Change Matters: Binge Drinking and Drugging Victimization over Time in Three College Freshman Cohorts

ABSTRACT

The “once bitten, twice shy” (OBTS) hypothesis argues that crime victims who change their involvement in risky lifestyle behaviors reduce their likelihood of experiencing repeat victimization. Tests of this hypothesis have yielded weak to mixed results, which may be due to methodological issues. We address these methodological issues by testing the OBTS hypothesis for repeat drugging victimization with survey data from a panel of three freshman cohorts at three large, public universities. Supportive of the OBTS hypothesis, the multivariate results show that, on average, those not drugged at Time 1 or Time 2 and those drugged at Time 1 and Time 2 increased the number of days they binge drank in the past month significantly more than those who were drugged at Time 1 only. Our findings have implications for both victimology theory and drugging prevention programming.

KEYWORDS:

• Repeat victimization
• drugging
• binge drinking
• once bitten
• twice shy hypothesis
• college students
• freshmen

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Leah C. Butler

Leah C. Butleis an Assistant Professor in the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice at the University of Nebraska Omaha (starting August 2020). Her research is centered on corrections, with an emphasis on the effects of race and racial attitudes on public opinion of correctional policy. She also conducts research in victimology, with a focus on bystander intervention, sexual victimization, and intimate partner violence.

Bonnie S. Fisher

Bonnie S. Fisheris Professor in the School of Criminal Justice at the University of Cincinnati. Her research interests span victimological topics ranging from the measurement of interpersonal violence against college students to the identification of theory-based predictors of interpersonal victimization to the evaluation of prevention strategies, and most recently, to the design and implementation of a longitudinal study of interpersonal violence against and by emerging adults. She was the Co-PI, with David Cantor at Westat, on the 2015 and 2019 Association of American University’s Campus Climate Survey on Sexual Assault and Misconduct.

Rachael Schilling

Rachael Schilling is a criminology PhD student in the Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice at University of Delaware. Her research interests include victimization and reproductive justice. 

Nicole V. Lasky

Nicole V. Lasky is an Assistant Professor at Northeastern State University. Her research interests include recurring victimization, drugging, human trafficking, situational crime prevention, and religion and crime.

Suzanne C. Swan

Suzanne C. Swan is a Professor in the Department of Psychology, Clinical-Community Program, and the Women's and Gender Studies Program. Dr. Swan received her PhD in Social and Personality Psychology with a Minor in Women's Studies from the University of Illinois. Dr. Swan's program of research follows the tradition of Kurt Lewin's dictum that “ there is nothing so practical as a good theory„. Her research focuses on using social psychological theories to understand the factors that predict interpersonal violence, as well as the outcomes of violence for those who experience it. The ultimate goal of this research is to create knowledge that will illuminate solutions for the problem of interpersonal violence and the suffering that it causes.