The victimization of Juveniles

This paper reports on the first victimization study of juveniles carried out in Britain. Schoolchildren aged eleven to fifteen completed a questionnaire which included a section on five victimization incidents and a section in which the child was asked to report his own delinquent behavior. As in an earlier American study, the rate of victimization was extremely high, but only a low proportion of incidents were reported to the police. However, the most vic timized respondents appeared more likely to have reported at least one offense to the police, a finding which corresponds with the conclusions reached in many self-report delinquency studies.

The study was expected to confirm findings, from the wider research project -namely, that area of residence correlated closely with victimization rates. However, in the case of juveniles, neither this nor social class was related to victimization, although two other variables-sex and offender status-were. The article concludes with an exploratory discussion of theoretical issues rele vant to the study of victimology.