The Victim-offender Overlap Within Prison: Are the Risks the Same for Being an Offender and Victim?

• In Event: The Pains of Imprisonment, Prisonization, and the Prison Subculture

Abstract

Historically, criminologists have examined offending and victimization in the community as separate outcomes. Recently, however, researchers have begun to explore the shared commonalities of being an offender and a victim. The victim-offender overlap literature shows that victimization and offending are not different and distinct outcomes, but rather these outcomes share numerous risk factors (Jennings, 2015). A close examination of the victim-offender overlap has not been done within the prison literature. Thus, it remains unclear whether there are shared commonalities among inmates who offend while incarcerated and those who experience victimization. The current study uses the Survey of Inmates in State and Federal Correctional Facilities 2004 to examine the factors that predict being a non-victim and a non-offender, a victim only, an offender only, or both a victim and offender in prison. Additionally, we examine whether the risk factors are the same across victim-offender type.

Authors

• Jane C. Daquin, Georgia State University

• Leah E. Daigle, Georgia State University