Victimized as a child or youth : To whom is victimization reported and from whom do victims receive professional support?

• Being victimized as a child or youth increases the risk of emotional and behavioural problems, and may call for a report to authorities and professional support. This study investigates how often young adult males and females in a randomly selected general population in Sweden (n=2,500) reported different types of victimization as a child or youth and to whom, from whom they received professional support, whether it was more common to receive professional support among those victimized multiple times by different types of crime, and whether there was a connection between report and support. Analyses reveal that the participants more often responded that they had not reported their victimization, than that they had reported it. For those who had, the police was the most common institution to which the victimization was reported. It was significantly more common for victimized females to both report and receive professional support than for males. There was a trend towards a greater likelihood of receiving professional support after higher levels of victimization. In all however, of those whose victimization had been reported to the authorities, only 22.4% had received professional support to deal with their experiences of victimization. We conclude that the relatively low prevalence of reporting victimization and receiving support documented in this study calls for reflection upon how well society meets the needs of victims.

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Sociologi -- Socialt arbete (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Sociology -- Social Work (hsv//eng)

Keyword

violence

child

youth

report

support

Social Work

Socialt arbete

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)