Victim, Offender, and Situational Characteristics of Violent Crime (original) (raw)

Routine activities of delinquent and non-delinquent victims of violent crime

American Journal of Criminal Justice, 2005

The link between criminal victimization and offending has become increasingly well documented in recent years. Unfortunately, the empirical and theoretical enmeshment of these variables makes it difficult to determine the effect of specific activities purely on victimization. This paper provides an examination of the effect of engaging in specific risky activities on the violent victimization experiences of delinquent and non-delinquent youth. Our results show that there are some modest differences in the effects of risky behaviors on the likelihood of violent victimization for delinquents and non-delinquents.

PREDICTIVE FACTORS OF VIOLENT CRIME

Rom J Leg Med, 2022

The work aims to capture the specific peculiarities of the profile of the violent criminal, addressing the issue of assuming responsibility as well as the importance of maladaptive cognitive schemes in violent criminals. The research was conducted on 126 participants, subgrouped according to criminal history. Data were collected with the Young cognitive Schema Questionnaire in its short form (YSQ-S3) for the assessment of maladaptive cognitive schemas and the ROSENZWEIG Frustration Test for the assessment of attribution of responsibility. The results highlighted the links between maladaptive cognitive schemas and the assumption of responsibility, as well as the tendency of violent offenders to assign responsibility to external sources.

A study of individual and situational antecedents of violent victimization *

Justice Quarterly, 2002

Researchers traditionally rely on routine activities and lifestyle theories to explain the differential risk of victimization; few studies have also explored nonsituational alternative explanations. We present a conceptual framework that links individual trait and situational antecedents of violent victimization. Individual risk factors include low self-control and weak social ties with the family and school. Situational risk factors include having delinquent peers and spending time in unstructured and unsupervised socializing activities with peers. We investigate the empirical claims proposed in this model on a sample of high school students, using LISREL to create a structural equation model. The results generally support our assertions that individual traits and situational variables each significantly and meaningfully contribute to victimization.

Repeat and Multiple Victimizations: The Role of Individual and Contextual Factors

Violence and Victims, 2002

The present research uses hierarchical modeling to examine the relative contributions of factors about the person, factors about the context, and, most important the interaction of factors about the person and factors about the context in models of both repeat victimization (more than one of the same type of crime) and multiple victimization (two or more different types of crime). Using telephone survey data from a multistage sample of Seattle residents, we estimate separate hierarchical models for repeat property, repeat violent and multiple victimization. Results indicate that repeat victimization of both types varies substantially by neighborhood, whereas multiple victimization seems more determined by individual-level factors. Implications for social disorganization theory, routine activity/lifestyle exposure theory, and future work on repeat victimization are discussed.

Victim-reported risk factors for continued abusive behavior: Assessing the dangerousness of arrested batterers

Journal of Community Psychology, 2003

Policy changes have dramatically increased the number of domestic violence cases entering criminal courts, creating a critical need for competent risk assessment. This study adds to the knowledge base about risk factors important to consider in such assessments, using a prospective design and follow-up through victim interview. Participants were 169 primarily African American women who appeared at a court intake center following the arrest of an abusive partner. We reached over half of these participants for follow-up 3 months later. Questionnaires administered at intake elicited information about demographics, substance abuse, the history of physical and psychological abuse in the relationship, the batterer's general violence, and the victim's own assessment of her level of endangerment. All variables were measured through victim report, combined with official records when relevant. Significant predictors of continued abusive behavior were the batterer's history of alcohol abuse, the severity of abuse in the relationship, the batterer's general violence, the In the past several decades, the legal response to domestic violence has become far more aggressive, resulting in an enormous increase in the number of domestic violence cases in the criminal justice system~e.g., Epstein, 1999!. 1 Because this system has limited resources, understanding which cases are most dangerous has become critical not only for the purpose of counseling victims, but also for the purpose of triage. However, research exploring which kinds of batterers are most likely to abuse again is limited.

Relations Among Victimization, Witnessing, and Perpetration of Aggression: Impact of Gender Among Youth Offenders

Journal of interpersonal violence, 2016

The participants included 251 (158 males; 93 females) youth offenders who were arrested and incarcerated in a juvenile facility in the Midwest United States. The aims were to assess (a) how often they were a victim, a witness, and/or a perpetrator of social aggression, simple assault, and aggravated assault during the past year; (b) to examine whether exposure (either witness or victim or both) predicted committing three types of aggressive behaviors; and (c) to assess the impact of gender among the youth offenders. Differential predictability models were utilized to assess gender differences. The findings revealed that gender was an important predictor. For example, females reported higher rates of being a witness, a victim, and a perpetrator of social aggression than did males. Moreover, female offenders committed simple assault more often than males and males committed aggravated assault more often than females. The general results suggest that it is important to examine the vari...

A behavior analytic perspective on victimology

International Journal of Behavioral Consultation and Therapy, 2007

The field of victimology has become an area of serious scientific enquiry only recently and now attracts a wide range of theories from within multiple disciplines. In this paper the contribution that the science of behavior analysis can make to the conceptualization of the field is explored by investigating what makes people vulnerable to becoming victims or indeed perpetrators of violence and by examining why some people who have experienced violent incidents become victims while others grow to be survivors. A behavior analytic perspective sheds new light on these issues.