Incidences and Occurences of Future Types of Victimization in Adolescents

Abstract

This paper aimed to describe the differences between lifetime and past-year victimizations, to investigate the correlations between the victimizations in two different moments (lifetime and in the past year), and to investigate the influence of lifetime victimization on the occurrence of past-year victimization. Participants were 426 students, aged between 12 to 18 years, from primary and secondary public schools in Goiania (Brazil). 54.2% (N = 231) were female and 45.8% (N = 195) were male. The mean age of participants was 13.87 years (SD = 1.33; Mean = 14 years). The results showed that lifetime victimizations tend to be higher than in the year before. The correlations between past-year and lifetime victimizations were significant and positive (p < 0.000), indicating that both follow the same direction, namely, increasing victimization at a given time coincides with increasing victimization at another time. It should also be noted that among all victimizations, peer victimization tends to achieve the highest probability of repetition (61.8%), followed by sexual victimization (55.6%), conventional crime (47.4%), witnessing (46.1%), and maltreatment (45.5%). The positive correlations and regressions indicate positive relationships between the type of victimization, and lifetime occurrences influence past-year occurrences. Therefore, investigating past-year victimization can be considered a good predictor of the next-year occurrence of victimization.