Victimization and Its Consequences over the Life Course

Abstract

One of the broadest and most interdisciplinary areas of research concerns victimization and its developmental consequences. Although a wealth of literature has been produced, it remains siloed across multiple fields, including criminology, sociology, psychology, education, social work, and public health, with such work rarely crossing disciplinary boundaries. The fragmentation of scholarship along disciplinary lines makes it difficult to recognize common findings or to solve shared theoretical, methodological, or policy problems. To remedy these issues, the multidisciplinary research on the sources and consequences of victimization should be synthesized through the lens of the life-course paradigm and couched within a developmental ecological framework. Across early life, childhood, adolescence, emerging adulthood, adulthood to midlife, and old age, the sources and consequences of victimization are multilevel and complex. Some stages of the life course are more understudied than others, and the literature is not immune from measurement issues, concerns of spuriousness and selection, and unexplained variation. And while conceptual and methodological challenges remain, theory and policy can be enhanced through embracing life-course victimology. Research can advance by unifying opportunity and vulnerability perspectives on victimization through a context-contingent approach, emphasizing age-graded changes in autonomy over the life span and placing more focus on heterogeneity in the sources and consequences of victimization across individuals, life stages, and generational cohorts.