Victimization Risks at Leisure: A Gender-Specific Analysis

• NCJ Number: 175159
• Journal: Violence and Victims Volume: 13 Issue: 3 Dated: Fall 1998 Pages: 231-249
• Author(s): E E Mustaine; R Tewksbury
• Date Published: 1998
• Length: 19 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This study developed models of victimization risk for men and women in the domain of leisure/public activities and compared them under hypotheses developed from routine-activities theory.

Abstract

Routine activity theory posits that routine daily activities create criminal opportunity structure by increasing the frequency and intensity of contacts between motivated offenders and suitable victimization targets, and that the subjective value of a target, together with its level of guardianship, determines victim selection. This theoretical perspective incorporates both structural aspects of environments and contexts, as well as free will in explaining criminal victimization. The data for this study came from self-administered surveys conducted during the fall of 1996 with 956 college students in 9 post-secondary institutions in 8 States. The 95-item instrument assessed individual demographics, residential community characteristics and structures, transportation modes, employment information, social activity participation (including alcohol consumption), self-protective measures, fear of crime, self-report of illegal activities, and self-report victimization data. The dependent variable, criminal victimization in the leisure/public domain, was constructed by assessing whether a respondent had been a victim of a criminal offense and whether the respondent was interacting in the leisure/public domain at the time of the victimization. The study found strong support for the routine activity theory and for the formulation of more robust methodology. For all samples, variables that measured specific lifestyle behaviors were significant predictors of victimization in the leisure/public domain. Further, the study found that most of the variables that influenced the victimization risks of females and males in the leisure/public domain were different; however, these variable were clearly indicators of exposure to offenders, target suitability, and a lack of capable guardianship. The need for gender-specific models of victimization is clear. 4 tables, 14 notes, 42 references, and appended list of variable groupings