Abstract
ABSTRACTResearch shows that violent victimization and offending often overlap, and that both outcomes may be related to a risky lifestyle. The author therefore aimed to examine the associations between a risky lifestyle and the probability of being involved in violence as a victim only, offender only, or as a victim-offender, compared with being a total abstainer. In multinomial logistic regression models with data from a sample of adolescents (N = 490), a risky lifestyle was related to a higher probability of crime involvement across all groups compared with total abstainers. However, the significance of specific indicators of a risky lifestyle varied across the different outcomes. Spending a lot of time in the city center at night and frequently being inebriated were related to a higher risk of being a victim only, whereas peer deviance increased the risk for being an offender only. Frequent exposure to criminogenic settings and often being inebriated were related to a higher risk of being a victim-offender. The results indicate that studies on crime involvement and lifestyle must consider each kind of involvement separately. However, not many girls were involved in violent crime as offenders only or victim-offenders, indicating that girls may have risky lifestyles without committing acts of violence.
Highlights
It has been argued that “neither victimization, nor offending can be understood without full consideration of the other” (Lauritsen & Laub, 2007, p. 56), research has traditionally focused on these phenomena separately
Research shows that violent victimization and offending often overlap, and that both outcomes may be related to a risky lifestyle
Specific lifestyle indicators vary across studies, and this study focuses on a number of measures that have been shown to be related to victimization and offending in previous research: involvement in unstructured activities, peer deviance, and alcohol use
Summary
It has been argued that “neither victimization, nor offending can be understood without full consideration of the other” (Lauritsen & Laub, 2007, p. 56), research has traditionally focused on these phenomena separately. Victimization is usually better predicted by offending than vice versa (e.g., Pauwels & Svensson, 2011) This is logical because offenders should at least have some minimal level of motivation to commit a crime, which would lead them to participate in situations where offenses occur. Victims who are not involved in offending may, to some degree, be victimized for reasons that are less strongly related to their own behavior, or as a result of bad luck This means that as a group, victims only would be expected to differ from victim-offenders. Research indicates that there may even be a reciprocal negative relationship between victimization and offending over time, adding further complexity to the discussion on causality (Ousey, Wilcox, & Fisher, 2011)
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