Past Approaches To Studying Youth Victimization

To understand how the risk for violent victimization varies among adolescents, researchers have typically relied on two resources: (1) interview data from selfreport surveys and (2) information from official records maintained by police departments and child welfare organizations. Official records provide important information about the victims who come to the attention of these agencies (e.g., age, sex, race, and circumstances of the event). For some types of violence, such as homicide, police data are highly reliable for estimating risk. In fact, for crimes such as homicide, risk estimates for victimization can only be determined by using official records.

Fortunately, most violent acts are not lethal. Unfortunately, about half of serious violent incidents involving juvenile victimization are not reported to the police or other officials. This lack of information presents a serious challenge for determining who is at greatest risk for nonlethal violence and why (Snyder and Sickmund, 1999; Finkelhor and Ormrod, 1999). Because of the limitations of official data, self-report surveys based on large random samples have been especially useful sources for studying violent victimization. Earlier research using self-reports has generated important information about how violence varies among youth. For instance, self-report surveys show that black youth experience greater risks for being victims of serious violent crime than white youth (Perkins, 1997) and American Indian youth face the highest risk overall (Snyder and Sickmund, 1999).

Interpreting these findings, however, can be problematic. Some researchers will assume that the risk patterns reflect individual differences in lifestyle activities or friendships and associations, whereas others will assume that the patterns result from differences in social, economic, or family characteristics. Unless research simultaneously examines individual, family, and community factors, the relative contribution of each set of characteristics cannot be isolated, nor can the differences in risk be fully understood.

This Bulletin describes how individual, family, and community characteristics influence the risk for nonlethal violence among youth. Until now, determining the relative importance of these factors has been hampered by a lack of sufficient data. To facilitate research on this topic and others, the U.S. Census Bureau and BJS have made available “area-identified” NCVS data. These data differ from the public NCVS files in that they include state, county, and census tract codes for each household in the sample. These data make it possible to link the NCVS victimization information for each household and person in the sample to other sources of community-related data available from the U.S. Census Bureau.

The area-identified NCVS data are used here to address several important but previously unexamined issues associated with the risk for nonlethal violence among U.S. youth. The Bulletin examines the following issues:

• The relationship between the types of families in which adolescents live and their risk for violent victimization.

• The relationship between the types of communities in which adolescents live and their risk for violent victimization.

• Whether family circumstances are more important in some kinds of communities than others.

• How risk factors vary among youth of different racial and ethnic groups.

• Which risk factors are the most significant for understanding violent victimization among youth.

How Families and Communities Influence Youth Victimization	OJJDP Bulletin • November 2003