Violent Victimization Vulnerability: Testing a Conceptual Model of Personality, Social, and Community Factors

Abstract

The current study extends theories of crime to explain victimization by examining the direct effects of personality factors (low self-control), social factors (social bonds), and community factors (collective efficacy) on violent victimization. Next, we examine the effects of these theories indirectly through risky lifestyles to impact violent victimization. The proposed conceptual model is tested among a large national sample of youth (ages 12–16) from three waves of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health data (Add Health). Self-control, social bonds, and collective efficacy impact violent victimization indirectly through their effects on risky lifestyles, including unstructured peer socialization, peer marijuana use, respondents’ own marijuana use, and violence. The proposed conceptual model was generally supported and future directions for research to test and enhance this conceptual model are considered

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This research uses data from Add Health, a program project directed by Kathleen Mullan Harris and designed by J. Richard Udry, Peter S. Bearman, and Kathleen Mullan Harris at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and funded by grant P01-HD31921 from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, with cooperative funding from 23 other federal agencies and foundations. Special acknowledgment is due to Ronald R. Rindfuss and Barbara Entwisle for assistance in the original design. Information on how to obtain the Add Health data files is available on the Add Health website (http://www.cpc.unc.edu/addhealth). No direct support was received from grant P01-HD31921 for this analysis.

Notes

¹ The sampling strategy for the Add Health involved a multistage, stratified random sample as well as oversampling of specific groups. Sampling weights were created at each wave to account for this. The use of sampling weights in path analysis has only been addressed in a limited way in the literature, and the practice of weighting remains unresolved (see Bollen, Tueller, and Oberski 2013). For example, a similar, widely used dataset with a complex sampling design (NLSY97) suggests that using sampling weights in regression analysis and models more complex than descriptive statistics is not advised (see “Sample Weights & Design Effects” at www.nlsinfo.org/nlsy97/nlsdocs/nlsy97/use97data/weights.html). For the purposes of this study, AMOS does not currently allow for the incorporation of sampling weights.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kathleen A. Fox

KATHLEEN A. FOX is an Associate Professor in the School of Criminology & Criminal Justice at Arizona State University. She earned her Ph.D. in Criminology, Law & Society from the University of Florida. Her research focuses primarily on crime victimization, including theoretical tests, the gang–victimization link, and the effects of victimization on fear of crime and protective behavior. Her work has recently appeared in a number of journals including Criminology, Justice Quarterly, Criminal Justice and Behavior, and Journal of Interpersonal Violence.

Leana A. Bouffard

LEANA A. BOUFFARD is an Associate Professor in the College of Criminal Justice and the Director of the Crime Victims’ Institute at Sam Houston State University. Her research interests include the long-term consequences of victimization, violence against women, and criminological theory. Her work has appeared in Criminology, Justice Quarterly, Criminal Justice and Behavior, and Crime and Delinquency, among others.