Privation and Vulnerability to Victimization for Canadian Youth: The Contexts of Gender, Race, and Geography

• NCJ Number: 207510
• Journal: Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice: An Interdisciplinary Journal Volume: 2 Issue: 4 Dated: October 2004 Pages: 359-373
• Author(s): Lauren Eisler; Bernard Schissel
• Date Published: October 2004
• Length: 15 pages
• Grant Number(s): 41-095-1532
• Sponsoring Agency: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This study explored the association between adolescent victimization and poverty among Canadian youth.

Abstract

Previous research on the relationship between poverty and youth victimization has relied on a “culture of poverty” thesis that claims that economically disadvantaged people live in disorganized communities and transmit their disadvantage to future generations. While the authors criticize this approach as implicating poor cultures in their own victimization, the authors do concur that certain groups have greater possibilities of criminal victimization as a result of their status, including economic class. The current study analyzed the effects of being poor on fear and victimization in school, noncriminal victimization outside of school, and overall criminal victimization in a sample of 2,605 high school students in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan. It was hypothesized that the relationship between victimization and poverty would be conditioned by race, gender, and geography. Data were drawn from the 1996 Saskatchewan Youth Attitudes Survey, which collected information from youths on their future plans, feelings of victimization, encounters with the juvenile justice system, self-reported delinquency, and engagement in risk taking behaviors, such as drug and alcohol use. Results of statistical analyses indicate that poverty is significantly associated with both psychic and physical victimization risk. Differences in victimization risk were discovered between boys and girls, non-Aboriginal and Aboriginal youth, and between youth living in urban, rural, and satellite communities. Overall, the findings indicate the complexity of the association between poverty and victimization and confirm that relative privation influences whether youth live in a context marked by fear and victimization. The degree and type of fear and victimization are conditioned, in part, by gender, geography, and race. Tables, references