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Biomedical subjects

David Finkelhor

Publications and source records attributed to David Finkelhor.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed2007

Poly-victimization: a neglected component in child victimization.

OBJECTIVE: To assess the role of multiple victimization, or what is termed in this article "poly-victimization," in explaining trauma symptomatology. METHOD: In a nationally representative sample of 2,030 children ages 2-17, assessment was made of the past year's victimization experiences and recent trauma symptoms. RESULTS: Children experiencing four or more different kinds of victimization in a single year (poly-victims) comprised 22% of the sample. Poly-victimization was highly predictive of trauma symptoms, and when taken into account, greatly reduced or eliminated the association between individual victimizations (e.g., sexual abuse) and symptomatology. Poly-victims were also more symptomatic than children with only repeated episodes of the same kind of victimization. CONCLUSION: Researchers and practitioners need to assess for a broader range of victimizations, and avoid studies and assessments organized around a single form of victimization.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2006

Kid's stuff: the nature and impact of peer and sibling violence on younger and older children.

OBJECTIVE: It is widely presumed that when children are hit by peers or siblings, it is not as serious as similar acts between adults or older youth, which would be termed, "assaults" and "violent crimes". The goal of this study was to compare the violent peer and sibling episodes of younger children to those of older youth in terms of their seriousness and association with symptoms that might indicate traumatic effects. METHOD: The study collected reports of past year's violent victimizations and childhood symptoms in a national probability telephone sample of 2030 children and youth ages 2-17. The experiences of 10-17-year olds were obtained via self-reports and those of the 2-9-year olds from caregivers. RESULTS: The younger children's peer and sibling victimizations were not less serious than the older youth on the dimensions of injury, being hit with an object that could cause injury or being victimized on multiple occasions. Younger children and older youth also had similar trauma symptom levels associated with both peer and sibling victimization. CONCLUSION: There was no basis in this study for presuming peer and sibling victimizations to be more benign when they involve younger children. The findings provide justification for being concerned about such peer and sibling violence in schools and families and for counting such victimizations in victimization inventories and clinical assessments.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2006

Child maltreatment trends in the 1990s: why does neglect differ from sexual and physical abuse?

Substantiated cases of child maltreatment have declined more than 20% since a peak in 1993. However, although sexual abuse and physical abuse showed significant declines during the 1990s (47% and 36%, respectively), neglect fluctuated, with only a small overall decline during this period (7%). Available data suggest that at least part of the declines in sexual and physical abuse is likely to be real. Some evidence also suggests that a decline in neglect may have been masked in some states. Possible sources for declines in child maltreatment include direct prevention efforts, economic improvements, more aggressive criminal justice efforts, dissemination of psychiatric medication, and generational changes. Public health models suggest that population-level prevention initiatives are the most promising options for further reducing maltreatment rates. However, better epidemiological and evaluation research will be needed to identify the key factors.

Child↗
PubMed2006

Examining characteristics and associated distress related to Internet harassment: findings from the Second Youth Internet Safety Survey.

OBJECTIVE: We sought to identify the characteristics of youth who are targets of Internet harassment and characteristics related to reporting distress as a result of the incident. PARTICIPANTS AND METHODS: The Second Youth Internet Safety Survey is a national telephone survey of a random sample of 1500 Internet users between the ages of 10 and 17 years conducted between March and June 2005. Participants had used the Internet at least once a month for the previous 6 months. RESULTS: Nine percent of the youth who used the Internet were targets of online harassment in the previous year. Thirty-two percent of the targets reported chronic harassment (ie, harassment > or = 3 times in the previous year). In specific incidents, almost half (45%) knew the harasser in person before the incident. Half of the harassers (50%) were reportedly male, and half (51%) were adolescents. One in 4 targets reported an aggressive offline contact (eg, the harasser telephoned, came to the youth's home, or sent gifts); 2 in 3 disclosed the incident to another person. Among otherwise similar youth, the odds of being a target of Internet harassment were higher for those youth who harassed others online, reported borderline/clinically significant social problems, and were victimized in other contexts. Likewise, using the Internet for instant messaging, blogging, and chat room use each elevated the odds of being a target of Internet harassment versus those who did not engage in these online activities. All other demographic, Internet-use, and psychosocial characteristics were not related to reports of online harassment. Thirty-eight percent of the harassed youth reported distress as a result of the incident. Those who were targeted by adults, asked to send a picture of themselves, received an aggressive offline contact (eg, the harasser telephoned or came to the youth's home), and were preadolescents were each significantly more likely to report distress because of the experience. Conversely, the youth who visited chat rooms were significantly less likely to be distressed by the harassment. CONCLUSIONS: Internet harassment can be a serious event for some youth. Because there has been a significant increase in the prevalence of Internet harassment from 2000 to 2005, adolescent health professionals should continue to be vigilant about such experiences in the lives of young people with whom they interact. Social problems and online aggressive behavior are each associated with elevated odds of being the target of harassment. Thus, prevention efforts may be best aimed at improving the interpersonal skills of young people who choose to communicate with others using these online tools. Adolescent health professionals should be especially aware of events that include aggressive offline contacts by adult harassers or asking the child or adolescent to send a picture of themselves, because each of these scenarios increase the odds of reporting distress by more than threefold. Findings further support the call for the inclusion of Internet-harassment prevention in conventional antibullying programs empowering schools to address Internet bullying situations that occur between students. This will not solve all situations, however. We also must encourage Internet service providers to partner with consumers to be proactive in serious harassment episodes that violate criminal laws and service-provider codes of conduct.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2005

