Adolescent victimisation and involvement in crime

Abstract

This chapter explores data from the Sibling Study to investigate the victimization of young people and focuses on respondents' perceptions of victimization, and how such experiences may increase their likelihood of offending. It discusses the impact of a diverse set of victimization experiences— including property crime, assault by non-family members, child abuse, and other traumatic family experiences— on varying levels of criminal involvement. While there is much research investigating the relationship between childhood maltreatment and criminal offending, there is less evidence exploring the impact of other types of victimization on crime. The chapter focuses on criminal outcomes of victimization, it is important to realize that victimization may result in a plethora of other negative consequences, which may be severe, long lasting, and overlapping. Bivariate analyses demonstrated a significant relationship between each form of victimization and involvement in crime, but multivariate analyses indicated only mixed support for these relationships.