Untangling offending and victimization: a comparative study of the victim-offender overlap

A growing body of research reveals that there is an overlap between offenders and victims. That is, they share similar demographic and individual-level characteristics, are often involved with both offending and victimization, and their experiences can adequately be predicted by the same set of variables. While this literature is growing, there is still little known about the generality of the victim-offender overlap. This dissertation uses data from the second International Self-Report Delinquency Study (ISRD-II), a large (over 50,000 cases) school-based sample of adolescents in grades 7-9, to investigate the generality of the overlap among offending and victimization. Using six clusters of countries representing different national contexts, the results indicate that the overlap between offenders and victims is a general phenomenon, existing in all of the national settings under examination in this dissertation. Regardless of national context, offenders and victims have higher mean levels of risk factors and lower mean levels of protective factors than non-offenders/non-victims, especially overlappers who experience both offending and victimization. There are some differences across national context regarding the strength of the overlap and the ability of theories to predict the overlap. However, these contingencies do not emerge in a consistent or clear manner and future research is needed to expand upon these findings. While the strength of the theft overlap was strongest in the market-oriented context this was not the case for violence. Also contrary to expectations, family bonding was a powerful predictor of the overlap across cultures and even emerges, in some cases, as a more powerful predictor in market-oriented cultures when compared to family-oriented cultures indicating the importance of the family in preventing harm in several disparate contexts. The existence of a victim-offender overlap has several implications for criminological theory as well as public policy. Programs and policies that interrupt and intervene on violence and theft are likely to be among the most profitable in reducing offending and victimization.