Poly-victimization Reaches Adolescence

Looking Back and ..Moving Forward

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Acknowledgements

The webinar is supported through grant number 2016-XV-GX-K006, awarded by the Office for Victims of Crime, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. The opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this presentation are those of the contributors and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

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PRESENTER

Yahayra Michel is an Assistant Teaching Professor at the University of Massachusetts-Lowell. She teaches courses on Child Maltreatment, Statistics, Research Methods and CJ Systems in the School of Criminology and Justice Studies. Her research interests include childhood victimization, juvenile delinquency and intimate-partner violence. She has a B.A in Psychology, a B.S. in Criminal Justice and an M.A in Criminal Justice and Criminology from the University of Massachusetts-Lowell. She has also been awarded an M.A in Theological Studies by MINTS (Miami International Seminary) and a PhD in Sociology the University of New Hampshire. Yahayra has been involved in studies or projects that focus on the prevention of sexual violence on college campuses, juvenile prostitution, witnessing parental physical aggression, partner assault, dyadic patterns of conflict and corporal punishment. Her main objective is to be a part of and advance the discourse on childhood victimization in order to positively affect social policies and public health practices.

Poly-victimization Reaches Adolescence:Looking Back and Moving Forward

2007 to 2017 10 to 17-year olds

Inform the Research Community Inform Practitioners and Policy Makers

Systematic Literature Review Survey Research

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But first, a little assessment On a scale of 1 to 10, how much do you think you know/understand about poly-victimization?

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Before We Begin…..A Moment for Reflection

What are poly-victims?If asked to define this subcategory of victimized children, how would you define it?

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Why Victimization…..

Why Victimization? (general)• Adverse effects → short and long term

• Anxiety

• Depression

• PTSD

• Psychiatric diagnoses

• Cognitive difficulties

• Social competence problems

• Aggressive/delinquent behaviors

Why Childhood Victimization?

• Childhood victimization is not just a localized problem, but a global, public health issue

• Even when not directly targeted, children are exposed to a variety of victimizations

• Many are chronically exposed to violence

• Effects spill over into adulthood

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Why multiple victimization?

Why Multiple victimization?

• Victimizations co-occur

• Dose-response

Why Poly-victimization?

• For some children, victimization has become a condition rather than an event

• Endure the highest burden of victimization

• Condition persists over time

• “Worse off”

Why multiple victimization of Juveniles?

“Most criminally victimized people in society”

2 x 3 → Rape, Robbery and Aggravated Assault

3x → Simple Assault

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Focus of this presentation…..

HOW IT HAS BEEN STUDIED

HOW PREVALENT IT IS WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT ITS ADVERSE EFFECTS

HOW WE CAN RESPOND TO IT

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What poly-victims are not…..

• One of the most important things a researcher must do is ensure that the consumer of his/her research is accurately capturing the conceptual argument he/she is making…..

• Repeat-Victim → physically assaulted at school multiple times → frequency

• Chronic-Victim → emotional and physical needs are ignored by caregiver from 6 to 10 →duration

• Multiple-Victim →physically assaulted and neglected → types/forms

• Poly-Victim →greatest number of different types→ diversity

Focus Area #1

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Figure 1. Number of poly-victimization articles published by year in English and Spanish (2007 to 2017)

53

Total: 267 Articles

*4,918 citations*2,953 articles*91% NOT self citations*Finkelhor 2007 = 557x (46 per year)

51

37

40

29

20

13

6

10

35

Goal/Focus: Synthesize poly-victimization articles published from 2007 to 2017 and identify knowledge gaps that can help move the field forward.

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59

(267)

(139)In titles & Abstracts

-7 Not Empirical

Commentaries and literature reviews (e.g. family violence, elder abuse and complex trauma.

Randomly Selected + Deviance/Delinquency

Poly-victim* OR polyvictim*

48% reduction

-2 Referenced, not

tested

-1 Correction

-2 Not Individual

Level of measurement, NOT individual (e.g. poly-location and family poly-victimization)

127

9% reduction 46% reduction

-12 articles

Figure 2. Flow diagram for Literature Review

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But first, Some descriptives….

59 peer reviewed articles

11 different victimization instruments → JVQ (46%)

Original data collected between 1995 and 2016

14 nations → US (55%)

Published in 33 different journals

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How has pv been tested?