The effect of lifetime victimization on the mental health of children and adolescents.

This paper examines the cumulative prevalence of victimization and its impact on mental health in a nationally representative sample of 2030 children aged 2-17 in the USA. Telephone interviews conducted with both caregivers and youth revealed socio-demographic variations in lifetime exposure to most forms of victimization, with ethnic minorities, those lower in socio-economic status, and those living in single parent and stepfamilies experiencing greater victimization. Sexual assault, child maltreatment, witnessing family violence, and other major violence exposure each made independent contributions to levels of both depression and anger/aggression. Other non-victimization adversities also showed substantial independent effects, while in most cases, each victimization domain remained a significant predictor of mental health. Results suggest that cumulative exposure to multiple forms of victimization over a child's life-course represents a substantial source of mental health risk.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2005

Protecting youth online: family use of filtering and blocking software.

OBJECTIVE: This paper explores the characteristics associated with decisions to adopt or discontinue the use of filtering software, including a critical analysis of some explanations about why it is used or not used in households with children and adolescents. METHOD: This study consisted of a national telephone survey of households in the United States with youth (10 and 17 years) who use the Internet regularly. Interviews were completed with one youth in the appropriate age group and a parent or caretaker. RESULTS: Thirty-three percent of parents reported using filtering or blocking software, with an additional 5% having discontinued its use within the past year. Parents were more likely to adopt filtering software if they had younger children (10--15 years), a high level of concern about exposure to sexual material on the Internet, more extensive knowledge of what their child did online, low trust in the child's ability to use the Internet responsibly, and if the child used America Online (AOL). Using the Internet for school assignments was associated with not having filtering software. CONCLUSION: Findings suggest the need for (1) evaluation research of filter programs used in a real family context and (2) the development of a variety of strategies to prevent exposure to inappropriate material for youth of different ages.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2005

The Juvenile Victimization Questionnaire: reliability, validity, and national norms.

OBJECTIVE: To assess the utility and performance of the 34-item Juvenile Victimization Questionnaire (JVQ) in eliciting the recent victimization experiences of a national sample of children ages 2-17. METHOD: The JVQ was administered in a national random digit dial telephone survey about the experiences of 2,030 children. The experiences of children 10-17 years old were assessed through youth self-report on the JVQ, and the experiences of children 2-9 assessed through JVQ caregiver proxy report. RESULTS: Large numbers of recent victimizations were disclosed using the JVQ (71% of the sample reporting at least one victimization in the last year, with an average of 2.63 victimizations per child). There were few indicators of respondent confusion and little resistance to even the most sensitive questions. In a test of construct validity, endorsements of JVQ items correlated well with measures of traumatic symptoms. The instrument showed adequate test-retest reliability in a 3 to 4 week re-administration. Large numbers of victimizations were reported across the spectrum of ages, and there were no major discontinuities between the self-reports and proxy reports, suggesting that caregivers provided generally adequate and comparable information to child self-reports about the experiences of children under the age of 10. CONCLUSION: The JVQ has potential for use in future epidemiological research as well as clinical evaluation concerning the victimization of children.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2005

Measuring poly-victimization using the Juvenile Victimization Questionnaire.

