Today’s Offender, Tomorrow’s Victim

Analyzing the Connections Between Offenders and Victims

Abstract

This paper examines the link between victims and offenders and how these roles are often interchangeable when it comes to a youth’s involvement in crime. Usually, this connection is disregarded because of the focus on the immediate situation and not the youth’s experiences with both roles. Because of this strong association between offenders and victims, the focus of this paper is about what stops a victim from becoming an offender and vice versa. The aspects focused on are individual and social factors, as well as the interactions and overlap between these factors. Generally, it was found that the criminal justice system and social service supports tend to only focus on individual factors while ignoring the social environmental aspects. This paper demonstrates the importance of not only acknowledging a youth's role as both an offender and victim, but also the importance of addressing all aspects around how and why they got involved in criminal activity. By understanding the significance of these factors, this information can be used and integrated into the criminal justice system to help youth reduce their involvement in crime or to provide supports that address the cycle of victimization and offending.