A reexamination of the Victim-Offender Overlap from a General Strain Theory Perspectives

• In Event: Roundtable: Stigmatization and Victimization in Criminal Justice Environments

Abstract

General Strain Theory (GST) is used to examine age and gender patterns in the victim-offender overlap in a representative sample of youth from the National Survey of Children's Exposure to Violence II dataset. This dataset includes nuanced measures of victimization providing the opportunity to unpack the victim-offender relationship more fully than in previous work using the Add Health data. Results show that GST is partially supported. Conventional crime victimization emerges as a predictor of offending with anger mediating a portion of the relationship. Other types of victimization, such as vicarious and child abuse, predict offending for some age/gender groups, but not others. Implications for furthering our understanding of the victim-offender overlap in a theoretical context are discussed, and policy implications are explored.

Authors

• Cesar Rebellon, University of New Hampshire

• Erika Gebo, Suffolk University

• Heather Turner, University of New Hampshire