Overview of the Research Literature on Consequences of Criminal Victimization

Victims of crime may experience one or more of four important types of impacts: physical or medical, financial, behavioral, and cognitive or emotional. Much of the research on the consequences of criminal victimization is based on data from the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), previously known as the National Crime Survey. (For more information on the NCVS, see the sidebar.)

Physical and Medical Costs

Regarding physical consequences, Blumberg (1979) reported that approximately 25 percent of victims of personal crimes (which include violent crimes and personal theft) experienced some injury and that 10 percent of all victims (or about 40 percent of victims with some injury) were seriously injured. Klaus (1994) estimated that 31 percent of all victims of violent crimes sustained some physical injury and that approximately 18.5 percent required medical care. Miller and colleagues (1996) estimated that in the United States, 3 percent of all medical spending and 14 percent of injury-related medical spending could be attributed to violent crime.

Financial Costs

Miller and colleagues (1996) also estimated that direct property losses experienced by victims of crime may be as much as $750 per robbery, $270 per larceny, $970 per burglary, and $3,300 per motor vehicle theft, counting both attempted and successful crimes. Additional costs of victimization estimated by Miller and colleagues include costs associated with productivity losses, medical care, ambulance service, mental health care, police and fire services, social services, and victim services—for a total tangible "loss per crime" of as much as $5,100 for rape, $1,550 for nonfatal assault other than sexual assault or child abuse ($4,800 for assaults with injury, $4,600 for assaults on children under age 12, $1,200 for domestic assaults, and $200 for assaults without injury), $2,300 for robbery, $370 for larceny, $1,100 for burglary, and $3,500 for motor vehicle theft.

Miller and colleagues also attempted to assign dollar amounts to "intangible" or quality-of-life losses. These amounts were based on considerations including jury awards to compensate victims for pain and suffering (excluding punitive damages) and estimates of the dollar amount people are willing to pay to reduce their risk of different types of victimization. Including intangible costs, the total costs of victimization were estimated to be $87,000 for rape, $9,400 for other assaults, $8,000 for robbery, $370 for larceny (the same as without intangible costs), $1,400 for burglary, and $3,700 for motor vehicle theft.

The overall estimates of costs of crime arrived at by Miller and colleagues are comparable to, although perhaps higher than, estimates from other studies. For example, Klaus (1994) estimated the cost per crime to be $234 for rape, $555 for robbery, $124 for assault, $221 for larceny, $834 for burglary, and $3,990 for motor vehicle theft. As noted by Laub (1997), data from the 1992 NCVS indicate that 35 percent of all personal crimes and 24 percent of all household crimes involved losses of less than $50 and only 12 percent of personal crimes and 24 percent of household crimes resulted in losses greater than $500 (Bureau of Justice Statistics, 1994).

Subsequent Offending

The relationship between victimization and subsequent offending is well established in the victimization literature. NCVS data¹ indicate that the characteristics of victims of crime parallel the characteristics of persons arrested for crime (Hindelang, Gottfredson, and Garofalo, 1978; Karmen, 1990). Additional research (Ageton, 1981; Esbensen and Huizinga, 1990; Jensen and Brownfield, 1986; Lauritsen, Sampson, and Laub, 1991; Sampson and Lauritsen, 1990; Thornberry and Figlio, 1974) confirms that the same individuals tend to be both victims and offenders. It is unclear from this research, however, whether this apparent connection between victimization and offending represents the influence of victimization on offending, the influence of offending on victimization, mutual interactive influences, or a spurious relationship in which victimization and offending coincidentally share the same origins.

Mental Health Problems and Substance Use

Much of the early research on the mental health consequences of victimization focused on general distress or fear rather than specific symptoms of depression, anxiety, or posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). However, studies that have examined specific psychological disorders have consistently found positive correlations between PTSD and sexual assault (Resick and Nishith, 1997; Kilpatrick et al., 1987), aggravated assault and robbery (Kilpatrick et al., 1987), and victimization in general and violent victimization in particular (Berton and Stabb, 1996; Boney-McCoy and Finkelhor, 1995; Lurigio, 1987; Norris, Kaniasty, and Thompson, 1997). In a sample of adolescents ages 10–16, Boney-McCoy and Finkelhor (1995) found that sexual assault victimization and victimization by other forms of assault resulted in similar levels of PTSD. Studies have also associated criminal victimization with anxiety, depression, and a wide range of symptoms of psychological dysfunction (Resick and Nishith, 1997). In addition, victimization has been associated with use of marijuana and other illicit drugs and with drug dependence (Resick and Nishith, 1997), but questions still exist about which is the cause and which is the effect in the studies reporting these results.

Analyzing a general population sample that included both victims of crime and nonvictims, Norris and colleagues (1997: 149) found that criminal victimization "was associated not with a specific symptom profile but rather with a pervasive elevation of symptoms across domains" of depression, somatization (multiple, unexplained physical complaints), hostility, anxiety, phobic anxiety, fear of crime, and avoidance behavior. The most severe effects of victimization, however, may be short lived. As noted by Resick and Nishith (1997:31):

In summary, most rape victims, immediately after the assault, experience acute reactions that last several months. By 3 months postassault, there is some stabilization in the initial symptoms. However, some victims continue to experience chronic problems for an indefinite time in the areas of fear/anxiety, depression, social adjustment, sexual functioning, and self-esteem.

(For corroboration with respect to sexual assault and other offenses, see also Kilpatrick et al., 1987; Lurigio, 1987; and Norris, Kaniasty, and Thompson, 1997.) Norris and colleagues (1997) found that the persistence of victims' symptoms over time was aggravated by subsequent exposure to victimization.

It is unclear from the existing literature whether researchers should expect adolescent victimization to affect mental health, substance use, and problem substance use. If, as suggested by much of the literature, the psychological impact of victimization is ephemeral, people who experience victimization and its effects during adolescence may no longer show the effects by the time they become adults. However, to the extent that victimization tends to recur, and given the evidence presented by Menard (2000) that adolescent victims of crime are at increased risk of experiencing victimization during adulthood, researchers may find some carryover in the consequences of victimization from adolescence to adulthood. In addition, because substance use tends to be a relatively unchanging behavior pattern (Elliott, Huizinga, and Menard, 1989), and to the extent that it is a consequence of victimization in adolescence, this problem, when present in adolescent victims, may persist into adulthood. Tentatively, then, researchers would expect to find a higher incidence of adult mental health problems (particularly PTSD, which both logic and empirical research suggest is most closely related to victimization) and adult substance use or problem use among individuals who were victims of crime (particularly of violent crime) during adolescence.

Short- and Long-Term Consequences of Adolescent Victimization	Youth Violence Research Bulletin • February 2002