Does Victimization Reduce Self-Control? A Longitudinal Analysis

In the years prior to the creation for the Gang Resistance Education and Training (GREAT) program, America’s inner cities was experiencing a substantial increase of gang membership along the youth living in impoverished communities. During the early 1990s, many viewed gang activity as a particular community’s problem, but as youth and gang violence was increasing drastically across the United States’ inner cities, the public’s perception about this social issue changed. Due to the rapid rise of gang violence and youth membership, delinquent behavior by youths began to receive a substantial amount of academic and media attention.

Dynamics of Gang Violence: A Look at the Social, Biological, Psychological, Developmental, Substance Abuse Factors and Gender Differences

This theory believes that an individual will choose criminal behavior by “free will” after weighing out the rewards and benefits verses the consequences or punishment for their behavior (Gosselin, 2005). In essence, the abuser will choose domestic violence as a means to the end since they feel control and domination is necessary in order to coexist within personal relationships. On the other hand, if the offender believes the risks outweigh the ability achieve personal gain, control, or satisfaction, he or she may choose not to commit the abuse (Schacter, et al., 2009). I believe this theory explains the restraint an abuser displays when they carefully select the type of abuse administered to their victims and the length of time they choose to enact the abuse. Most abusers will not openly abuse their victims in front of others in order to deter detection. Detection is not an option for most abusers, since they are familiar with the consequences of their actions.

Urban centers throughout the United States of America and the world have experienced violence within the inner city communities. Many of the inner city communities are low-income and are poverty stricken. The spread of gang membership within the communities has influenced many young adolescents. Activities such as drug dealing, theft, assaults, and murders drive law enforcement to prevent crime. The justice system is also being changed due to the increase in minor violence. One of the reasons is due to people being part of minority groups. The charges pushed by the judicial

In 1991 mothers with newborns were recruited from hospitals at 10 different data collection from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development across the United States (Vazsonyi, 2010).Their mainly focused was when the child was 4.5 years, 8.5, and 10.5 from the 1,155 families that were recruited. For instance, all those cases were review yearly to focus on the behavior if the child was engaging any misbehavior within the years. For example, if single parents were going to have more issues controlling their children misconduct or has they are getting older was the probability for them to change. However, they used different scales to evaluate. For example, descriptive statistics of the study construct a scale score that mothers will complete to include a self-control analysis, another scale was about the correlations among the parent’s self-control and deviance. Also, they tested if at

Gang members are more likely to be victimized compared to non-gang members, (2) perceptions of social disorganization are associated with victimization and (3) accounting for inmates' offending mediates the relationship between social disorganization and victimization" (Fox et al., 2012 pp. 208). Furthermore, interviews are conducted with prison inmates to determine the outcome of the three hypotheses (Fox et al., 2012). The interviews will result in a series of questions that pertain to the individual's experiences with crime, victimization, and perceptions of neighborhood disorganization (Fox et al., 2012). The sample in this research comes from a population of 217 male inmates in a Texas prison (Fox et al., 2012). The prison is an intake facility that typically only housed inmates for two years before they were transferred, and this was ideal for the researchers as they were focusing on individuals that had been victimized in the last two years (Fox et al., 2012). In this study compared to the study that Cramer et al., conducted members of the Blood, the Crips, the Mexican Mafia, the Texas Syndicate and the Aryan Brotherhood were chosen to be interviewed however, the Mexican Mafia declined for this study just like in Cramer et al., 2013 (Fox et al.,

Victimization comes in many different forms such as assault, child physical/sexual abuse, stalking, theft, rape, sexual harassment, and domestic/relationship violence. There are several negative outcomes that have been linked with childhood abuse and neglect such as neurobiological changes, emotional and psychiatric disorders, interpersonal issues and substance abuse problems (Min, Singer, Minnes, Kim, & Short, 2012). According to Reid and Sullivan (2009), children and adolescents are very vulnerable and are the most highly victimized individuals of the population and the kinds of victimization that they experience can come in many forms (Finkelhor et al., 2009). This victimization is known as poly-victimization (Finkelhor et al., 2009).

The study they used was “mapping” in Pittsburg with participation of gang members and nongang youth who resided in the gang neighborhood. The researcher then explored the effect of gang set on the crime levels as carriers, neighbors, and non-neighbors. They used 911 calls service calls to measure crime. “Klinger and Bridges (1997) found serious underreporting bias when using 911 data as a measure of total crime. They attribute this bias to the fact that 23 percent of all crimes handled by patrol officers emanate from police initiated actions and not from civilian 911 calls”(George, 2007, p. 218). The researcher model the 911 call counts using the passion regression model, and they used Propensity-Score Weighting approach to avoid potential bias from the passion regression model. As a result they examined “city level offers very limited support for the facilitation effect, as only shots-fired activity demonstrates a significant increase during the formation stages of gangs in Pittsburgh” (p 231). Also, we compared crime trends over time for each type of census block (carrier, neighbor, non-neighbor) (p. 231). Finally, “we

Another article connects domestic violence with personal control. Research showed that woman victims of domestic violence may have some undermine feelings of low personal control. The consequence of domestic violence are substantial in terms of physical injuries, psychological and emotional distress, and substance abuse among victims. The loss of personal control has been associated with depression, substance abuse, suicide, and a loss of self esteem among female victims. This article concludes that there is a strong link between the loss of personal control and domestic violence (Johnson 2005).

A major cause of low self-control is improperly raising a child (Gottfredson and Hirschi, 1990). In fact, research has shown that affection, supervision, and discipline have all been absent from the homes of delinquents. In order to teach children self-control someone must at least monitor the child’s behavior, recognize deviant behavior when it occurs, and punish this kind of behavior.

Social Control Theory presents the idea that all humans maintain an inclination to act in a violent manner and the sole thing that prevents an individual from conceding to that inclination is the social connection they have with others; when this connection is hindered by abuse or neglect, the child is driven toward his or her impulse of violence and crime (Currie and Tekin 4). The last theory, Social-Psychological Strain Theory, suggests that the stress that is caused by abuse also has a role in driving an individual towards criminal activity (Currie and Tekin 4).

Statistics indicate many aggressors at some point or another have witnessed acts of violence. During childhood, these observed behaviors can have a major impact and influence on adolescent and adult attitudes, perception of self and others. "Children become more susceptible and prone to negative and dangerous behaviors which can

In relation to this topic control theory could arguably explain potential effects and impacts on children witnessing domestic violence. This theory is based on the principle that family conflicts may result in an individuals need to maintain and obtain power in a relationship (Britt and Gottfredson, 2003). This could potentially result in the individual forming destructive relationships due to the underlying fact that victim tends to adapt to the abuse and challenge the abuser. This may result the victim begins to modify their behaviour in to the same nature as their abuser as a form of defence mechanism, in order to avoid potential abuse in the

The history of victimology travels further back in time than most would realize. The concept of the victim emerged from the many attempts of many societies and peoples to explain both the reasons behind victimization and the appropriate action to be taken as a result of it (Burgess et al., 2013). As a concept, it can be difficult to define victimology, since each individual defines the term differently. According to the text utilized for this class, victimology is defined as being the study of the victim, including the offender and society. It is also seen as being a social-structural way of viewing the relationships between crime and the law as well as the criminal and the victim (Burgess et al, 2013)..

Lee, D., & Hilinski-Rosick, C. (2012). The Role of Lifestyle and Personal Characteristics on Fear of Victimization among University Students. American Journal Of Criminal Justice, 37(4), 647-668. doi:10.1007/s12103-011-9136-0