Elsevier

Journal of Criminal Justice

Volume 53, November 2017, Pages 25-33
Journal of Criminal Justice

Does offending intensify as exposure to violence aggregates? Reconsidering the effects of repeat victimization, types of exposure to violence, and poly-victimization on property crime, violent offending, and substance use

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jcrimjus.2017.09.004Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Exposure to violence, regardless of how it was measured, increased offending risk.

  • Poly-victimization had the strongest effects on offending.

  • Repeat exposure to violence was a robust predictor of offending.

  • There was little variation in effect sizes across types of exposure to violence.

Abstract

Purpose

The relationship between exposure to violence and adverse behavioral outcomes is well-documented. But, heterogeneity in this relationship across different operational strategies for exposure to violence is less well understood. This study examines the effects of repeat victimization, exposure to different types of violence, and poly-victimization on property crime, violent offending, and substance use.

Methods

We analyze two waves of data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (N = 12,603). We operationalize exposure to violence as: a dichotomous indicator of overall occurrence; exposure to multiple incidents of violence (repeat exposure); types of exposure to violence (witnessed, threatened, and experienced violence); and poly-victimization (i.e., repeat exposure to violence and exposure to multiple types of violence).

Results

Exposure to violence – regardless of how it is measured – increases offending risk. The strongest effects are observed for poly-victimization, followed by repeat exposure to violence and exposure to a single episode of violence. There is little variation in effect sizes across types of exposure to violence.

Conclusions

The results speak to the utility of preventing the onset of exposure to violence and addressing ongoing exposure to violence in order to interrupt the link between exposure to violence and offending.

Introduction

Exposure to violence is a particularly consequential aspect of youths' reality. Recent estimates indicate that over 60% of children and adolescents under the age of 17 in the United States are exposed to violence each year (Finkelhor, Turner, Ormrod, & Hamby, 2009; Resnick et al., 1997). These youths are at higher risk for subsequent mental health issues (Borowsky, Ireland, & Resnick, 2001; Brown, Cohen, Johnson, & Smailes, 1999; Buka, Stichick, Birdthistle, & Earls, 2001), negative biological responses (Perkins & Graham-Bermann, 2012), and adverse behavioral outcomes (Brezina, Agnew, Cullen, & Wright, 2004; Cleary, 2000; Zimmerman, Farrell, & Posick, 2017). Yet, there is heterogeneity in the extent and consequences of exposure to violence across studies, in part because researchers have employed different conceptual and operational definitions of exposure to violence. Some studies focus on direct exposure to violence, including personal victimization and threats of violence (Jennings, Higgins, Tewksbury, Gover, & Piquero, 2010), whereas others note the importance of indirect experiences with violence, such as witnessing or hearing about violence (Buka et al., 2001; Fagan, Wright, & Pinchevsky, 2014; Richters & Martinez, 1993) to the extent that it substantiates knowledge of the act itself (Zimmerman & Posick, 2016) and leads to a lack of safe haven (Fagan, 2003). There is further variation in the definition of “violence,” which can be inclusive of the Uniform Crime Report's index crimes (i.e., murder, rape, robbery, assault), as well as less serious, but more prevalent, forms of violence (e.g., fighting) among youth. This study considers both direct (i.e., inter-personal victimization and violent threats) and indirect (i.e., witnessing violence) exposure to violence. Our definition of violence spans fighting and violence with a weapon: respondents answered questions about witnessing a shooting, being threatened with a weapon, and personal victimization. We also consider exposure to multiple incidents of a single type of violence (repeat exposure to violence) and exposure to multiple incidents of multiple types of violence (poly-victimization).

