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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.
Notes
1. Among the 6880 respondents in the 2007 National Sexual Victimization Survey, 67 reported that they experienced spousal rape, and 15 experienced rape or attempted rape. When these results were converted to reflect Korea's total number of female adults between the age of 19 to 64 in the ratio of 1:1000, rape or attempted rape accounted for 2.2 instances, and spousal rape accounted for 9.7 instances.
2. The respondents of Kang's research consisted of middle school and high school students, working adolescents, and college students. In the research, 11.5% answered that they had experienced sexual abuse. The results also showed that 5.45% had unwanted sexual interaction, 1.6% had sexual interaction due to violence or threat, 1.8% were raped, 0.8% were gang raped, and 1.9% had sexual intercourse with an adult who also happened to be a person of authority (Kang, Citation2003).
3. The respondents of Lee's research consisted of 196 college students, 224 high school students, and 72 working adolescents (Lee, Citation1991).
4. The researcher had included incidents such as genital exposure, sexual harassment, as well as eight other types of sexual abuse, increasing the rate of sexual abuse compared with other studies.
5. The facility is Jungsim Girls' School, which emphasizes education and prevention of recurring delinquency. This is the only residential facility that houses female delinquents aged 12 to 20 in South Korea. It is officially termed as a “school” since it is operated as an alternative educational facility. It teaches middle school and high school courses.
6. The “2007 National Sexual Victimization Survey” was conducted throughout the country's 85 counseling centers for the sexually abused with 105 clients, and 13 shelters for 87 victims of sexual violence, bringing the total to 192 respondents. Among the respondents of the survey, there were 67 victims of rape or attempted rape under the age of 20.
7. The items of the self-esteem scale are: “I think I have a good personality;” “I believe that I have several characteristics that are better than others;” “I can do as much as others can;” “Overall, I am satisfied with myself;” “Sometimes, I feel like I am useless.”
8. The items of TAS are: “I feel utterly mad;” “I feel sudden anger and impatience;” “I want to scream at somebody;” “I want to break things;” “I get mad enough to drive myself insane;” “I want to punch the table;” “I want to hit someone;” “I want to swear at someone.”
9. The items of negative attitude to sex are: “I am afraid of men and want to run away from them and often do;” “I think that I have already been soiled;” “Even though it is an unwanted sexual contact, I easily allow it to happen;” “I believe that as a woman, I have a low sexual value;” “I believe that I won't be able to have a sound sexual relationship.”
10. According to a previous study, the mean of the first incident of sexual victimization and running-away episodes are similar at ages 14.16 and 14.35, respectively; the mode is age 15 for both factors. Thus, sexual abuse and episodes of running away occur almost at the same time, and girls who run away usually get into situations that lead to delinquency (Shin & Lee, 2008, pp. 99–101).
11. Lee (Citation2005, p. 229) stated that 81.3% of women participating in the sex trade and 94.9% of those under probation have been sexually abused by their managers or co-workers, and 81.3% of women in shelters and 27.1% of those under probation have been forced to perform abnormal sexual acts.