking is a variant of or extension of intimate violence, especially for females. Implications and recommendations for future research are discussed.     

Direct and vicarious violent victimization and juvenile delinquency: an application of general strain theory

Using a national probability sample of adolescents (12–17), this study applies general strain theory to how violent victimization, vicarious violent victimization, and dual violent victimization affect juvenile violent/property crime and drug use. In addition, the mediating effect and moderating effect of depression, low social control, and delinquent peer association on the victimization–delinquency relationship is also examined. Based on SEM analyses and contingency tables, the results indicate that all three types of violent victimization have significant and positive direct effects on violent/property crime and drug use. In addition, the expected mediating effects and moderating effects are also found. Limitations and future directions are discussed.     

The moderating role of parental warmth on the effects of exposure to family violence

Previous research has shown parental warmth to have mixed effects on individuals in violent families. While positively associated with psychological health in some victims, parental warmth has also been positively associated with measures of psychological distress in other victims. The current study examined two models (the "buffering" and "inconsistency" theories) to clarify the effects of parental warmth. The current study also sought to clarify the role of parental warmth within the context of exposure to different types of family violence (i.e., witnessing versus victimization). Results differed depending on the type of violence exposure. Both mother and father warmth were negatively associated with secure attachment and self-esteem in combined victims and witnesses of violence, whereas, mother warmth was positively associated with self-esteem in witnesses of violence. Father warmth did not significantly impact either outcome for witnesses. Parental warmth did not influence either outcome for those who had only experienced victimization.     

Self-Help? Examining the Anti-Crime Effectiveness of Citizen Weapon Possession

Abstract

This research examines the effects of individual protective weapon carrying on the likelihood of experiencing stranger-precipitated violent victimization. It is widely assumed that people at risk for victimization often arm themselves to counter their risk; thus, a positive association between weapon carrying and victimization should be anticipated but interpreted as spurious. Yet findings from hierarchical modeling of survey data from over 4,000 Seattle residents indicate that weapon carrying increases the odds of subsequent violent victimization, even when controlling for multiple victimization risk factors. Further, the positive effect of weapon carrying is constant across the 100 communities within which survey respondents were nested. Although other predictors of violent victimization demonstrate non-random variability across context, this suggests that even community-level victimization risk factors cannot explain the positive effect of weapon carrying on victimization found here. Implications for citizen-initiated “self-help” are discussed in light of these findings.     

Fear of property crime: examining the effects of victimization, vicarious victimization, and perceived risk

Fear of crime research has primarily focused on fear of crime in general or on fear of specific types of violent crimes. This study builds from this line of research by focusing exclusively on the night fear of six types of property crimes, including fear of burglary while away from home, vehicle theft, bicycle theft, property theft, vandalism, and vehicle burglary. This study examines the effects of victimization, vicarious victimization, and perceived risk on fear of property crime. Survey data from college students reveal that victimization and vicarious victimization were not significant predictors of fear of property crime, whereas perceived risk was a consistent and significant predictor of fear of all property crimes.