46 (79%) focused on testing the effect of

PV (PV as independent variable)

8 exclusively descriptive

2 PV as dependent variable

2 PV as control variable

2 PV as moderating variable

1 PV as mediating variable

How has poly-victimization been studied…((Types of Research))

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How has poly-victimization been studied……. ((Design)) Among studies who have tested the effects of poly-victimization

84% quantitative studies 80% cross-sectional

Table 7: Summary Table of Longitudinal Studies

StudyLongitudinal

Analysis

Type of Longitudinal

Analysis

Andrews et al., 2015 no n/a

Beck et al., 2014 no n/a

Betts et al., 2013 no n/a

Burns et al., 2016 no n/a

Cinamon, Muller & Rosenkranz no n/a

Comasco, et al., 2015 yes panel

Cuevas, et al., 2009 no n/a

Farrell & Zimmerman, 2017 yes panel

Finkelhor, Ormond, & Turner, 2007 yes panel

Leach, Stewart & Smallbone, 2016 yes cohort

Turner et al., 2012 yes panel

N=9N=3

Table 6: Summary Table of Mixed Method Studies

StudySample

SizeSample Type Design 1 Design 2 Design 3

Bender et al., 2014 145street-involved

youth

Qualitative

InterviewsSurvey na

Blain et al., 2012 182

men reporting

compulsive sexual

behavior

Qualitative

InterviewsSurvey na

DeHart & Moran,

2010 100 delinquent girls

Life History

Calendar Survey

Archival

Records

Even among the studies that employed a longitudinal design, cross sectional analyses were presented.

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How has poly-victimization been studied….((Sample))Among studies who have tested the effects of poly-victimization

• Nationally representative samples

• High school students

• Adolescents receiving MH services

• Homeless youth

• University students

• Female sex workers

• Latino women

• Child welfare involved youth

• Gender minority adolescents

• Adolescents most common participants 68%

• Used probability sampling techniques 22%

• Slight majority were non-clinical samples 57%

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88%

Self- report

65%

Self-administered

43%

adult retrospective

8%

proxy interviews

< 2%

multiple informants

How has poly-victimization been studied….((Data Collection))Among studies who have tested the effects of poly-victimization

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Table 8 Summary of Instruments Used

Victimization Instrument n Percent

JVQ-Juvenile Victimization Questionnaire 22 47.8%

CTS-Conflict Tactic Scales 2 4.3%

Bullying and Friendship Interview Schedule 1 2.2%

LITE-Life Incidence of Traumatic Events Scale 1 2.2%

CTQ-Childhood Trauma Questionnaire 2 4.3%

CIDI-Composite International Diagnostic Interview 1 2.2%

Trauma History Profile 1 2.2%

UCLA PTSD Index 1 2.2%

TVH-Lifetime Trauma and Victimization History Instrument) 1 2.2%

ESI-Traumatic Experiences Screening Instruments) 1 2.2%

MINI (Mini International Neuropsychiatry Interview) 1 2.2%

UIVS-University of Illinois Victimization Scale) 1 2.2%

Client Assessment and Risk Evaluation 1 2.2%

Briere’s Childhood Maltreatment Interview Schedule 1 2.2%

ABI-Shepard and Campbell's Abusive Behavior Inventory 1 2.2%

Koss and Oro's Sexual Experience Survey 1 2.2%

Trauma Assessment for Adults-Self Report 1 2.2%

ROME-Record of Maltreatment Experience 1 2.2%

LVTH-Lifetime Trauma and Victimization History Instruments 1 2.2%

WHO-Violence Against Women Questionnaire 1 2.2%

HCAT-Homophobic Content Agent Target Scale 1 2.2%

AAUW-Sexual Harassment Survey 1 2.2%

TESI-Traumatic Experiences Screening Instrument 1 2.2%

How has poly-victimization been studied….((Instruments))Among studies who have tested the effects of poly-victimization

Focus Area # 2 Focus Area #2

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Prevalence Rates…..((based on systematic Literature Review))

• 10%(py) to 66% (lt)

• Clinical samples have greater rates

• LT rates greater than py

• Boys greater than girls

• But beyond that……

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How has poly-victimization been Conceptualized?

