Victimization experience does matter: Testing the effect of different types of victimization on fear of crime among adolescents

Abstract

The aim of the present study is to thoroughly examine the relationship between adolescent fear of crime and a wide variety of offences which commonly affect children. The analysed data comes from the Urban Youth Victimization Survey conducted among 9th grade students in the Czech Republic. The results unequivocally demonstrate that victimization experience, when measured properly, substantially affects adolescent fear of crime. All analysed types of victimization are associated with fear of crime, though the strongest effects were found for cyber-victimization and bullying rather than conventional violent and property crimes. Furthermore, a poly-victimization scale was revealed to be a highly effective tool for capturing overall victimization by using a single summary measure.