The Cessation of Violent Victimization: A Study of Developmental and Personal Antecedents

• In Event: Victimization Experiences from Childhood through Early Adulthood

Abstract

Developmental/life course criminology has focused on criminal desistance in order to enhance policy and theoretical understandings of crime (Laub and Sampson 2001). Yet surprisingly little focus has been given to describing or explaining changes in victimization over the life course, especially its cessation. The limited research on victimization cessation illustrates that marriage and employment are both associated with victimization cessation in emerging adulthood, though in opposite directions (Daigle, Beaver and Hartman 2008). However, scholarship has neglected other role transitions as well as cessation in intimate partner violent victimization. The current study uses four waves of data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health to examine the social roles and personal characteristics related to the cessation of street and intimate partner violent victimization in adulthood. I predict that social roles that reduce exposure to risky behaviors and public activities will promote the cessation of street victimization. Additionally, I predict that factors that remove people from risky relationships or improve relationship quality will promote cessation of intimate partner violent victimization. Results from multinomial logistic regressions demonstrate partial support for these predictions. Findings have significant implications for developmental victimology research.

Author

• Jessica Ziegler, Bowling Green State University