By considering different measures of exposure to violence, this study seeks to shed additional light on the relationship between exposure to violence and offending behaviors. Much of the prior research on this topic has focused on the widely documented relationship between victimization and offending, a phenomenon commonly referred to as the victim-offender overlap (Jennings, Piquero, & Reingle, 2012). But, given that youths are two to four times more likely to witness violence than to be personally victimized (Richters & Martinez, 1993), an emerging area of inquiry has focused on the relationship between witnessing violence and offending, substantiating indirect exposure to violence as a key determinant of offending outcomes (Buka et al., 2001; Eitle & Turner, 2002; Fagan et al., 2014). Both victimization (Jennings et al., 2010) and indirect exposure to violence (Agnew, 2002; Gorman-Smith & Tolan, 1998) are documented correlates of a wide variety of offending behaviors, including violent offending (Jennings et al., 2012; McCabe, Hough, Yeh, Lucchini, & Hazen, 2005; Shaffer & Ruback, 2002), property crime (Daday, Broidy, Crandall, & Sklar, 2005; Tyler & Melander, 2015), and substance use (Browning & Erickson, 2009; Fagan et al., 2014; Kilpatrick et al., 2000). However, many studies have focused on one type of exposure to violence (e.g., either victimization or witnessing violence) (Fagan, 2003; Fantuzzo & Mohr, 1999; Farrell, 2017; Fergusson & Horwood, 1998; Kendall-Tackett, Williams, & Finkelhor, 1993) or have aggregated multiple forms of exposure to violence into a composite measure (Aceves & Cookston, 2007; Averdijk, Van Gelder, Eisner, & Ribeaud, 2016; Jennings et al., 2010). Few studies have simultaneously examined different types of exposure to violence and taken into account the frequency of exposure to violence.

Our study contributes to the literature by examining heterogeneity in the effects of exposure to violence on offending behaviors across four measures of exposure to violence: a binary indicator of overall occurrence; repeat exposure to violence (exposure to multiple incidents of a single type of violence); exposure to different types of violence (witnessed, threatened, and experienced violence); and poly-victimization (i.e., the intersection of repeat exposure to violence and exposure to multiple types of violence). We test our hypotheses (enumerated below) with two waves of data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health). We begin by reviewing literature on the victim-offender overlap before grounding our hypotheses in existing theory and research.

Section snippets

The victim-offender overlap

The relationship between victimization and offending is one of the most consistently documented empirical facts in criminology (Jennings et al., 2012). Studies have demonstrated that victims and offenders share similar demographic characteristics (Hindelang, 1976; Lauritsen, Sampson, & Laub, 1991); that victims frequently report prior contact with the criminal justice system; and that offenders often report prior victimization experiences (Widom, 1989; Wolfgang, 1957). In a review of 37 studies

Current study

In short, consistent with prior research, we expect exposure to at least one act of violence to have acute effects on property crime, violent offending, and substance use (Hypothesis 1). We also expect both the frequency and type of exposure to violence to impact the likelihood that exposure to violence will result in subsequent offending. Specifically, we posit that repeat exposure to violence (i.e., exposure to multiple episodes of violence) will have stronger effects on offending behaviors

Data and participants

The goal of the Add Health survey was to understand how individual and environmental factors impact adolescent health by obtaining data from a nationally representative sample of 7th to 12th grade students in the United States (Harris et al., 2009). The initial sampling frame for the Add Health study was created in 1994–1995 from a list of 26,666 U.S. high schools maintained by Quality Education Data Inc. (QED) in Denver, Colorado. A stratified sample of 132 middle and high schools was selected

Examining the acute effects of overall exposure to violence on offending

Table 2 examines the acute effects of wave 1 overall exposure to violence on the wave 2 offending outcomes. The results indicate that overall exposure to violence was positively and significantly associated with property crime (OR = 1.82, p < 0.001), violent offending (OR = 3.56, p < 0.001), and substance use (OR = 2.12, p < 0.001). The odds ratios suggest that individuals who were exposed to at least one violent incident of any type were 82% [(1.82–1) × 100%], 256% [(3.56–1) × 100%], and 112% [(2.12–1) × 100%]

Discussion

Much of the research on exposure to violence has focused on only one type of exposure to violence (e.g., personal victimization or witnessing violence) or has aggregated multiple forms of exposure to violence into a composite measure, without taking into account the type or frequency of exposure to violence. Our study contributed to the literature by assessing potential differences in the relationship between exposure to violence and offending outcomes across four measures of exposure to

Chelsea Farrell is a Doctoral student in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Northeastern University. Her research focuses on neighborhood effects, victimization, and gendered relationships in the etiology of offending.

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    Chelsea Farrell is a Doctoral student in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Northeastern University. Her research focuses on neighborhood effects, victimization, and gendered relationships in the etiology of offending.

    Gregory M. Zimmerman is the Graduate Program Director and Associate Professor in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at Northeastern University. He received his doctorate in Criminal Justice from the University at Albany, SUNY. His research focuses on the interrelationships among individual and contextual causes of criminal offending.

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