Co-Occurrence of Violence Victimization and Perpetration Among High School Students: Implications for Policies, Programs, and Research

Background:  Past research has established that adolescents experience dating and/or sexual violence at high rate in their lives.  A growing number of studies on youth violence have found that polyvictimization and polyperpetration are common among this population .  For instance, youth victimized in physical dating violence were found to be significantly more likely victimized in other ways, including maltreatment by adults and various types of sexual violence including rape (Hamby et al., 2012).  While research on violence polyvictimization and polyperpetration among youth is increasing, there is dearth of information about how youth experience violence as victims and as perpetrators simultaneously.  The current study explored co-occurrence of violence victimization and perpetration among high school students, including physical dating violence, psychological dating violence, sexual violence, sexual harassment, stalking, and bullying.

Methods:  This study was conducted as part of a randomized control trial evaluating the effects of a primary prevention program in reducing rates of violence among high school students.  The sample included 15,772 youth in 9^th through 12 grade collected in 26 schools throughout one state.  The measures assessed frequency of victimization and perpetration of six types of violence, including physical dating violence, psychological dating violence, sexual violence, sexual harassment, stalking, and bullying.  Items were dichotomized to create variables indicating either experience or non-experience of each type of violence.  To visually display the interconnectedness of all types of violence experienced, the variables were plotted using the NetDraw visualization program in UCINET, a social network analysis software.  Non-metric multi-dimensional scaling (MDS) was used to project a pattern of similarities among violence types.

Results:  Students reported higher rates of victimization overall, with sexual harassment at 35.6% (n=5,614) being the highest and physical dating violence at 10.3% (n=1,627) being the lowest report of victimization. For perpetration, the most report was for psychological dating violence at 17.1% (n=2,704) and the least was for stalking at 6.2% (n=971).  The network plot of victimization and perpetration displayed stronger ties among multiple types of victimization, indicating higher rates of co-occurrence of violence victimization among respondents.  The MDS scatter plot displayed a close clustering of psychological dating violence perpetration and victimization, stalking victimization, sexual harassment victimization, and sexual violence victimization.  The close proximity of violence types is an indication that these experiences are similarly shared by respondents. 

Implications: The study revealed that respondents who are psychologically abusive to their dates are likely be psychologically abused by their dates, stalked, sexually harassed, and sexually assaulted.  While traditional policies and programs address either victimization or perpetration separately, innovation that incorporates both experiences may be necessary to address complexity of real life situations for youth.  More research is needed to further understand the relationship between victimization and perpetration of violence.  Findings from this study will be used to examine differing prevention program effects for adolescents whose backgrounds include various forms of violence.

Hamby, S., Finkelhor, D., & Turner, H. (2012). Teen dating violence: Co-occurrence with other victimizations in the National Survey of Children's Exposure to Violence (NatSCEV). Psychology of Violence, 2(2), 111-124.