How friends’ involvement in crime affects the risk of offending and victimization

Abstract

This article examines how friends’ involvement in crime influences such involvement in those around them, as offenders or victims, and the extent to which such friendship effects vary with contact frequency, friendship intimacy, and geographical proximity. To test our hypotheses we used four waves from the Dutch panel survey CrimeNL, which includes ego-centered network measures in each wave for respondents aged between 16 and 45. To test our hypotheses, fixed-effects panel models were employed. The results show that living in close proximity to delinquent friends increases people’s own risk of offending, and daily interaction with these friends decreases the risk of victimization. Victimization is also communicated among friends in their daily interactions. These findings stress the need to consider factors that condition how friendships exert influence on the risk of crime involvement.

Personal networks and crime victimization among Swedish youth

“…At the same time, we find that victimization is substantially more likely among those who have many network members who have been victimized themselves, a finding that is also in line with previous research (see e.g. Mouttapa et al, 2004;Rokven et al, 2017;Sampson & Lauritsen, 1990;Schreck et al, 2006). We found no additional effects of having network members with risky lifestyles.…”

“…Although early research on networks and victimization suggested the protective value of friendships or social networks in general (Hodges, Boivin, Vitaro, & Bukowski, 1999), the content of personal relationships and networks is crucial here: whether an individual's personal contacts have risky lifestyles and/or whether these contacts are themselves victimized. Thus, in line with Schreck et al (2004Schreck et al ( , 2006; see also Maimon & Browning 2012;Rokven, De Boer, Tolsma, & Ruiter, 2017), we build upon routine activity and lifestyle-victimization theories and expect that the influence of personal networks on crime victimization will depend on the level of victimization and risky lifestyles among members of one's network.…”

“…At the same time, we expect that relationships with network members who have been victimized and/or who have risky lifestyles lead to a greater risk of victimization (a) because of exposure to motivated offenders, (b) because of the absence of guardianship, and (c) because participation and identification with others who have risky lifestyles or who have been victimized may make a person an attractive target (Schreck et al, 2004(Schreck et al, , 2006. Having victimized network members can be a sign of exposure to motivated offenders who have also subjected these network members to crime and can thus increase an individual's likelihood of being victimized (Rokven, De Boer, Tolsma, & Ruiter, 2017). Having victimized network members also increases the risk of victimization if these victimized network members are simultaneously both victims and offenders.…”

Do cyber-birds flock together? Comparing deviance among social network members of cyber-dependent offenders and traditional offenders

“…In line with that argument, qualitative studies show that, although some hackers also have offline social contacts who hack, they mainly operate alone and learn their skills from Internet sources such as forums and by trial and error (Holt, 2007(Holt, , 2009. Even though it could be argued that these forums are also a source of social learning or offender convergence settings that could facilitate cooffending (Soudijn and Zegers, 2012), the social contacts on these forums are not likely to be the type of social ties that traditionally show the strongest association in offending, that is, strong, usually face-to-face social ties (for example, Agnew, 1991;Rokven et al, 2017).…”

“…Further, adults have more freedom to select their own network members, which may result in more homogeneous networks (for example, Young and Rees, 2013). Longitudinal research on Dutch adults found support for the association in adult social networks (Rokven et al, 2017;Rokven et al, 2016). Additionally, it indicated that not all contacts show equivalent similarity in deviance, because similarity is stronger for more important social contacts, that is, those who are contacted daily.…”