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This research examined some personal characteristics of victims of bullying in residential care for youth. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

A total of 601 young people aged 11-21 from 22 residential facilities in Croatia completed an anonymous self-reported bullying questionnaire, the Big Five Personality Inventory, the Basic Empathy Scale and the Rosenberg Self-esteem Scale.

The results demonstrated that male and female victims lacked self-esteem, presented with neurotic personality traits and were likely to believe that bullying was just part of life in residential care. Female victims also presented with lower levels of agreeableness and conscientiousness, while male victims were young and had a history of victimisation during their previous placement, in school and at the beginning of their current placements.

Victims in care might benefit from programmes addressing their low self-esteem, high neuroticism and attitudes approving of bullying. Male residential groups should not accommodate young boys together with older boys. New residents who have a history of victimisation during their previous placement and in school should be supervised more intensively but in a manner that does not increase their perception of being victimised.

The present study is the first work that examines individual characteristics of bullying victims in care institutions for young people. As such, the study offers some insights on how to protect residential care bullying victims.

The purpose of this paper is to compare rates of bullying and victimization between 50 adolescents in residential programs and 50 control adolescents in regular public schools. Individual (i.e. peer attachment) and contextual predictors (i.e. parenting styles, school belongingness) were also examined, and investigated in relation to bullying involvement.

Participants were matched based on ethnicity, gender (all male), and parents’ income. They completed questionnaires on their bullying involvement, peer attachment, perceived parenting styles of their parents, and school belongingness.

The findings revealed that adolescents from residential programs had higher rates of bullying and victimization, experienced more permissive parenting styles, had lower peer attachment, and poorer school belongingness when compared to control adolescents. The positive relationship between permissive parenting and bullying was stronger for boys from residential programs. In addition, peer attachment and school belongingness were more negatively related to bullying among control boys. Similar patterns were found for victimization. Differences were also found concerning the relationship of the individual and contextual predictors to adolescents’ bullying and victimization across the two groups.

These results underscore the importance of studying bullying and victimization among adolescents in secure settings, particularly residential programs.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the characteristics of bullies and victims in Canadian institutions for young offenders. The second aim is to investigate to what extent it is possible to develop risk scores that can predict who will become a bully or a victim.

In total, 185 male young offenders aged 16-19 in nine Ontario facilities were individually interviewed about their bullying and victimization, and two standardized inventories were completed.

Compared with non-bullies, bullies had spent longer in their present facility, had been bullies in a previous facility, had more previous custodial sentences, had been suspended or expelled at school, and expressed aggressive attitudes. Compared with non-victims, victims were socially isolated in custody, had failed a grade in school, had been committed to a psychiatric hospital, had been victims in a previous facility, had fewer previous custodial sentences, and were less likely to express aggressive attitudes.

Risk/needs assessment instruments should be developed to identify likely bullies and victims and guide interventions to prevent bullying in young offender institutions.

This paper shows that bullies and victims can be accurately identified based on risk factors including aggressive attitudes.

In the century from 1868 to 1969, over 105,000 children were detained in industrial schools in Ireland, having been committed by the courts. The purpose of this paper is to examine, and offer suggestions regarding the contexts of the peer physical and sexual abuse and bullying that went on in the industrial schools.

This paper draws on the accounts of survivors, the results of research conducted by academics and journalists and recent reports compiled by legislative enquiries into industrial schools in Ireland, with particular reference being made to the the six industrial schools run by the Christian Brothers.

The specific parameters of how the industrial school system developed in Ireland rendered detainees powerless and voiceless, and these factors also facilitated the physical and sexual abuse of child and adolescent detainees by adults in this institutions. Serious instances of peer physical and sexual abuse also went on in these schools. It is argued that such patterns of peer abuse are best understood as occurring within the psychosocial contexts of primary adjustment, collaboration and re-enactment.

It is suggested that the context of peer abuse in institutions is important for researchers and practitioners to attend to.

The realities of life in industrial schools in Ireland has been slow to emerge, due to the secrecy with which those institutions have been surrounded. Most accounts have focused on abuse at the hands of adults; this examines peer abuse in those institutions in context.

The purpose of this paper is to examine attitudes towards prisoner-to-prisoner bullying, further considering the association between attitudes and characteristics of the prison environment thought to promote prisoner bullying.

Questionnaires were administered to 423 adult male prisoners and 195 correctional officers from three prisons in Canada. Participants completed the Prison Bullying Scale and the Prison Environmental Scale.

Convergence in attitudes between prisoners and officers were noted although staff were more likely to consider bullies to be skilled, whereas prisoners were more likely than officers to feel that victims of bullying should be supported. Associations between attitudes supportive of bullying and environmental characteristics likely to promote prison bullying were found primarily among prisoners; the strongest predictors of such attitudes were poor relationships (e.g. prisoner to officer; prisoner-to-prisoner).

The study highlights the importance of the social aspect of the prison environment. It further provides an outline of two measures that could have utility in evaluating interventions designed to reduce prisoner-to-prisoner bullying.

Interventions into prisoner-to-prisoner bullying should attend to the wider environment and not focus solely on individual pathology approaches. A “whole prison” approach to intervention should be adopted, with recognition that officers and prisoners are part of the community. A focus on the perceived relationships between all those in this community requires consideration, with a community centred approach recommended for intervention. A concentrated effort is needed on evaluating and publishing interventions into prisoner-to-prisoner bullying.

The study is the first to examine attitudes in a combined sample of prisoners and officers and focuses on the role of the wider prison environment. It also utilises a sample from three prisons as opposed to focusing on a single establishment.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the prevalence of workplace bullying reported to human resources (HR) professionals in corrections. It compared the prevalence of bullying reported to HR professionals to the prevalence of self-reported workplace bullying found in the study by Einarsen et al. (2009).

In total, 75 HR professionals completed the modified version of the Negative Acts Questionnaire – Revised (The Bergen Bullying Research Group, 2009) that consists of three subscales measuring work-related bullying, person-related bullying, and physically intimidating bullying. Participants indicated how often certain types of workplace bullying were reported to them. The prevalence of bullying reported to HR professionals was then compared to the prevalence of self-reported workplace bullying found in the comparison study.

The findings of the study were statistically significant and demonstrated that more workplace bullying was reported to HR professionals in corrections than was self-reported in the comparison study. The results show statistical significance in the scale as a whole, in the person-related bullying subscale, and in the physical intimidation subscale.

HR professionals might be more likely to accurately report workplace bullying behavior that has been reported to them, as opposed to employees who directly experienced bullying. Organizations might benefit from having designated HR professionals or some other types of independent services for reporting of workplace bullying

A significant amount of workplace bullying research has focussed on causes, symptoms, and consequences of the phenomenon that can be generalized across a variety of occupations. This general research has advanced understanding of the topic. However, there are limitations to this approach. Generalized literature should also be complemented by research considering factors, issues, and concerns specific to particular working environments to develop more meaningful knowledge. To this end, this research focussed on workplace bullying in corrections organizations.