Measuring the Relationship Between Adolescent Violent Victimization and Adult Spouse Assault Victimization

• In Event: Victimization over the Life Course

Abstract

It is widely recognized that there are important temporal connections in victimization experiences across the lifespan. As with criminal offending data collected over time, there is evidence of both continuity and change. Yet there are significant challenges involved in measuring and summarizing victimization linkages with survey data when the same people are followed over long periods of time. In this paper, I consider the analytical bounds on continuity and change parameter estimates when some of the people originally involved in the survey drop out as they transition from adolescence to adulthood. A significant feature of the analysis is that point estimates of continuity and change parameters will only be attainable when we make strong identifying assumptions. Weaker assumptions, however, will allow us to develop interval estimates which exchange precision for credibility. I illustrate these issues using adolescent and adult victimization data from the National Youth Survey.

Author

• Bobby Brame, University of Maryland