OBJECTIVE: Children who experience multiple victimizations (referred to in this paper as poly-victims) need to be identified because they are at particularly high risk of additional victimization and traumatic psychological effects. This paper compares alternative ways of identifying such children using questions from the Juvenile Victimization Questionnaire (JVQ). METHODS: The JVQ was administered in a national random digit dial telephone survey about the experiences of 2,030 children. The victimizations of children 10-17 years old were assessed through youth self-report on the JVQ and the victimizations of children 2-9 assessed through JVQ caregiver proxy report. RESULTS: Twenty-two percent of the children in this sample had experienced four or more different kinds of victimizations in separate incidents (what we term poly-victimization) within the previous year. Such poly-victimization was highly associated with traumatic symptomatology. Several ways of identifying poly-victims with the JVQ produced roughly equivalent results: a simple count using the 34 victimizations screeners, a count using a reduced set of only 12 screeners, and the original poly-victimization measure using follow-up questions to identify victimizations occurring during different episodes. CONCLUSION: Researchers and clinicians should be taking steps to identify poly-victims within the populations with which they work and have several alternative ways of doing so.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2005

The victimization of children and youth: a comprehensive, national survey.

This study examined a large spectrum of violence, crime, and victimization experiences in a nationally representative sample of children and youth ages 2 to 17 years. More than one half (530 per 1,000) of the children and youth had experienced a physical assault in the study year, more than 1 in 4 (273 per 1,000) a property offense, more than 1 in 8 (136 per 1,000) a form of child maltreatment, 1 in 12 (82 per 1,000) a sexual victimization, and more than 1 in 3 (357 per 1,000) had been a witness to violence or experienced another form of indirect victimization. Only a minority (29%) had no direct or indirect victimization. The mean number of victimizations for a child or youth with any victimization was 3.0, and a child or youth with one victimization had a 69% chance of experiencing another during a single year.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2005

The internet and family and acquaintance sexual abuse.

This article explores the dynamics of cases involving family and acquaintance sexual offenders who used the Internet to commit sex crimes against minors. Although the stereotype of Internet crimes involves unknown adults meeting juvenile victims online, Internet use can also play a role in sexual crimes against minors by family members and acquaintances. Data were collected from a national sample of law enforcement agencies about arrests for Internet-related sex crimes against minors. Family and acquaintance offenders were nearly as numerous as offenders who used the Internet to meet victims online. They used the Internet in various ways to further their crimes including as a tool to seduce or groom, store or disseminate sexual images of victims, arrange meetings and communicate, reward victims, or advertise or sell victims. Prevention messages and investigation approaches should be revised to incorporate awareness of such cases and their dynamics.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2005

Police involvement in child protective services investigations: literature review and secondary data analysis.

This article examines the relationship of police and child protective services (CPS) coinvolvement to the outcomes of child maltreatment investigations. It reviews practice and empirical literature and conducts a secondary analysis of a national CPS data set. Most sources argue that coordination of the two agencies improves investigations and benefits children and families. Yet, sources also report friction between these agencies, interference with each other's job, and concerns that police involvement increases child removal. In the CPS case data, allegations were more likely to be judged credible when police also investigated and families were also more likely to receive various services. For neglect cases, multi-disciplinary decision making, but not police involvement per se, was linked to child removal. Across studies, police do not appear to hinder CPS effectiveness and may actually promote it. Their investigations should be coordinated in every community.

Child↗
PubMed2005

Police posing as juveniles online to catch sex offenders: is it working?

This paper explores the extent and effectiveness of proactive investigations in which investigators pose as minors on the Internet to catch potential sex offenders. It utilizes a subsample of cases from the National Juvenile Online Victimization Survey, which concerned persons arrested for Internet sex crimes against minors in the year beginning July 1, 2000. Results suggest proactive investigations represented a significant proportion (25%) of all arrests for Internet sex crimes against minors. Such investigations were being conducted at all levels of law enforcement. The online personas assumed by investigators paralleled the ages and genders of real youth victimized in sex crimes that started as online encounters. These proactive investigations accessed an offender group that appeared somewhat less deviant in terms of adult sexual behavior and arrest history but equally deviant as other online offenders in terms of possession of child pornography. Prosecution of these cases produced high rates of guilty pleas and low rates of dismissed or dropped cases. The entrapment, fantasy or role-playing, and factual impossibility defenses were used but not successfully. Findings suggest that the Internet sometimes allows law enforcement to interdict before a youth is victimized, gather solid evidence of offenses, and find and track some offenders.

Adult↗
PubMed2005

The justice system for juvenile victims: a comprehensive model of case flow.

