Although numerous studies have explored youth formal and informal help-seeking, including reporting to the police and disclosing victimization experiences to others, there has been little discussion in how other experiences with violence, such as witnessing and perpetrating violence, may impact responses to victimization. The current study uses multinomial probit analyses to explore how multiple victimizations, violent behavior, and witnessing violence impact youth decisions to call the police, report to school authorities, or informally disclose their victimization. The results suggest that, accounting for alternative responses to victimization, reporting to the police is inhibited by the respondent’s violent background and witnessing violence.
AkersR. (1998). Social learning and social structure: A general theory of crime and deviance. Boston, MA: Northeastern University Press.
2.
AndersonE. (1999). Code of the street: Decency, violence, and the moral life of the inner city. New York, NY: W. W. Norton.
3.
BlackD. (1976). The behavior of law. New York, NY: Academic Press.
4.
BlackD. (1983). Crime as social control. American Sociological Review, 48, 34–45.
5.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), National Center for Injury Prevention and Control. (2010). Web-Based Injury Statistics Query And Reporting System (WISQARS). Retrieved September 17, 2011, fromhttp://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/index.html
6.
ChristieN. (1986). The ideal victim. In FattahE. (Ed.), From crime policy to victim policy: Reorienting the justice system (pp. 17–30). London, England: Macmillan.
7.
DunnJ. L. (2008). Accounting for victimization: Social constructionist perspectives. Sociology Compass, 2, 1601–1620.
8.
EliotM.CornellD.GregoryA.FanX. (2010). Supportive school climate and student willingness to seek help for bullying and threats of violence. Journal of School Psychology, 48, 533–553.
9.
FelsonR. B.MessnerS. F.HoskinsA. (1999). The victim–offender relationship and calling the police in assaults. Criminology, 37, 931–947.
10.
FelsonR. B.ParéP. (2005). The reporting of domestic violence and sexual assault by nonstrangers to the police. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 67, 597–610.
11.
FinkelhorD.OrmrodR. K. (1999). Reporting crimes against juveniles. Juvenile Justice Bulletin—NCJ178887, 1–7.
12.
FinkelhorD.OrmrodR. K. (2001). Factors in the underreporting of crimes against juveniles. Child Maltreatment, 6, 219–229.
13.
FinkelhorD.WolakJ. (2003). Reporting assaults against juveniles to the police: Barriers and catalysts. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 18, 103–128.
14.
FinkelhorD.OrmrodR. K.TurnerH. A. (2007). Poly-victimization: A neglected component in child victimization trauma. Child Abuse & Neglect, 31, 7–26.
15.
FinkelhorD.WolakJ.BerlinerL. (2001). Police reporting and professional help seeking for child victims: A review. Child Maltreatment, 6, 17–30.
16.
FitzpatrickK. M.BoldizarJ. P. (1993). The prevalence and consequences of exposure to violence among African-American youth. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 32, 424–430.
17.
GarbarinoJ. (1999). Lost boys: Why our sons turn violent and how we can save them. New York, NY: Free Press.
18.
GreeneW. H. (2003). Econometric analysis. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
19.
GoudriaanH.WittebroodK.NieuwbeertaP. (2006). Neighborhood characteristics and reporting crime. British Journal of Criminology, 46, 719–742.
20.
HartT.RennisonC. (2003). Reporting crime to the police, 1992 -2000. BJS Special Report. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice.
21.
HashimaP.FinkelhorD. (1999). Violent victimization of youth versus adults in the national crime victimization survey. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 14, 799–820.
22.
HeckmanJ. (1979). Sample selection bias as a specification error. Econometrica, 47, 153–161.
23.
JacobsB. A. (2000). Robbing drug dealers: Violence beyond the law. New York, NY: Alan de Gruyter.
24.
JacobsB. A.RichardW. (2006). Street justice: Retaliation in the criminal underworld. New York: Cambridge University Press.