• “Experiencing an above average number of different victimizations” (Alvarez-Lister, 2017)

• “Simultaneously experiencing several different kinds of victimizations in separate incidents (Dehart & Moran, 2015)

• “Total number of different kinds of victimization” (Soler, 2012)

• “High cumulative levels of victimization”

• Mis-conceptualizations• “someone who has experienced cyber victimization and psychological intimate partner violence”• “peer-poly-victimization” → “multiple types of victimization at school”• “experiencing child maltreatment and witnessing intimate partner violence”• “more than on type of victimization”

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Warning: Operationalization of poly-victimization

Sum of Items = Poly-Victimization

2 past-year Most common 4 10

2 2 Lifetime Most common >1 15

15

Only one study used an age-graded approach

Only four differentiated between low and poly-victims12 studies used top 10%

Cut-Off Score = Poly-Victim

What are poly-victims?

Back to the beginning……

How did your definition of poly-victimization compare to the state of the literature?

Prevalence RatesSurvey Research

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Table 13. Study Descriptives for a National Sample of 0 to 17-year-olds by

Iteration of the National Survey of Children’s Exposure to Violence

NatSCEV-1 NatSCEV-2 NatSCEV-3

Years Data Collected Overall 2008 2011 2014

Sample Size (n) 13052 4549 4503 4000

100.0% 34.8% 34.5% 30.6%

Language

English (%) 95.3 93.9 96.5 96.0

Spanish (%) 4.7 6.1 3.5 4.0

Sampling Frame Residential

Only

Residential

& Cellular

Residential

& Cellular

Race/Ethnicity White, non-Hisp (%) 65.5 53.6 68 76.4

Black, non-Hisp (%) 13.9 20.5 11.9 8.5

Hispanic (%) 15.1 20.7 13.7 10.3

Other (%) 5.5 5.3 6.4 4.8

Household Financial Resources More than $100,000 (%) 25.9 18.6 25.2 34.8

$50,000 to $100,000 (%) 33.0 31.5 32.6 35.2

Less than $50,000 (%) 41.1 49.9 42.2 30.0

Public Assistance (%) 24.1 28.4 24.7 18.6

Number of Children in Household One (%) 37.4 38.8 39.1 33.9

More than one (%) 62.6 61.2 60.9 66.1

Parental Interview

Biological Mother (%) 66.8 67.4 67.4 65.4

Biological Father (%) 21.8 20.8 20.4 24.5

Grandmother (%) 4.5 4.6 4.2 4.4

Respondent Type Proxy Interviews (0 to 9-year-olds) 51.2 53.9 48.7 51.0

Self-Reports (10 to 17-year-olds) 48.8 46.1 51.3 49.0

Response Rate (%) 50.7 44.6 29.4

Number of Victimization Items 48 52 58

• Integration of three versions of the National Survey of Children’s Exposure to Violence (NatSCEV)

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Table 20 Lifetime Poly-victimization Among a National Sample of 10 to 17-Years.

All (n=6366)

n %

Age (Pearson correlation) (.20, < .000)

Genderns

Overall 724 15.5%

Male 340 14.7%

Female 384 16.3%

Race/Ethnicity***

White, non-Hispanic 424 13.4%

Black, non-Hispanic 133 22.1%

Other, non-Hispanic 46 20.5%

Hispanic, any race 117 17.6%

Total Household Income***

Less than $20,000 134 23.5%

$20,000 to $50,000 206 19.8%

More than $50,000 346 12.4%

Receiving Financial Assistance*** 193 23.4%

Family Composition***

Two-parent household 312 10.2%

Parent and step-parent 119 26.2%

Single parent 232 24.6%

Other adult 61 30.5%

➢ Measurement Decisions…

➢ 14 cut-off score➢ 1 SD above mean ➢ 44 items

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Summary of descriptive statistics (Bivariate)

• Race → Least likely among White, Non-Hispanics

• Income → Least less likely among high income families (> S100.000)

• Family Structure → Least likely in two-parent households

• Poverty → Significantly more common among families that receive financial assistance

• Afterschool Program → Significantly less likely among kids who participate in afterschool programs

• Age → Poly-victims are more likely to be older

• School Performance →More likely to be “below average” and less likely to “like school”

• Social Support →Not entirely consistent, but less likely to have social support (friends and/or family)

Focus Area #3

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Adverse effects of poly-victimization

• Psycho-social problems

• Psychological distress

• Deliberate self-harm

• Suicidal ideation

• Psychological impairment

• Trauma-related mental health symptoms

• Alcohol misuse

• Lower self-esteem

• PTSD

• Dissociation

• Depression

• Anger expression

• Abandonment concerns

• Academic problems

• Deviant behavior/delinquency***

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Is the effect of poly-victimization complex? Does it vary by gender? Does it depend on the type of offense perpetrated?

