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Does Spending Time in Public Settings Contribute to the Adolescent Risk of Violent Victimization?

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Abstract

Objectives

Using data from a nationally representative survey of adolescents in Finland this research examined the influence of spending time in public settings on the risk of physical assault and robbery victimization.

Methods

Binary and multinomial regression models were estimated to disaggregate associations between hours spent in public settings and characteristics of the victimization incident. The amount of causality/spuriousness in the association was examined using a method of situational decomposition.

Results

Our findings indicate that: (1) an active night life (any time after 6 pm) has a strong effect on victimization for boys, whereas much of the association between night life and victimization is spurious for girls; (2) after-school activity is not a risk factor; (3) adolescents who frequent public places at night increase their risk of victimization by people they know as well as strangers; and (4) much of the risk of night time activity in public settings is alcohol-related.

Conclusions

Our research suggests that a good deal of the risk associated with spending time in public settings is a function of the victim’s own risky behavior rather than inadvertent physical contact with motivated offenders in the absence of capable guardians. In addition, this lifestyle is significantly more victimogenic for males.

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Notes

  1. Equations were estimated using listwise deletion for missing data. The sample size, therefore, varied somewhat for different equations. Fewer than 3 % of the cases were lost as a result of missing data in any equation.

  2. Unlike the case with OLS regression, the logistic regression model does not permit the standardization of Y due to the non-linear measurement of the dependent variable (i.e., 0/1). As such, the estimates are considered “partially standardized” because they reflect only standardized versions of the predictors (Menard 2003). This procedure does not yield beta coefficients entirely comparable to those produced in OLS, though partially standardized variables allow us to gauge the relative importance of the predictors in terms of their relationship to the logit. The coefficients obtained for the independent variables can be interpreted as the change in the logit associated with a one standard deviation change in the independent variable.

  3. If we compared more than two time periods at a time, we would give advantage to the time period least correlated with the other two.

  4. The large standard error associated with Swedish ethnicity in the robbery equation among boys is due to the small number of Swedish victims who were drinking. We re-estimated the equation using a dependent variable that combined “victim intoxicated” and “both intoxicated” into a single category. This alteration produced a reasonable standard error but did not affect the pattern of results reported in Table 6.

  5. Causal influence should not be confused with blameworthiness. People sometimes engage in behaviors (e.g., adolescent drinking) that increase their risk of victimization (Felson 1991). Whether those behaviors are reckless or morally questionable is outside the scope of empirical research.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA, USA

    Richard B. Felson

  2. School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of Nebraska, 310 Nebraska Hall, Lincoln, NE, 68588-0561, USA

    Jukka Savolainen

  3. Department of Criminal Justice, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA

    Mark T. Berg

  4. The Police College of Finland, Tampere, Finland

    Noora Ellonen

Authors
  1. Richard B. Felson
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  2. Jukka Savolainen
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  3. Mark T. Berg
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  4. Noora Ellonen
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Correspondence to Jukka Savolainen.

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Felson, R.B., Savolainen, J., Berg, M.T. et al. Does Spending Time in Public Settings Contribute to the Adolescent Risk of Violent Victimization?. J Quant Criminol 29, 273–293 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10940-012-9179-5

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