25.
JacobsB. A.WrightR. T. (1999). Stick-up, street culture and offender motivation. Criminology, 37, 149–174.
26.
JenningsW.PiqueroA.ReingleJ. (2012). On the overlap between victimization and offending: A review of the literature. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 17, 16–26.
27.
JohnsonR. M.KotchJ. B.CatellierD. J.WinsorJ. R.DufortV.HunterW.Amaya-JacksonL. (2002). Adverse behavioral and emotional outcomes from child abuse and witnessed violence. Child Maltreatment, 7, 179–186.
28.
KangJ. H.LynchJ. P. (in press). Calling the police in instances of family violence: Effects of victim–offender relationship and life stages. Crime & Delinquency. Retrieved fromhttp://cad.sagepub.com/content/early/2010/01/27/0011128709359655. doi:10.1177/0011128709359655.
29.
KaukinenC. (2002). The help-seeking decisions of violent crime victims. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 17, 432–456.
30.
KaukinenC. (2004). The help-seeking strategies of female violent-crime victims: The direct and conditional effects of race and the victim-offender relationship. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 19, 967–990.
31.
KilpatrickD. G.SaundersB. E. (1995). National survey of adolescents in the United States, [Computer file]. ICPSR02833-v1. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2009-02-25. doi:10.3886/ICPSR02833
32.
LatzmanR.SwisherR. (2005). The interactive relationship among adolescent violence, street violence, and depression. Journal of Community Psychology, 33, 355–371.
33.
LauritsenJ. L.LaubJ. H. (2007). Understanding the link between victimization and offending: New reflections on an old idea, Crime Prevention Studies: Surveying Crime in the 21st Century, 22, 55–76.
34.
LauritsenJ. L.QuinetK. F. D. (1995). Repeat victimization among adolescents and young adults. Journal of Quantitative Criminology, 11, 143–166.
35.
LosekeD. R. (2001). Lived realities and formula stories of ‘battered women.’ In GubriumJ. F.HolsteinJ. A. (Eds.), Institutional selves: Troubled identities in a postmodern world (pp. 107–126). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
36.
MenardS.HuizingaD. (2001). Repeat victimization in a high-risk neighborhood sample of adolescents. Youth & Society, 32, 447–472.
37.
NofzigerS.SteinR. (2006). To tell or not to tell: Lifestyle impacts on whether adolescents tell about violent victimization. Violence and Victims, 21, 371–382.
38.
SampsonR. J.LaubJ. H. (1993). Crime in the making: Pathways and turning points through life. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
39.
StataCorp. (2009). Stata statistical software: Release 11.1. College Station, TX: Author.
40.
TrumanJ. L. (2011). Criminal victimization, 2010. Washington, DC: Bureau of Justice Statistics, U.S. Department of Justice.
41.
UnneverJ. D.CornellD. G. (2004). Middle school victims of bullying: Who reports being bullied?Aggressive Behavior, 30, 373–388.
42.
WarrM. (1993). Age, peers, and delinquency. Criminology, 31, 17–40.
43.
WatkinsA. M. (2005). Examining the disparity between juvenile and adult victims in notifying the police: A study of mediating variables. Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency, 42, 333–353.
44.
WilkinsonD. L.CarrP. J. (2008). Violent youths’ responses to high levels of exposure to community violence: What viole0nt events reveal about youth violence. Journal of Community Psychology. Special Issue: Advances in Understanding Youth Violence, 36, 1026–1051.
45.
WongD.LokD.LoT.MaS. (2008). School bullying among Hong Kong Chinese primary schoolchildren. Youth & Society, 40, 35–54.
46.
ZaykowskiH. (in press). Reconceptualizing victimization and victimization responses. Crime & Delinquency, 1–22. Retrieved from http://cad.sagepub.com/content/early/2011/02/17/0011128711398022. doi:10.1177/0011128711398022.
