Introduction

This Bulletin is part of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) Youth Development Series, which presents findings from the Program of Research on the Causes and Correlates of Delinquency. Teams at the University at Albany, State University of New York; the University of Colorado; and the University of Pittsburgh collaborated extensively in designing the studies. At study sites in Rochester, New York; Denver, Colorado; and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the three research teams have interviewed 4,000 participants at regular intervals for a decade, recording their lives in detail. Findings to date indicate that preventing delinquency requires accurate identification of the risk factors that increase the likelihood of delinquent behavior and the protective factors that enhance positive adolescent development.

Public opinion often supports the idea that offenders are vastly different from their victims—offenders inflict physical harm and cause property loss while victims are innocent bystanders. A proportion of victims no doubt fall into this category. However, another category of victims exists. These victims are more prone to (1) engage in illicit activities that cause conflict (e.g., belong to a gang, deal drugs, fence stolen goods), (2) associate with delinquent friends who have poor social and problem-solving skills, (3) victimize other delinquents, and (4) have little recourse to legal means of conflict resolution (e.g., the justice system). Analyses of juveniles who are killed or wounded by guns show that almost all of these juveniles had been highly delinquent themselves (Loeber et al., 1999).

Delinquency and victimization are often intertwined and mutually stimulate each other (Lauritsen, Laub, and Sampson, 1992; Simon, Dent, and Sussman, 1997; Singer, 1986; Thornberry and Figlio, 1974). Huizinga and Jakob-Chien (1998) reported that as the seriousness of offending increases, so does the probability of being violently victimized (49 percent of male serious, violent juvenile offenders were violently victimized compared with 12 percent of nondelinquents). This indicates that as the occurrence of delinquency increases in the juvenile population, the chances of victimization increase as well. Victimization, in turn, is thought to increase the risk of delinquent acts, particularly violent victimization and offending. In the most extreme cases, for example, when a gang member is killed or seriously wounded by a rival gang member, retaliation often takes place, followed by counterretaliation.

Knowledge of patterns and predictors of victimization could be beneficial in developing intervention strategies to reduce both offending and victimization. Few longitudinal studies on victimization, however, have provided insight into the predictors of victimization (see Esbensen, Huizinga, and Menard, 1999, for an exception). On the one hand, because delinquency and victimization often are intertwined, predictors of delinquency in general (e.g., coming from a low socioeconomic background, poor parental supervision) also may be expected to predict victimization. On the other hand, it may be expected that victimization can best be predicted by proximal risk factors (i.e., risk factors occurring close in time to the event), such as weapons carrying, drug dealing, and association with delinquent peers.

This Bulletin reports empirical findings on victimization from two sites of OJJDP’s Program of Research on the Causes and Correlates of Delinquency: Denver, CO, and Pittsburgh, PA. The longitudinal, multisite approach used by these studies makes it possible to answer a number of important questions concerning victimization involving serious injury. Specific questions addressed are (1) What is the prevalence of victimization involving serious injury in the general population? (2) What are the proximal and distal factors associated with becoming a victim who sustains a serious injury? (3) Which risk factors or combinations of risk factors best predict victimization involving serious injury? Throughout this Bulletin, the focus is on victims of assaults or robberies who sustained serious injuries as a result of the victimization. The terms “victim” and “victimization” will be used to refer to victimization involving serious injury.

Program of Research on the Causes and Correlates of Delinquency

The Program of Research on the Causes and Correlates of Delinquency is an example of OJJDP’s support of long-term research in a variety of fields. Initiated in 1986, the Causes and Correlates program includes three closely coordinated longitudinal projects: the Pittsburgh Youth Study, directed by Dr. Rolf Loeber at the University of Pittsburgh; the Rochester Youth Development Study, directed by Dr. Terence P. Thornberry at the University at Albany, State University of New York; and the Denver Youth Survey, directed by Dr. David Huizinga at the University of Colorado. The Causes and Correlates program represents a milestone in criminological research because it constitutes the largest shared-measurement approach ever achieved in delinquency research. From the beginning, the three research teams have worked together and have used similar measurement techniques, thus enhancing their ability to generalize their findings.

Although each of the three projects has unique features, they share several key elements:

  • All three are longitudinal investigations that involve repeated contacts with the same juveniles over a substantial portion of their developmental years.

  • In each study, researchers have conducted face-to-face interviews with adolescents in a private setting. By using self-report data rather than juvenile justice records, researchers have been able to come much closer to measuring actual delinquent behaviors and ascertaining the age at onset of delinquent careers.

  • Multiple perspectives on each child’s development and behavior are obtained through interviews with the child’s primary caretaker and teachers and from official school, police, and court records.

  • Participants are interviewed at regular and frequent intervals (6 or 12 months).

  • Sample retention has been high. As of 1997, more than 80 percent of the participants had been retained at each site, and the average retention rate across all interview periods was 90 percent.

  • The three sites have collaborated to use a common measurement package, collecting data on a wide range of variables that makes possible cross-site comparisons of similarities and differences.

Each project has disseminated the results of its research through a broad range of publications, reports, and presentations. In 1997, OJJDP initiated the Youth Development Series of Bulletins to present findings from the Causes and Correlates program. In addition to the present Bulletin, eight other Bulletins have been published in the Youth Development Series: Epidemiology of Serious Violence, Gang Members and Delinquent Behavior, In the Wake of Childhood Maltreatment, Developmental Pathways in Boys’ Disruptive and Delinquent Behavior, Family Disruption and Delinquency, Teenage Fatherhood and Delinquent Behavior, Co-occurrence of Delinquency and Other Problem Behaviors, and Gun Use by Male Juveniles: Research and Prevention.


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Juvenile Delinquency and Serious Injury Victimization Juvenile Justice Bulletin • August 2001