The Effects of Adolescent Criminal and Relational Victimization on Mental Health

• In Event: Mental Health, Help Seeking, and Victimization

Abstract

Criminal and relational victimization in adolescence are prevalent and harmful stressors that, when coupled with the precocious developmental period of adolescence, can be damaging to the wellbeing of youth. Criminal victimization peaks among adolescents and young people and bullying affects roughly 40% of UK youth a year making victimization a prevalent threat to the wellbeing of adolescents. Adolescent victimization has long been connected to multiple dimensions of poor mental health such as suicidality, depression, anxiety, self-harm, and PTSD. Building upon this foundation, I explore the effects of criminal victimization and relational victimization at age 14 on psychological distress, self-harm, and suicidality at age 17 to identify the unique influences of victimization that is criminal in nature and victimization that harms or threatens peer relationships. I use prospective data from the Millennium Cohort Study, a nationally representative, longitudinal UK cohort study to consider how victimization experiences can carry through adolescence and how different age 14 victimization experiences (criminal and relational) can differently influence age 17 psychological distress, suicidality, and self-injury. I hypothesize that both criminal and relational victimization will be related to poor mental health, though there will be differences by victimization type.

Author

• Camille Figueroa, Pennsylvania State University