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The present study uses data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Ad Health) to evaluate the effects of exposure to violent victimization in childhood on adolescent delinquency and subsequent adult criminality.

Using Longitudinal Latent Class Analysis (LLCA), the present study investigates whether there are distinct and diverse longitudinal delinquency trajectories among those exposed to violence in childhood.

Findings from the current study indicate that there are three distinct trajectories of delinquency and offending from age 14 to 27 for both males and females exposed to violence in childhood. Further, it appears that violent victimization in childhood bridges the gender gap in delinquency between males and females. Thus, childhood violent victimization, and the fact that females are victimized by parents/caregivers and romantic partners at higher rates than males, might be partially responsible in explaining the narrowing of the gender gap between male and female offending in the recent decades. At the same time, childhood violent victimization also seems to impact males and females in somewhat different ways. Practically, all female victims stop offending by their late 20s, whereas a fairly large proportion of males exposed to violent victimization in childhood steadily continue offending.

Although this study was able to identify the diverse impacts of violence exposure on engagement in subsequent delinquency, it did not examine the unique contributions of each type of violence on adolescent outcomes or the chronicity of exposure to each of these types of violent victimization. We were also not able to measure all types of violence experiences in childhood, such as exposure to parents’ or caregivers’ intimate partner violence.

While early prevention would be the most desirable option for both genders for the most optimal outcome, the retrospective intervention and treatment programs should be gender-specific. For males, they should heavily focus on providing alternative ways to cope with anger, impulse control and frustration, as well as teach empathy, cognitive problem solving skills, verbal communication skills, and tangible life and job skills. For females, most successful intervention and treatment programs may focus on helping the girls through a transition from adolescence to adulthood while providing mental health, medical, and family support services.

The paper uses a unique methodological approach to identify distinct and diverse longitudinal delinquency trajectories. The findings demonstrate how more resilient individuals (in terms of externalizing behaviors) can bring down the mean scores of delinquency even though many other individuals can be severely affected by violence exposure in childhood.

To review the literature on delinquency and victimization among Caribbean youth, utilizing an ecological perspective.

The review was initiated by a search of peer-reviewed journal articles published between 1993 and 2013, which investigated any or all aspects of juvenile delinquency and/or youth victimization in the Caribbean. Studies were critically reviewed to determine whether they addressed relationships between victimization and delinquency, and the role of the social environment on youth.

The search yielded 23 relevant studies: 64 percent of the studies were conducted exclusively in Jamaica, and more than 75 percent were school based. Half of the articles addressed the links between victimization and delinquency among Caribbean youth but the majority was primarily descriptive.

Only peer-reviewed journals were included, so unpublished country and organizational reports were not covered in the review.

More current and longitudinal studies are needed, which examine the connections between delinquency and victimization, and the experiences in the smaller or less developed Caribbean countries.

The review provides directions for the enhancement of positive youth development policy and practice.

This paper fills the gap in the understanding of the research on delinquency and victimization among Caribbean youth. The ecological framework also adds value to the understanding of the topic by highlighting the importance of various social contexts, such as the family, school, and neighborhood, on youth development in the Caribbean.

Understanding the plight of victims has long been a focus of feminists in the field of criminology. Feminists have made a number of contributions to the study of victims, and here we highlight the contributions that coalesce around three central themes: (1) the gendered nature of criminal victimisation, (2) the relationship between women’s victimisation and offending and (3) violent victimisation of women (and threat of victimisation) as a means of informal social control. In this chapter, the authors trace the development of these themes, highlighting both early feminist work and modern instantiations, paying particular attention to how theoretical developments in the field of feminist victimology have contributed to the understanding of these themes. The authors conclude by discussing the contested nature of ‘feminist victimology’, examining whether such a thing can exist given the androcentric foundations on which the broader field of victimology is based.

Physical victimization at school is little studied in impoverished developing country contexts. Moreover, the role of school and classroom contexts as risk factors remains poorly understood.

The aim of the study is to investigate the prevalence of physical victimization in rural Chinese middle schools as well as the individual, teacher/classroom, and school-level risk factors associated with experiencing physical victimization.

We use two waves of longitudinal, representative survey data to perform a multilevel logistic regression analysis (MLRA) of physical victimization among middle school students from 100 villages in one of China’s poorest provinces. We focus on a subset of questionnaire items that were gathered from students when the sampled children were 13–16 years old. We also utilize student data from the first wave of the survey to control for prior internalizing problems and academic achievement. Finally, we link matched data collected from principal and teacher questionnaires to examine the risk factors for physical victimization associated with students’ microclimates and the wider school environment.

A substantial proportion of middle school students (40%) reported having been beaten by classmates. Elevated risk was found among males; students with prior poor performance in language; students with past internalizing problems; students of female teachers and teachers evaluated as low performing; students in disruptive classrooms; and students in classrooms undergoing mandated reforms.

These findings suggest that efforts to reduce school violence should not only focus on the deficits of individual students, but rather should target practices to alter the within school risk factors associated with microclimates.

In this study, we aimed at examining the unique and interactive effects of peer violence in cyberspace on adolescents’ emotion regulation and socioemotional adjustment, as well as the mediational role of resilience in the link between adolescent’s pathogenic relational experiences and behavioral outcomes. Specifically, we intended to explore emotion differentiation and regulation in reaction to bullying perpetration and victimization and in terms of positive (proud, confident, good) and negative (ashamed, excited, guilty), Passive (sad, embarrassed, humiliated) and Reactive (angry, scared) emotions and how it impacted and predicted positive and negative outcomes.

