TY - JOUR
T1 - Opportunity theory and adolescent school-based victimization
AU - Augustine, Michelle Campbell
AU - Wilcox, Pamela
AU - Ousey, Graham C.
AU - Clayton, Richard R.
PY - 2002
Y1 - 2002
N2 - While school-based adolescent victimization has received a great deal of public attention, there exist relatively few theoretically driven studies aimed at explaining this phenomenon. We address this paucity by providing a test of a criminal opportunity model of school-based victimization using data on over 3,000 students from 40 different Kentucky middle and high schools. The effects of opportunity-related concepts are estimated for both violent and property victimization, and comparisons are made for each victimization type across middle- and high-school student subsamples. Findings suggest that criminal opportunity theory is relevant to the understanding of school-based victimization. In particular, indicators of exposure to crime and target antagonism appear to be robust predictors. Further, there appears to be substantial generalizability in the effects of opportunity-related variables across violent versus property victimization as well as across middle-school versus high-school contexts.
AB - While school-based adolescent victimization has received a great deal of public attention, there exist relatively few theoretically driven studies aimed at explaining this phenomenon. We address this paucity by providing a test of a criminal opportunity model of school-based victimization using data on over 3,000 students from 40 different Kentucky middle and high schools. The effects of opportunity-related concepts are estimated for both violent and property victimization, and comparisons are made for each victimization type across middle- and high-school student subsamples. Findings suggest that criminal opportunity theory is relevant to the understanding of school-based victimization. In particular, indicators of exposure to crime and target antagonism appear to be robust predictors. Further, there appears to be substantial generalizability in the effects of opportunity-related variables across violent versus property victimization as well as across middle-school versus high-school contexts.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=0036243585&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=0036243585&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1891/vivi.17.2.233.33643
DO - 10.1891/vivi.17.2.233.33643
M3 - Article
C2 - 12033557
AN - SCOPUS:0036243585
SN - 0886-6708
VL - 17
SP - 233
EP - 253
JO - Violence and victims
JF - Violence and victims
IS - 2
ER -