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The Criminal Victimization of Children and Women in International Perspective

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Women and Children as Victims and Offenders: Background, Prevention, Reintegration

Abstract

In this article we will present an overview of the results of the national and international crime victims surveys regarding the distribution of victimization according to age and gender with a focus on violent crime. The results show a consistent inversed relationship between age and criminal victimization by all types of crime. Children are by far the most at risk to be victimized by criminal violence of all age groups. The violence is in large part committed by parents or other caretakers. The relationship between gender and victimization is less straightforward. Men are more exposed to various types of non-sexual violence by strangers, including homicide. Women are more exposed to sexual violence. Exposure to non-sexual violence by intimates is less strongly gendered than sexual violence by intimates according to the results of dedicated surveys on domestic violence among males and females. Cross-national analyses suggest that violence by intimates against females is most prevalent in countries where gender equality is low. However, self-reported victimization rates of violence against women by intimates are also relatively high in countries where gender equality is the highest, such as Scandinavian countries. This paradoxical result seems due to increased sensitivity to acts of less serious violence among female respondents in the latter countries. The various findings concerning the distribution of victimization risks across age and gender are interpreted with lifestyle-exposure theory and feminist perspectives on violence.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In recent versions of many general victimization surveys questions have been added on victimization by internet-based crime. These surveys show that victimization by internet-based crime such as viruses and cyber bullying is most prevalent among the youngest age group (16–24 years) and decreases with age (e.g. Smith et al. 2006).

  2. 2.

    Pilot studies had shown that very few male respondents mention serious incidents of sexual victimization and that the item caused problems for the interviewers in some countries.

  3. 3.

    In England/Wales a module attached to the national crime survey interviews young children between 10 and 15 years old about crime with a questionnaire that mirrors the one used for adults (Smith et al. 2006). No questions are asked about violence by parents. The experimental results show that 6.9 % of children aged 10–15 had experienced a violent crime in the last 12 months. Boys were around twice as likely as girls to have been victimized (9.5 and 4.1 % respectively). Around 3.1 % of adults had experienced a violent crime in the last year.

  4. 4.

    Special surveys on sexual attacks in the USA confirm the pervasiveness of sexual violence against women. In the USA nearly 1 in 5 (18.3 %) women and 1 in 71 men (1.4 %) reported experiencing rape at some time in their lives (Black et al. 2011).

  5. 5.

    In Denmark questions on partner violence have been included in the National Health Interview Surveys since 2005. In the 2010 NHIS 1.5 % of women and 0.5 % of men reported having been exposed to physical partner violence in the last year. The Danish findings indicate a decrease of partner violence against women and an increase of partner violence against men in recent years (Helweg-Larsen 2012).

  6. 6.

    In the Netherlands shelter facilities for male victims of domestic violence were provided for the first time in 2008 (Nanhoe 2011). In most other countries such services are still rarely available. The belated provision of services for male victims of crime may well have been the result of a cultural taboo concerning male victimization by intimate partners (Nanhoe 2011).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Tilburg, Tilburg, The Netherlands

    Jan Van Dijk

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  1. Jan Van Dijk
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Correspondence to Jan Van Dijk .

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  1. Heuweiler, Germany

    Helmut Kury

  2. Faculty of Law, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria

    SÅ‚awomir Redo

  3. Zurich, Switzerland

    Evelyn Shea

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Van Dijk, J. (2016). The Criminal Victimization of Children and Women in International Perspective. In: Kury, H., Redo, S., Shea, E. (eds) Women and Children as Victims and Offenders: Background, Prevention, Reintegration. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-08398-8_16

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-08398-8_16

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