• Goal/Focus: Move beyond exploring the effect of poly-victimization on delinquency overall and evaluate its effect on sub-categories of delinquency.

Poly-Victimization

▪ Any Delinquency ▪ Property▪ Personal (Assault)▪ Psychological▪ Truancy▪ Weapons Possession

Gender

CONTROLSAge

GenderRaceSES

Family StructureLifetime AdversityConduct Disorder

Community Disorder

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Is the effect of poly-victimization complex? Does it vary by gender? Does it depend on the type of offense perpetrated?

• Goal/Focus: Move beyond exploring the effect of poly-victimization on delinquency overall and evaluate its effect on sub-categories of delinquency.

Poly-Victimization

▪ Any Delinquency ▪ Property▪ Personal (Assault)▪ Psychological▪ Truancy▪ Weapons Possession

Gender

CONTROLSAge

GenderRaceSES

Family StructureLifetime AdversityConduct Disorder

Community Disorder

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Is the effect of poly-victimization complex? Does it vary by gender? Does it depend on the type of offense perpetrated?

• Goal/Focus: Move beyond exploring the effect of poly-victimization on delinquency overall and evaluate its effect on sub-categories of delinquency.

Poly-Victimization

▪ Any Delinquency ▪ Property▪ Personal (Assault)▪ Psychological▪ Truancy▪ Weapons Possession

Gender

CONTROLSAge

GenderRaceSES

Family StructureLifetime AdversityConduct Disorder

Community Disorder

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Overall, PV were 2.2 to 8.6 more likely to engage in delinquency than a non-poly-victim.

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Does poly-victimization predict increased levels of delinquency above and beyond any single form of childhood victimization?

Poly-Victimization Last

• Step 1: Controls

• Step 2: Victimization (by type)

• Step 3: Poly-Victimization (additional variance explained)

Goal/Focus: Test the stability (robustness) of poly-victimization as a predictor of delinquency

CONTROLSAge

GenderRaceSES

Family StructureLifetime AdversityConduct Disorder

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Summarizing results….

• Victimization → Increased Probability of Delinquency 5x-increase

• As victimization experience increases, so does delinquent behavior

• No matter what type of delinquency

• No matter what gender

• With and without controls

• Poly-victimization was not just a PERSISTENT predictor of delinquency, but the STRONGEST

• There is still a great deal of variance not explained

Focus Area #4

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Policy/Practical implications

• Broad/Multi-prong approach• Prevention programs that help teach skills for coping

with prior victimization • Family-based interventions, not just individual• Risk and Protective Factors• Social network and parent-child relationships

• Complexity of outcomes may require longer treatment plans and follow up services (Greger, 2015)

• Connecting Youth with Positive Resources• “No safe-have” Increase availability of “safe spaces”

• Trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy

• Target mediating variables**

• Early intervention

• Better Screening Processes and Instruments

• Broadly assess victimization and violence exposure• Develop Assessment Tool to Recommend to practitioners

• Collaboration and Partnerships• Information sharing• Coordinated treatment plans• Screening for chronic victimization should become common

practice in schools, courts and clinical settings

• Professional training

• Blended treatment• Address delinquency in victimization programs• Address victimization in delinquency programs

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Wrapping it up, On a scale of 1 to 10, how much do you think you know/understand about poly-victimization?

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Reflective questions

• Do your day to day practices/interventions address the needs of poly-victims?

• How detailed is your intake process? Does the system/form you use allow you to identify a poly-victim?

• How can we modify what we have to be able to do that?

• What are those 5, 6, 7 additional questions we can ask to make this happen?

• Does your program/intervention/agency target a range of victimizations?

• If not, is there a way to develop a functional network to address the varied needs of our clients?