This article proposes the idea that there is a de facto juvenile victim justice system, a complex set of agencies and institutions that responds to juvenile victims of crime and violence, including child maltreatment and conventional crime. The article offers a schematic model of that system and tries to quantify the case flow through its various components, that is, the likelihood that given certain actions (e.g., a substantiated finding of maltreatment), other actions will follow (e.g., services be provided). The model also highlights the activities of the system most likely to have consequential effects on victims. We argue that more professionals are needed who understand the system in its entirety, not just their own agency role, and who can help guide victims, families, and other professionals through its complexities. More efforts are also needed to integrate and rationalize the system, particularly through information exchange among its components.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2004

Which juvenile crime victims get mental health treatment?

OBJECTIVE: To explore factors that facilitate the receipt of mental health treatment among juvenile crime victims. METHOD: Telephone interviews were conducted with a national sample of 157 caretakers whose children had suffered a serious sexual or physical assault in the previous year. RESULTS: Twenty-two percent of caretakers had thought about getting professional counseling for their child victims, and 20% of the child victims actually received it. But half of the families who thought about it did not follow through on their consideration. Moreover, nearly half of those victimized children who actually received counseling did so without their families reporting that they had considered it in advance. The level of symptoms and parent-child relationship factors were related to considering counseling which was in turn strongly related to actually getting counseling. Other factors were independently related to receiving counseling, such as the victimization occurring at school and the victim being perceived as at fault to some degree. Advice to get counseling and medical insurance also played roles. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggested two pathways to counseling. One occurred via direct parental concern, and was associated with such variables as parental perceptions that the child was depressed or withdrawn or that the parent-child relationship had been negatively affected. The other pathway occurred independent of parental concern, most likely via school interventions, because this counseling was in conjunction with school victimizations.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2004

Internet-initiated sex crimes against minors: implications for prevention based on findings from a national study.

PURPOSE: To describe the characteristics of episodes in which juveniles became victims of sex crimes committed by people they met through the Internet. METHODS: A national survey of a stratified random sample of 2574 law enforcement agencies conducted between October 2001 and July 2002. Telephone interviews were conducted with local, state, and federal law enforcement investigators concerning 129 sexual offenses against juvenile victims that originated with online encounters. RESULTS: Victims in these crimes were primarily 13- through 15-year-old teenage girls (75%) who met adult offenders (76% older than 25) in Internet chat rooms. Most offenders did not deceive victims about the fact that they were adults who were interested in sexual relationships. Most victims met and had sex with the adults on more than one occasion. Half of the victims were described as being in love with or feeling close bonds with the offenders. Almost all cases with male victims involved male offenders. Offenders used violence in 5% of the episodes. CONCLUSIONS: Health care professionals and educators, parents and media need to be aware of the existence, nature and real life dynamics of these online relationships among adolescents. Information about Internet safety should include frank discussion about why these relationships are inappropriate, criminal, and detrimental to the developmental needs of youth.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2003

Escaping or connecting? Characteristics of youth who form close online relationships.

We used data from a US national sample of Internet users, ages 10-17 (N=1501), to explore the characteristics of youth who had formed close relationships with people they met on the Internet (n=210). Girls who had high levels of conflict with parents or were highly troubled were more likely than other girls to have close online relationships, as were boys who had low levels of communication with parents or were highly troubled, compared to other boys. Age, race and aspects of Internet use were also related. We know little about the nature or quality of the close online relationships, but youth with these sorts of problems may be more vulnerable to online exploitation and to other possible ill effects of online relationships. At the same time, these relationships may have helpful aspects.

Adolescent↗
PubMed2003

Improving data systems about juvenile victimization in the United States.

OBJECTIVE: To suggest improvements to 13 data sets and systems that collect information about juvenile victimization in United States. METHOD: The suggestions were gathered from a variety of sources, including data system users and administrators, as well as a special meeting convened on the topic by the National Consortium on Children, Families and the Law in Washington, DC (December 2000). RESULTS: Key areas of improvement were identified for each of 13 US data systems and possible solutions were identified. CONCLUSIONS: This paper suggests three broad categories of improvements that apply to a number of data systems. First, data systems could expand the coverage of the systems to include more jurisdictions or other segments of the population. Second, in order to be more comprehensive and specific to child victimization, the systems need to create more specific data items, questions, or response categories. Finally, the data systems need to be modified to provide continuity and interrelationships among systems, either by using uniform definitions, or integrating data systems to facilitate the tracking of children across systems.

Adolescent↗