ABSTRACT
The association between delinquency and victimization is a common focus in juvenile justice research. Some observers have found that victimization and delinquency largely overlap, with most victims engaging in delinquency and most delinquents being victimized at some point in their lives (Lauritsen, Laub, and Sampson, 1992; Lauritsen, Sampson, and Laub, 1991; Singer, 1986). The literature in the bullying and peer victimization fi eld paints a different picture. It points to three distinct groups of children: in addition to the children who are both victims and offenders (often referred to as bully-victims or, as in this bulletin, delinquent-victims), a second group are primarily victims and a third group are primarily offenders (Dodge et al., 1990; Olweus, 1978, 2000). One may explain the contrast in this way: many studies have relied simply on measures of association between delinquency and victimization (e.g., correlation or
regression analyses) (see, e.g., Chang, Chen, and Brownson, 2003; Jensen and Brownfi eld, 1986; Sullivan, Farrell, and Kliewer, 2006). When researchers look beyond the association between delinquency and victimization (even when that association is strong), they are likely to fi nd groups of children who are primarily victims or primarily offenders. Research has not fully explored how large these groups are and how their characteristics and experiences differ.
