The Developmental Nature of the Victim-Offender Overlap

Amber L Beckley,Avshalom Caspi,Louise Arseneault,Renate Houts,Candice L Odgers,Helen L Fisher,Terrie E Moffitt,Jasmin Wertz,J C Barnes,Honalee Harrington,Nick Morgan

doi:10.1007/s40865-017-0068-3

Abstract

PurposeIt is well-established that victims and offenders are often the same people, a phenomenon known as the victim-offender overlap, but the developmental nature of this overlap remains uncertain. In this study, we drew from a developmental theoretical framework to test effects of genetics, individual characteristics, and routine-activity-based risks. Drawing from developmental literature, we additionally tested the effect of an accumulation of adverse childhood experiences (ACEs).MethodsData came from the Environmental Risk (E-Risk) Study, a representative UK birth cohort of 2232 twins born in 1994–1995 and followed to age 18 (with 93% retention). Crime victimization and offending were assessed through self-reports at age 18 (but findings replicated using crime records). We used the classical twin study method to decompose variance in the victim-offender overlap into genetic and environmental components. We used logistic regression to test the effects of childhood risk factors.ResultsIn contrast to past twin studies, we found that environment (as well as genes) contributed to the victim-offender overlap. Our logistic regression results showed that childhood low self-control and childhood antisocial behavior nearly doubled the odds of becoming a victim-offender, compared to a victim-only or an offender-only. Each additional ACE increased the odds of becoming a victim-offender, compared to a victim-only or an offender-only, by approximately 12%, pointing to the importance of cumulative childhood adversity.ConclusionsThis study showed that the victim-offender overlap is, at least partially, developmental in nature and predictable from personal childhood characteristics and an accumulation of many adverse childhood experiences.

Highlights

The connection between crime victimization and offending, known as the victimoffender overlap, is a well-established “fact” in criminology [63]
This study showed that the victim-offender overlap is, at least partially, developmental in nature and predictable from personal childhood characteristics and an accumulation of many adverse childhood experiences
From routine activity theory and the results of the Philadelphia adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) survey, we identified 10 additional adversities that could be found in the Environmental Risk (E-Risk) Study dataset and that are potentially important to the victim-offender overlap: experiencing bullying, living in foster care, low childhood socioeconomic status, peer substance abuse, low parental monitoring, low parental monitoring, participant-perceived unsafe neighborhood, high neighbor crime victimization measured via neighbor survey, neighborhood rated as unsafe through systematic social observation, and high-crime neighborhood measured through official police records

Summary

Introduction

The connection between crime victimization and offending, known as the victimoffender overlap, is a well-established “fact” in criminology [63]. Victimization and offending both peak in adolescence and have been shown to be significantly associated with one another regardless of the type of data used, or the type of offending and victimization analyzed [66]. We are not aware of any other published study that has examined the link between childhood risk factors, as assessed during the first decade of life, and later victim-offender overlap, and datasets for doing this work are few. Childhood risk factors have been identified in studies of offending, and some of the same childhood risk factors have been identified in separate studies of victimization, but few studies can test which risk factors differentiate victim-offenders from comparison groups of pure offenders and pure victims

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