NCJ Number
214708
Journal
Violence and Victims Volume: 21 Issue: 3 Dated: June 2006 Pages: 371-381
Date Published
June 2006
Length
11 pages
Annotation
This study identified predictors of whether adolescents would tell others about their experiences of being sexually and physically attacked, with attention to predictors related to their lifestyles.
Abstract
The study found that having a lifestyle of associating with deviant peers and witnessing violence inhibited girls from telling others about being sexually assaulted, but such a lifestyle had no impact on their telling others about physical attacks. For boys, on the other hand, a lifestyle of associating with deviant peers and witnessing violence inhibited them from telling others about physical victimization but was not significant in predicting telling others about sexual victimization. The respondent's own participation in delinquent behavior was not consistent in this pattern of findings, however. It increased the likelihood that girls would tell someone about sexual victimization, but failed to reach significance in all other scenarios. The study thus shows that lifestyle measures are sufficiently important to include in any examination of adolescents' responses to their violent victimization. If victims associate with deviant peers and regularly witness violence, they may view their own victimization as an expected outcome of their lifestyle, such that they are less likely to seek support in dealing with their victimization. Data were obtained from the National Survey of Adolescents, which surveyed 4,023 juveniles between the ages of 12 and 17 about a range of victimization experiences and whether or not they had ever told anyone about the incident. It also included measures of peer deviance, witnessed violent events, and the respondents' own delinquent activities. 4 tables and 43 references