The impacts of rape or attempted rape victimization on emotional characteristics and delinquent behaviors among female adolescents in South Korea

Abstract

The focus of this study was to examine relations among rape or attempted rape victimization, emotional characteristics and delinquency among female adolescents in South Korea. This study analyzed the data of 195 delinquent girls from a juvenile correctional institution for girls and 67 victims of rape or attempted rape who were nondelinquent girls from the 2007 National Sexual Victimization Survey. The major finding was that rape or attempted rape victimization seemed to lead to negative emotional results including poor self-esteem and negative attitude to sex in female adolescents; however, those experiences did not seem to have significant relevance in causing delinquency. The hypothesis that rape or attempted rape victimization is likely to be related to emotional characteristics was supported, whereas the relationship between emotional characteristics and delinquent behaviors was not supported. Second, there were differences in the experiences of rape or attempted rape victimization between nondelinquent and delinquent girls in the context of their environment that the victimized girls confront. Third, the high rate of sexual victimization among delinquent girls has been observed to be due to the problematic situations they are exposed to, including delinquency and sexual victimization.