National Survey Shines a Light on the Nature and Scope of Teen Dating Violence

• NCJ Number: 250578
• Date Published: February 2017
• Length: 2 pages
• Grant Number(s): 2011-WG-BX-0020
• Agencies: NIJ
• Publication Type: Survey; Report (Study/Research); Report (Grant Sponsored)

Annotation

This report summarizes the findings and methodology of the National Survey of Teen Relationships and Intimate Violence (STRIV), which is the first effort to provide a comprehensive national portrait of teen dating violence with detailed measurements of both who perpetrates such violence and who has been victimized.

Abstract

The study found that approximately two-thirds of youth (ages 12-18) who were in a dating relationship or had been in one in the past year reported they had been victimized (69 percent) or perpetrated violence (63 percent). Psychological abuse was the most common type of abuse victimization reported (just over 60 percent); and there were also substantial rates of sexual abuse (18 percent) and physical abuse victimization (18 percent). Consistent with other adolescent relationship abuse research, there was significant overlap between victimization and perpetration; 84 percent of victims also perpetrated abuse. Participants were recruited from an already-established independent online survey research panel that included a large nationally representative group of youth and their parents/caregivers. The survey sample at the start of the study consisted of 2,354 parent-child pairs, who were mostly White (56 percent) or Hispanic (24 percent). One year later, an abbreviated parent-caregiver survey and similar youth survey were administered to 1,471 parent-child pairs (62.5 percent of the original sample).