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Abstract
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While age is one of the most important correlates of an individual's risk of violent victimization, research regarding the victimization of adolescents is relatively meager. Using two well-known national data sources and an analytical framework guided by lifestyle/routine activities theories, we describe the relationships between activity involvement and the risk of assault and robbery victimization among adolescents in the United States. Several findings relevant to victimization prevention emerge. First, we find that certain adolescent activities are related to risk of violence. Youth who engage in delinquent activities experience the highest risk of assault and robbery victimization. Second, we find very few conventional activities which protect adolescents from victimization net of background factors (e.g., gender, race, family structure) or offending levels. We discuss the implications of these findings for programs directed at reducing violent victimization among adolescents and for lifestyle/routine activities theories of victimization.
VioLit summary:
OBJECTIVE:
The purpose of this study by Lauritsen et al. was to examine the relationship between conventional and delinquent activities and violent victimization of adolescents, in the hope of providing an empirical base for victimization prevention strategies. The authors drew upon lifestyle/routine activities theory for their hypotheses.
METHODOLOGY:
The authors employed a quasi-experimental cross-sectional design in which they examined the effects of conventional and delinquent lifestyles on risk of victimization by evaluating data from two national sources: the National Youth Survey (NYS) and the Monitoring the Future Study: A Continuing Study of the Lifestyles and Values of Youth (MTF). Data from the NYS was selected from the first five annual waves, starting in 1976, with a sample of 1,725 randomly selected and nationally representative 11 to 17 year olds. Data from the MTF study, involving the annual evaluation of 15,000 randomly selected seniors in high school, was taken from 1976, 1980 and 1987. However, only one-fifth of the MTF samples contained the variables that were relevant to this study. Included in this study were measures of individual characteristics, such as age, race, sex, family socio-economic status and family structure, and neighborhood characteristics, such as proximity to crime and SMSA residence. Data on delinquency included measurement of involvement in theft, assault, vandalism, drug and alcohol use, traffic tickets and accidents, and peer involvement in delinquent activities. The measure of behavior was presented as the number of times in the prior year the respondent reported engaging in such activities. Subjects were divided into those who reported no involvement in delinquency, and those who participated in one or more of the behaviors. Conventional activities were measured as time spent with family, time in school, or time spent playing sports or being involved in community affairs. Other activities included shopping, time with peers and time alone. Victimization was defined as being a recent victim of assault or robbery. NYS data included information about victimization in the prior year, and measured assault as being beaten by someone other than a parent or being attacked with a weapon, and robbery as how often the subject had things taken by force. In the MTF data, robbery victimization information was not available, so analysis was confined to assault victimization information, which included injury with and without a weapon and threats of injury with and without a weapon. Analyses included examination of frequencies and correlations.
FINDINGS/DISCUSSION:
The authors found that 12% of the non-delinquents in the first wave of the NYS reported being a victim of an assault, whilst 45% of the delinquent subjects reported victimization. This relationship remained fairly stable across the following four years. The same held for robbery victimization, with delinquents (32% in the first year) being two to three times more likely to have been victimized than non-delinquents (15% in the first year). The same relationships were found for the MTF study, with delinquents (48% in 1976) being more than twice as likely to be assaulted than non-delinquents (19% in 1976). This pattern did not change over the eleven years examined, and the authors concluded that involvement in delinquent activities increased the risk of victimization and violence. Examining the zero-order correlations of conventional and delinquent lifestyle indicators with victimization, the authors found that, for 1976 NYS data, conventional lifestyle indicators (for assault: time studying, grade point average, attachment to and importance of school, and attachment to and involvement with family; for robbery: attachment to school and attachment to and involvement with family) were negatively related to risk of assault and robbery, whilst delinquency indicators (for assault: community activities, time with peers, peer delinquency, and alcohol and marijuana use; for robbery: community activities and peer delinquency) were associated with an increased risk of victimization. However, when partial correlations were conducted, controlling for sociodemographic characteristics and delinquency involvement, only four of the indicators retained significance. Attachment to family and school were both negatively correlated with assault victimization, and community activities and marijuana use were both positively correlated with this type of victimization. For robbery victimization, only attachment to school (negative) and community activities (positive) retained significance. Fewer activities were found to be related to robbery than to assault victimization for the NYS data. The authors concluded that, for the NYS data, direct measures of adolescent activities have small, if any, relationships with risk of victimization once other variables are controlled. For 1987 MTF data, only delinquent activities were related to an increased risk of assault victimization, with partying, spending time with peers, receiving traffic tickets, and alcohol and marijuana use all being positively related to victimization. When sociodemographic and delinquency involvement measures were controlled, these relationships ceased to attain significance, suggesting that it was not the activities themselves that led to increased risk; rather, it was the combination of these with other forms of delinquency that increased risk of victimization. The authors felt that the lack of any relationship between the MTF conventional activities and victimization could have been due to weaknesses in the MTF measures, or to the fact that conventional activities do not, in fact, inhibit or promote victimization. They concluded that conventional activities were related to victimization only in that they reduced the likelihood of individuals engaging in delinquent activities.
AUTHORS' RECOMMENDATIONS:
The authors suggested that delinquency must be targeted as a prime consideration in victimization prevention programs. Also, as delinquent activities were related to victimization more than were conventional activities, lifestyles/routine activities theories that attempt to explain victimization should be connected to theories of offending. Delinquency and victimization preventions should be combined, with programs such as non-violent conflict resolution training, as delinquency prevention was seen as the key to victimization prevention, by reducing the risk of involvement in violence. The authors recommended that future research be conducted with multi-level data collection and analysis.
EVALUATION:
The authors present an informative and interesting examination of the impact of various factors on one's risk of victimization. With the authors' use of two nationally representative and randomly selected samples, these findings have good generalizability. The issue of the validity and reliability of self-report measures remains open to question with such a study, although the longitudinal nature of the two data bases allows for confidence in their results. This paper was presented in a clear and concise fashion, although more detailed methodological procedures, such as multiple regressions, would have been useful. The implications of the findings were well discussed, and this paper should be seen as an important addition to research in the field of violence and victimization prevention. (CSPV Abstract - Copyright © 1992-2007 by the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence, Institute of Behavioral Science, Regents of the University of Colorado)
KW - At Risk Juvenile
KW - At Risk Youth
KW - Victimization Risk Factors
KW - Victimization Causes
KW - Victimization Prevention
KW - Violence Causes
KW - Violence Risk Factors
KW - Violence Prevention
KW - Delinquency Effects
KW - Juvenile Delinquency
KW - Juvenile Offender
KW - Juvenile Victim
KW - Lifestyle
KW - Routine Activities
Language: en |