A stratified convenient sample of 494 Italian students aged 13–19 years (M = 15.27, SD = 1.23) was selected to represent all different school types in Italy and the students were administered a self-report questionnaire on school bullying involvement. General Linear Models, ANOVA, and T-tests were employed to explore gender differences, the relationships between variables, and their contribution to the predictive model. A two-step Cluster analysis was used to profile adolescents based on patterns of resilience, health outcomes, and cyberbullying involvement.

Results showed significant gender differences, with females using internet and Facebook more than males and being more resilient, positive, and prosocial, but also responding to victimization with higher levels of alienation, anger, humiliation, and psychosomatic and emotional symptoms. Males perpetrated peer violence more than females, were less likely to be victimized, and were generally less emotionally impacted by it. Victimization rates (63.7%, n = 296) were higher than perpetration rates (51.7%, n = 233) and bully-victimization was prevalent (47.1%). Victims prevalently experienced passive emotions (sadness, humiliation, embarrassment) while perpetrators experienced negative ones (guilt and shame). Cluster analysis evidenced different pathways and trajectories of resilience and cyberbullying involvement: Resilient victims (RV), Healthy uninvolved (HU), Healthy Bullies (HB), Alienated Bully-Victims (ABV), and Resilient Bully-Victims (RBV). RV, HU, and HB resulted all well-adjusted, despite the different involvement in cyberbullying, and also RBV and despite the double involvement in cyberbullying, ABV were the only maladjusted and at-risk group in our sample characterized by very low Positivity, very low Resilience, and extremely high Alienation.

This study proposes a comprehensive, developmental, ecological, relational, and self-regulatory resilience approach to cyberbullying, which represents an innovative and advanced contribution to the literature with significant implication for research and practice. Fully understanding and measuring the emotional impact of cyber peer violence and resilience following cyberbullying victimization and perpetration can help in developing targeted interventions for both victims and bullies. This study highlighted the need for a self-regulatory model of resilience for modulating emotions, arousal, and behaviors across contexts, relationships, and difficulties. It also evidenced that moderate levels of resilience and positivity are sufficient to buffer youth from involvement in cyberbullying and to predict healthy adjustment and less pathological outcomes.

By profiling adolescents based on resilience levels, health outcomes, and cyberbullying involvement, we evidenced five distinct trajectories of risk evaluation for cyberbullying beyond participating roles. Our results confirmed the fundamental importance of assessing resilience and emotion regulatory resources together with peer violence involvement in identifying and targeting adolescents at risk.

Polyvictimization means looking at multiple victimizations of different kinds that one person has experienced. Virtually, all of the work in this field focuses on the effects of childhood trauma and victimization on currently distressed children, and empirical and theoretical work on the intertwining of adult female offline and online abuse experiences is in short supply. Recently, however, some scholars are starting to fill these research gaps by generating data showing that technology-facilitated violence and abuse are part and parcel of women's polyvictimization experiences at institutions of higher education. This chapter provides an in-depth review of the extant social scientific literature on the role technology-facilitated violence and abuse plays in the polyvictimization of female college/university students. In addition to proposing new ways of knowing, we suggest progressive policies and practices aimed at preventing polyvictimization on the college campus.

Purpose – This chapter presents some innovative ways in which researchers can collect survey data on various types of violence against women.

Methodology/approach – The suggestions made here are drawn from over 30 years of national, international, and local survey research.

Findings – The methods described in this chapter minimize underreporting, produce theoretically relevant data, and have meaningful policy consequences.

Originality/value – The research techniques reviewed here have made many important contributions to the field and the data they uncovered have helped raise public awareness about one of the world’s most compelling social problems.

Current responses to women's violence are rooted in stereotypical views that delink women's violence from the context of gendered inequality and social marginalisation that mediates it. In this chapter, we draw from feminist scholarship on women's violence, including violence by female sex workers (FSWs), and qualitative data to examine different forms of FSWs' violence against their male clients and the contexts that shape their use of violence. Twenty-seven in-depth interviews were conducted with FSWs recruited through snowball sampling in Uyo, Nigeria. Thematic analysis revealed three forms of violence: ‘situational violence’ – an individual-centred, self-defensive and spontaneous response to conflict situations; ‘collective violence’ – pre-meditated violence used by a group of FSWs to revenge the victimisation of its member, and ‘symbolic violence’ – the un-planned outcome of FSWs' violence that has the effect of deterring client violence and inducing cooperative behaviour. FSWs use violence to deter or counter threatened or enacted client violence and to exact revenge for past victimisation. They also use violence to enforce rules, extract payments and establish solidarity. FSWs' violence is contextualised within the everyday experience of client violence. This violence is not only reactionary; it is a pragmatic attempt to negotiate structural and gender dynamics that shape risks in sex work.

The key purpose of this chapter is to identify some ways of enhancing feminist conceptual, empirical, and theoretical work on violence against women. Much attention is given to addressing the harms caused by new electronic forms of woman abuse, including the role of adult Internet pornography and sex robots. This chapter also emphasises the importance of revisiting some major feminist contributions from the past.