U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government, Department of Justice.

Victimization risk

Defining and Studying Elder Abuse Polyvictimization

January 2023

NIJ Social Science Analyst Yunsoo Park shares her knowledge about elder abuse, a widespread issue in the U.S. and around the world, particularly polyvictimization — the experience of a range of different types of abuse and maltreatment. As much as 11% of community-residing older adults experienced some form of abuse or mistreatment in the past year. Yunsoo discusses risk factors, difficulties in defining and studying elder abuse polyvictimization, and strategies for intervention and prevention. Stacy Lee Reynolds, a Communications Assistant with NIJ, hosts.

Delinquency, Victimization, and the Developing Brain: Results from the ABCD-Social Development Study

December 2020

The Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development – Social Development Study (ABCD-SD) is a longitudinal study on the relationship between the developing brain and delinquency and victimization. Supplementing ABCD brain and cognitive development measures, ABCD-SD protocol measures a wide array of delinquency- and victimization-related risks, protective factors and outcomes. These presentations will describe early adolescent findings from ABCD-SD on delinquency and victimization.

Violent Repeat Victimization: Prospects and Challenges for Research and Practice

April 2012

Research tells us that a relatively small fraction of individuals experience a large proportion of violent victimizations. Thus, focusing on reducing repeat victimization might have a large impact on total rates of violence. However, research also tells us that most violent crime victims do not experience more than one incident during a six-month or one-year time period. As a result, special policies to prevent repeat violence may not be cost-effective for most victims.

Benefit-Cost Analysis for Crime Policy

February 2011

How do we decide how to allocate criminal justice resources in a way that minimizes the social harms from both crime and policy efforts to control crime? How, for that matter, do we decide how much to spend on the criminal justice system and crime control generally, versus other pressing needs? These questions are at the heart of benefit-cost analysis.

Gang Membership Prevention

June 2010

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and NIJ collaborated on a book that focuses on promising principles for gang membership prevention. This NIJ Conference Panel discusses the risk and protective factors that influence gang membership as well as efforts to reduce such factors. Panelists also explored the direction of gang research for the future.