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Abstract
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VioLit summary:
OBJECTIVE:
The aim of this article by Langhinrichsen-Rohling and Neidig was to examine the development of aggression in at-risk youths participating in the Job Corps program, a government funded vocational training program designed to assist economically disadvantaged teens.
METHODOLOGY:
The authors conducted a quasi-experimental analysis of cross-sectional data collected from 337 male and 137 female at-risk adolescents participating in the Job Corps program. Mean age of respondents was 18 years old. Average time for each adolescent participating in the program was 7.2 months. Boys and girls were reported to have similar family compositions. Groups of participants simultaneously completed a modified version of the Conflict Tactic Scale (Straus, 1979). The scale was administered by Job Corps facilitators. Modification of the Conflict Tactic Scale included a reduction of items, from 18 to 9, that indicated the frequency of conflict behaviors experienced, witnessed and perpetrated by respondents. Responses were self-reports. Types of conflict behaviors included cursed, threatened to hurt, pushed, slapped, kicked, hit with a fist, hit with an object, threatened with a knife or gun, and used a knife or gun. A second modification of the Conflict Tactic Scale involved a reorganization in the presentation of the nine conflict behavior items. They were presented in three sections: what the adolescent had seen or heard, what they had done to them, and what they had done to others. The three sections were used to determine what behaviors the youths had witnessed, experienced, and perpetrated. A third modification included asking respondents to report on whether they had ever experienced, witnessed or perpetrated aggression instead of reporting on experiences that had occurred in the past 12 months only. Respondents were also asked to indicate how frequently the aggressive behavioral responses occurred with different people (e.g., with parents, siblings, friends, adult strangers and child strangers).
Categories of aggression were assessed based on past research findings. These included mildly violent (e.g., pushed, slapped, kicked); severely violent (e.g., hit with a fist, hit with an object); and violence with a weapon (e.g., threatened with a knife or gun, or use of a knife or gun). The authors stated that in some analyses aggressive and non-aggressive cohorts were determined based on the presence or absence of any aggressive behavior.
FINDINGS/DISCUSSION:
The authors found that Job Corps adolescents reported high rates of experiencing, witnessing and perpetrating aggressive behavior. 86% reported witnessing aggressive behavior between friends, 73.5% reported being victims of aggression by friends, and 73.4% reported that they had perpetrated aggressive behavior towards friends. 74% had witnessed stranger aggression and over 50% had perpetrated physical aggression towards strangers. 50% had witnessed parental violence. 42% had been victims of parental violence and 30.8% perpetrated aggression against their parents. Between 47.5% and 75.4% of adolescents had witnessed parents, siblings, strangers and friends either threaten to use, and/or use a weapon against someone else.
58.3% of adolescents reported being victims of severe violence by siblings, 67.1% stated that they had been victims of friends, and 64.9% reported being threatened and/or assaulted with a weapon by strangers. 42.9% of adolescents reported severe violence victimization by parents; 20.3% reported that their parents had threatened them with the use of a weapon, and/or assaulted them with a weapon. 55.8% of adolescents reported that they had used weapons to assault their parents, 70.5% of youth reported they had threatened to, and/or had used a weapon against strangers.
Chi squared analyses revealed that overall, girls reported that they had witnessed more parental aggression compared with males (chi squared (1)=7.60, p<.01). There were no gender differences with regards parental or sibling victimization. 46% of males reported significantly higher levels of victimization by child strangers than females (28%) (chi squared (1)=12.7, p<.001). Males were also more likely to be victimized by adult strangers (chi squared (1)=4.56, p<.05). There were no significant gender differences in perpetration against parents. Males (60.2%) were more likely to perpetrate against adult strangers compared with females (40%) (chi squared (1)=15.4, p<.001). Males also reported higher levels of perpetration against strangers and friends (chi squared (1)=13.7, p<.001, and chi squared (1)=3.8, p=.05, respectively).
The authors stated that correlation analyses revealed that for both genders, those adolescents who had experienced parental victimization were more likely to perpetrate aggression against parents (r=.41 for males and r=.36 for females); for friends the correlation coefficient was r=.28 for males and r=.24 for females. Males who had been victims of parental aggression were more likely to perpetrate aggression against siblings (r=.36, p<.001).
The authors conducted forward stepwise regression analyses to examine what types of witnessing and experiencing aggressive behaviors predicted the type of perpetration that would occur for both males and females. The authors found that among males, victimization by siblings, friends and parents predicted perpetration towards parents (31% of variance was explained). The authors found a trend for a negative association between witnessing parental aggression and parental perpetration. For females sibling victimization, parental victimization, victimization by friends and witnessing parental aggression accounted for 39% of the variance in the level of perpetration against parents. For both males and females, victimization plus witnessing experiences significantly predicted perpetration against siblings (multiple r=.81). The authors claimed that for both males and females, stranger victimization and witnessing stranger victimization were the main predictors of perpetration against strangers.
The authors concluded that since Job Corps adolescents represented a unique group of at-risk youth, the results of their study could not be generalized to other adolescent populations. Further, caution was advised since adolescents' responses were self-reports. Also stepwise multiple regression analyses were said to be limited by empirical relationships.
AUTHORS' RECOMMENDATIONS:
The authors recommended that based on the study's limitations the research needed to be replicated. The authors suggested that efforts to prevent child and spousal abuse, and attempts to reduce the levels of violent crime be directed towards the Job Corps adolescent sample.
(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)
At Risk Juvenile
At Risk Youth
At Risk Female
At Risk Male
Juvenile Female
Juvenile Male
Juvenile Offender
Juvenile Victim
Juvenile Violence
Violence Causes
Violence Effects
Domestic Violence Effects
Domestic Violence Victim
Witnessing Violence Effects
Witnessing Spouse Abuse
Child Abuse Victim
Child Abuse Effects
Child Victim
Domestic Violence Causes
Domestic Violence Offender
Parent Abuse Offender
Parent Abuse Causes
Parent Victim
Violence Risk Factors
Sibling Violence Offender
Sibling Violence Causes
Peer Relations
Stranger Violence
Gender Differences
Male Offender
Male Victim
Male Violence
Female Violence
Female Victim
Female Offender
Victim Characteristics
Offender Characteristics
Socioeconomic Status
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