The Relationship Between Individual Disposition and Social Context in Criminal Offending and Victimization: A Storyline Approach

The purposes of the proposed research are: 1) to examine the relationship between individual disposition (nature/character) and social context in criminal offending and victimization, and 2) examine this relationship in understudied crime locations ' in this study, leisure establishments (i.e., bars and nightclubs). The data come from a 2004 NIJ funded study entitled 'Exploring the Drugs-Crime Connection within the Electronic Dance Music and Hip-Hop Nightclub Scenes.' Using the storyline approach (of crime and victimization for each respondent), the project will examine how individual-level factors such as family structure, peer networks, and identity formation place individuals at differential risk for involvement in physical and sexual assault, both as offenders and as victims. Causal connections will then be made, allowing for the creation of explanatory models of offending, victimization, or offending-victimization.
nca/ncf